"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you... ...Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and – which is more – you'll be a Man, my son!" - Rudyard Kipling, "If-", 1910.

When reading of the treatment of fellow professional pilots in Malev in this newsletter, as well as hearing of similar 'airline cost reduction strategies' elsewhere in Europe; this poem came to mind. Those of us who have served the airline industry for a while will be all too familiar with the periodic complaining of the management who have not kept their heads: Revenue is down; business passengers have changed their flying habits, trading down forever to economy cabins and low fares airlines; we are months / weeks / days from bankruptcy and the only solution is for the workforce to work more for substantially less reward, or even to be made redundant.

Whenever you talk to those who understand the business, and who have a track record of keeping their heads, they have a different set of priorities. Successful airline CEOs talk about the need to have a well defined and robust business model, including a clear view of the product the company offers to the market place; and good employee relations in a business which sells very much a 'people' based product. From the terminal and on board staff who deal directly with the passengers, to the complex interactions between the myriad of people needed to prepare an aircraft for flight; it is the workforce who deliver the quality and the reliability of the airline service.

If we examine those airlines who achieve sustained periods of profitability, what becomes clear is that they are linked by a focus on progressive, inclusive and positive interaction with their workforce. From KLM and Southwest through much of their history, to Continental and BA in the 90s; good employee relations is the key to long term success in the volatile world of airlines.

So ECA's advice to all airline managements is clear: engage with your key asset, your workforce. Engage in dialogue which convinces them that they have a stake in the future of the enterprise – who would want to work for an airline which regularly needs to attack the livelihoods of its staff for survival?