British Airways now the world's favourite headline

Every year, around this time, British Airways hosts a press gathering at London's Langans restaurant to mark Burns night (the presumed birthday of Scottish icon Robert Burns). "We've provided you with more than our fair share of column inches," said the airline's chief executive Willie Walsh, addressing the press corps. More often than not, these column inches came from high profile stories that BA rarely prompted or had any control over.
Walsh listed what his management team has had to deal with over the past year:
* The foiled UK terrorism plot
* Security rules changes
* The polonium 210 issue
* Unprecedented interest in our uniform regulations
* The worst fog in a generation, and to wrap it all up,
* One aircraft broke a light on a runway in Miami.
Walsh recounted a comment from his press chief Paul Marston: "We're no longer the world's favourite airline, we're the world's favourite headline."
And Walsh's latest challenge is to avert a cabin crew strike after unions voted just the day before to take strike action over changes to working conditions and pensions.
The Irishman was in typically combative mood over this development. "We operate in a brutally competitive industry," he said. That environment means BA must lower costs to keep competitive.
"Nobody looks to BA as a benchmark for costs and efficiency," he said. "I cannot accept anybody in this business who says we cannot talk to you about change." Unions "have to accept the way to address these issues is to sit down and negotiate".