Richard Branson

Willie Walsh, CEO of International Airlines Group (IAG), the owner of British Airways , has announced that he is a step down.

He is on retirement as head of the Executive and from the Board of IAG as at 30 June.

Mr Walsh said it was a privilege to worked on The Creation of IAG after the British Airways (BA) and Iberia were merged.

Antonio Vázquez, IAG Chairman, described Mr Walsh as one of the "main engines" of The Project .

Mr Walsh was British-Airways-in-chief in the year 2005 and the end of a 15-year career with the IAG group controls the also, Aer Lingus and Vueling is.

He step down from The Role in March, before retiring in June of this year.

Mr Walsh said: "It was a privilege, was instrumental in The Creation and development of IAG. I had The Pleasure of working with many extraordinary people in the last 15 years at British Airways and IAG. "

Willie Walsh, a longtime figure in the aviation industry. He joined Aer Lingus in the late 1970s as a cadet Pilot .

He gradually worked its way up through the ranks, working in flight operations and was appointed as chief executive of Aer Lingus in 2001.

Luis Gallego , head of The Group on the Spanish division Iberia, since 2014, the successor of Mr Walsh is.

He said: "It is a great honour to be at the top of the large companies. It is an exciting time at IAG and I Am confident that we will build on the strong foundations created by Willie . "

Mr. Gallego, the leadership of the Holding Company of British Airways is, after the airline saw significant disruption in the last year.

For the First Time in its 100-year History ,

there's a "technical Problem". for a customer-data breach.

Mr Walsh was Chairman of British Airways , then IAG for The Past 15 years, More Than three times the normal life of a FTSE-100 chief executive. But he's achieved more together than any of its predecessors, since the airline was privatised in 1987.

Former leaders of the BA, the dependence on a single Market - the UK - and a single airport - Heathrow is trying to do, had to decrease with rivals. They had tried to reduce The Power of trade unions in the companies, to cope with their potentially ruinous pension deficit and to restore steady profitability.

Mr. Walsh has managed all four of them. But even his critics in The Process he hurt the airline status and turned favourite British Airways the "world's", as the marketing claims, a run-of-the-mill-makers encounter.

He came to BA from Aer Lingus in 2005 to replace an unfancied choice to the cerebral Australian Rod Eddington .

Mr Eddington rented had, in The Words of a Board member at the time, "a smile on the faces of the people".

Mr Walsh never showed any signs of interest in popularity contests, and had a distinctly down-to-earth approach to management. BA is trying to do had deals with Air France , KLM from the Netherlands and various other potential Partners - without success.

Mr Walsh quickly tied up a deal with Iberia and followed up with Aer Lingus , rotary-BA in of the biggest players in a multi-airline group IAG.

Generous conditions for the crew to have been and carved down, and he was able to have enough money founds in the BA of the two major pension systems is that large parts could be the rest of the liabilities to insurance companies.

In The Process , though, BA has slipped gradually to the bottom of the consumer rankings. Last Month, For What? set it in addition to Ryanair, one of the UK's least favourite airlines, while it has suffered as a result of embarrassing IT glitches.

Mr Walsh's successor, the current CEO of Iberia, Luis Gallego , will have to consider How To face this challenge when he takes over at the end of June.

Mr. Gallego is unlikely that more of the air travel industry is among the most well-known feuds.

Both Willie Walsh and Sir Richard Branson claims to have a previous bet is won on the survival of Virgin Atlantic .

Mr Walsh suggested that Branson might disappear, the brand, after Delta Airlines bought 49% of the shares.

"a knee in the groin", if The Company folded within five years.

Other spats that took place between Virgin Atlantic and BA.

virgin has launched a campaign against BA's proposed merger with American Airlines in the 1990s, with some levels of the No Way BA/AA painted"".

Sir Richard Branson also won damages and an apology from BA at The High Court in the year 1993, in accordance with BA allegedly negative stories about The Virgin founder to the Media .

Source of news: bbc.com