British Airways’ chief executive Willie Walsh publicly accepted responsibility for the Terminal 5 fiasco, but does that mean his head should roll along with the operations director and customer services director?

The opening of the Heathrow terminal is a corporate disaster of the highest order. What should have been a major enhancement to BA’s market position – like the St Pancras terminal for Eurostar - has turned into a liability, both financially and reputationally.

To cancel 500 flights and lose 28,000 bags is management incompetence. To undertake such an important project without proper testing is inexcusable: one would have thought that corner-cutting would be anathema to an airline, with its culture of safety.

It is reasonable therefore that those directly culpable should be severely punished, in this case with the loss of their jobs. But there is no need for bosses to resign simply because they have corporate responsibility: if that happened, then the top of every organisation would quit every time a junior employee made an error.

Walsh cannot be expected to check on every decision taken by each of his workforce. However, for a project as important as Terminal 5, it is not unreasonable that the chief executive should satisfy himself that it was going according to plan, and that, presumably did not happen.

Walsh, therefore, is directly culpable too. Unfortunately, BA cannot afford to lose him. It has other problems that require solutions – from its pension deficit to its industrial relations – and Walsh is the best man it has.

But stakeholders require some recognition that Walsh’s acceptance of responsibility is not just hollow words: it would be appropriate if, when the remuneration committee considers bonuses, it acknowledged the need to punish Walsh.

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