On 13 Aug 2005, Andy Hall wrote
On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 22:09:47 GMT, Harvey Van Sickle
wrote:

(Where BA shot themselves in the foot was by out-sourcing their
catering to save a few bob: by doing that, they get caught in
third- party crossfire. They get all the grief an blame, with no
control over the solution. Chickens/home/roost/to/coming stuff.)

Outsourcing is simply a way of not having to deal with non-core
aspects of a business.

Agreed, but an airline is a service industry, and the passenger
experience *is* an essential core aspect of that business. It differs
fundamentally from, say, building and fuelling the planes.

When you out-source some aspects of your core business in service
industry -- like passenger servicing, call centres, or reservations --
you clearly lose direct control over that part of your core business
and can only influence it indirectly.

--
Cheers,
Harvey