Categories: uncategorized
Date: 02 August 2007 13:57:32
One of the things that I always hate is the two-faced way in which some people deal with us. It's one thing if politicians do it, we expect it of them. The same applies to sportsmen (Carlos Tevez please note) and businessmen.
Was I really shocked when I saw the reports yesterday of BA being fined £350m for illegally fixing fuel surcharges in cooperation with Virgin Atlantic? No, as I know that this happens all the time. Why else are the surcharges on air freight traffic uniformal?
What annoys me is that BA got into trouble because of an investigation by the US Department of Trade. Nothing wrong with that they deserve to be punished. What was wrong was that Virgin were also investigated but decided to become a "stool" in exchange for charges being dropped against them.
Now we're always told that the "bearded saviour" is the consumer's friend and his companies always act with our best interests at heart. Hear we see that that isn't the case. Do we hear from him? Is there any apology? No, nothing but a press release issued by a minion in the Virgin PR department.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. After all he has brought us Virgin Trains - price hike after price hike and poor punctuality. He's great at garnering publicity for every new thing that's done but almost invisible when things go wrong or his companies are caught out.
To me the Virgin brand has never been as strong as the media likes to make out. As time goes on it gets more and more devalued. It always seems to be about making another quick buck rather than performing any really useful service.
So I say bad luck BA. Maybe it'll teach you not to rely on the "bearded publicist" in any future dealings. After all his butt is worth more to him than your money or reputation.