On the Go: walking the high road at a low cost airline

Abstract

Low cost travel has proved to be extremely popular in the single European market and low cost airlines have flourished. To meet the challenge of these low cost airlines, several ‘legacy’ or full service carriers (FSCs) around the world have created their own low cost subsidiary. The most notable example in the UK was Go, initially a low cost subsidiary of British Airways (BA) that was subsequently sold to its senior management team and then bought by easyJet, the UK's leading low cost airline. For low cost subsidiaries to survive and prosper, ‘matching’ models of human resource management (HRM) predict that they need to create a low cost employment system, which will be very different from that of the parent company. However, cost is only one variable in the competitive equation. In a ‘customer facing’ industry such as civil aviation a minimum level of service quality is also required and there is clearly scope for ‘low frills’ (e.g. Southwest Airlines) as opposed to ‘no frills’ (e.g. Ryanair). Moreover, there is always the danger that (well organized) employee groups will take umbrage at walking the ‘low road’ of employee relations, especially when their colleagues in the parent airline are walking the ‘high road’. Although competing head on with well-established low cost airlines such as Ryanair and easyJet, Go was able to forge a distinctive management style that combined low cost operations with high road employment relations. The airline's flight crew appreciated this style of management and ‘bought into’ the company's business strategy, unlike their counterparts at other low cost airlines or indeed the parent company.

Keywords:

• flight crew
• ‘high road’/‘low road’ employee relations
• low cost airlines
• ‘matching’ models of HRM

Notes

 1. Financial rewards are still a ‘badge of status’ for most employees and low cost pilots are generally paid much lower salaries than their counterparts in full service carriers. Figures published by the European Cockpit Association reveals a 27% disparity between the average salary of full-service and low-cost airline pilots (ECA 2002, p. 15).

 2. Ed Winter was a former Chief Pilot (747 and 777) with British Airways who turned down the opportunity to become Concorde Chief Pilot in order to join the senior management team at Go as the Chief Operating Officer.

 3. These data are drawn from a survey of unionized airline pilots conducted in 2002. The questionnaire survey was distributed via the British Air Line Pilots Association (BALPA) to a census of members at 23 airlines operating in the UK. Due to its size, a stratified random sample of one-third of pilots employed at British Airways also received the questionnaire. The study analyzed data from 996 respondents employed at nine airlines, which were representative of the three principal market sub-sectors in the UK civil aviation industry (low-cost, full-service and charter) (see Harvey 2004).

 4. easyJet aircraft are painted in a distinctive orange colour and the company HQ was formerly a bright orange building situated adjacent to the runway at Luton Airport, named ‘easyland’. In its quest to be a ‘European airline’ (rather than a British airline that flies in Europe), easyJet seeks to develop ‘local shades of orange’ in all its European bases.

 5. The Civil Aviation Authority reported average salaries some £10,000 higher at easyJet compared with Go. However, these figures are heavily influenced by the composition of the workforce (the ratio or senior to junior pilots) and additional sector payments. easyJet and Go respondents to the author's survey of BALPA members reported similar salary levels (i.e. there was no statistically significant difference within the sample) (Harvey 2004).

 6. Following the introduction of a union recognition procedure under the Employment Relations Act 1999, BALPA was able to secure recognition (in 2001) just prior to the survey. Union officials maintained that poor industrial relations were a legacy of the company's non-union days (interview notes, February 2004).

 7. ‘QRN’ is simply the ‘questionnaire respondent number’, a number assigned to the questionnaire based on the order in which they were entered into an SPSS file for data analysis.

 8. Whereas a narrow majority of BA pilots were in favour of partnership (54%) with around one-third opposed to the approach, in excess of three-quarters of pilots at the remaining eight airlines favoured this approach (78%) with only 13% opposed.

 9. The victor in the election stood ‘on principle’, with no intention of taking up the post, against BALPA's partnership with BA.

10. The airline industry press often referred to Go as the ‘low cost airline for the middle classes’.