In October 2001, Walsh was elevated from COO to CEO of Aer Lingus, succeeding Michael Foley who had resigned following a harassment complaint. The carrier was in financial difficulty. Walsh eliminated 2,000 staff positions and reconfigured Aer Lingus as a low-cost airline. He also withdrew various services like short-haul Business Class and restricted the airline's frequent-flyer programme, TAB. The company operating profits rebounded, but the cost of the write-offs and redundancies meant that net profitability was not as quick to recover. Not all of Walsh's reforms were successful, such as the outsourcing of aircraft cleaning. The contracting had not been agreed with Aer Lingus unions which led to large payments to the private contractor while Aer Lingus employees did the cleaning work. A three-day lock-out occurred in 2002 during the peak of the cutbacks. The management team suggested to the principal shareholder, the Irish Government, a float of Aer Lingus on the stock market. Stock floats are often rewarding to top management and this was opposed by the unions who feared a privatised Aer Lingus would impose even tougher working conditions. The Government eventually turned down the float and Walsh resigned from the company in January 2005. The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern subsequently described Walsh's offer of an MBO as "a time when management wanted to steal the assets for themselves through a management buy out, shafting staff interests". Dermot Mannion, formerly of Emirates, succeeded Walsh as Aer Lingus chief executive officer in August 2005. Before joining British Airways, he briefly worked at the top of Virgin Atlantic but left after a short while due to a falling out with his boss. After he left, he went to British Airways, where he would replace Rod Eddington at the end of his contract. Walsh was hired in May 2005, with a six-month shadowing period to get to know the business before the departure of Eddington on October 2005. Willie Walsh became CEO of British Airways in October 2005. The major challenges for the airline industry were exacerbated by various natural events such as snow, fog and volcanic ash. He described the closure of European airspace in April 2010 over worries about the ash plume from an erupting Icelandic volcano as a "gross over-reaction to a very minor risk". Walsh oversaw the merger of British Airways and Iberia forming a new holding company International Airlines Group in January 2011. He also created a Joint Business Agreement with Iberia and American Airlines, meaning the three airlines now market and sell each other's seats and share revenue on trans-Atlantic routes. On 24 January 2011, Willie Walsh became chief executive of IAG, which is the parent company of BA and Iberia. Both airlines are members of the Oneworld alliance. It was announced on 9 January 2020 that he would be stepping down as CEO in March 2020, however Walsh announced on 16 March that he intended to delay his retirement in order to help the airline trade through the outbreak of COVID-19.
Recognitions and honours
In March 2014, Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine named Walsh as its 2014 Laureate for Commercial Aviation.
