The sky’s the limit for Barbara Cassani, chief executive of BA’s
new cut-price airline. Having watched her smash through the glass
ceiling, some suggest this project could be her passport to the BA
summit.
Cassani dismisses such gossip. ’When I read the story I rang Bob Ayling
(the BA chief executive) to assure him I wasn’t after his job. Oh boy,
did he sound relieved!
’I’m not a long-term planner. I like to jump at opportunities when they
come and then work like hell. At the moment I’m at the work-like-hell
stage.’
No longer protected by the mighty BA corporate cocoon, Cassani knows the
buck now stops with her; not least in the advertising and marketing of
the operation through an alliance of companies co-ordinated by HHCL &
Partners (Campaign, last week).
Staying at arm’s length is not an option. ’Because BA is so big I had
experts around me to manage the agencies,’ she says. ’All I had to do
was sign off the brief, wait for the ads to appear and give them the
thumbs-up or the thumbs-down. Now it’s completely different. I don’t
have experts of my own. The agency is my expert.’
It’s a tough brief for client and agency. The upcoming dogfight with
other no-frills rivals promises to be bloody and personal. Last week,
EasyJet ran press ads that branded Cassani and Ayling ’beauty and the
beast’ and urged the European Commission to investigate BA’s alleged
abuse of its dominant market position to drive the opposition out of
business.
Cassani, 37, Boston-born, Princeton-educated and a former Coopers &
Lybrand consultant, is unlikely to shrink from such a challenge.
Described by the Independent as ’feminine as she is feisty’, she has
worked for BA for ten years, most recently as its US general
manager.
Although she confesses to being ’flabbergasted’ at the telephoned offer
to take charge of the new airline, her reaction was typical. She called
her investment banker husband and was back on to her BA bosses moments
later asking, ’When do you want me to start?’
