AVRO chairman Fabio Mantegazza was on stage with all guns blazing when he spoke at the Travel Weekly-sponsored Leisure Aviation conference.
Low-cost carriers came in for a barrage of fire, but not before Mantegazza had let loose a few shots at the Avro of old.
Putting a picture up on the screen of a mean Western outlaw, with one eye glinting, Mantegazza admitted this was the Avro of old – “young, cavalier and with little respect for the customer and enormous imagination when it came to finding ways to extract more money from passengers without giving value in return”.
But this guy could not survive these days, Mantegazza added, hastily listing Avro as one of the serious, committed flight-only players, alongside Unijet, First Choice and Air 2000.
Backchat can’t help thinking Mantegazza is Go-ing for guns at high noon.