Question re BAcon staff at BHX

[Hotel Tango]

With the sale to FLYBE, are BAcon's check-in and gate staff at BHX expecting to become redundant? I only ask because of the rude treatment I got from a couple of them the other day. Hadn't experienced it before.

[marlowe]

OK firstly they are not BACON check in staff and yes with the merger of Flybe and BACON they will be made redundant,the people you dealt with are mainline in the regions and its all come as a big shock to them!!!!!!

[Hotel Tango]

OK thanks, wasn't sure if they were still mainline or not. Although I truly understand their frustrations, and they have my sincere sympathy, I still find it unprofessional that they had to take their frustrations out on me though. It was a bit of a shock.

[bmibaby.com]

From what I understand the staff at Birmingham work for a company called British Airways Regional Handling which is a handling company that was set up following the merger of all of the airlines & subsidiaires into British Airways CitiExpress to handle them. The company is owned by BA, but isn't directly associated with BA Connect, they just handle BACON and staff wear BACON uniforms. After the sale of BA Connect to flybe, there will be a change of handling agent, I've heard potentially that Swissport will handle the entire operation from Terminal 2.

Very few airlines still have their own ground staff, particularly in smaller stations in Europe, as it's extremely costly to have to train, clothe, pay and provide benefits for your own staff. bmi got rid of our handling at most stations when British Midland Handling Services was sold to aviance a few years ago. Whilst some stations still have bmi customer service agents and dispatchers, this is always under review, with many stations handled by either aviance or Menzies Aviation.

I'm very sorry to hear you received poor customer service. I've always enjoyed flying BACON, and have also found flybe & Swissport staff at BHX to be of high quality, even though my bias is obviously with aviance!

[stupot7783]

Hotel Tango - As a SCSA at BHX I am sorry to hear of the rude treatment that you recieved the other day from a couple of my colleagues and I apologise on their behalf.

I will pass on your feedback to our management. KI and SD please note the above if you are reading this.

As it stands at the moment the ground staff are trying to put on a brave face on what we believe will be inevitable redundancy any time after 31st December when British Airways Regional becomes run on a day to day basis as swissport currently handle Flybe and we do not expect this to change.

Unfortunately British Airways Plc are holding back on giving us any information/news and the that is starting to affect peoples morale which is not an excuse for the rude behaviour you recieved but it might make it a tiny bit more understandable why people's attitude has changed which again is not professional but we are only human at the end of the day.

Bmibaby.com - Just for the record we wear British Airways uniforms not BA Connect uniforms.

[Hotel Tango]

Thank you for your feedback Stupot. Difficult times for you all I understand. I must say that I flew BA Connect (and predecessors) through BHX fairly regularly over many years and always found all at BA very pleasant and helpful. Hence my surprise on this occasion. I hope all will be sorted and that other opportunities will arise for the affected staff. I would presume Swissport will need more staff, although I can imagine that their pay and conditions may not match those of BA.

[stupot7783]

Thanks for you understanding Hotel Tango. It is a very frustrating time at the moment and hopefully we will hear some news soon about our futures but until then we need to keep going and hope for the best but expect the worse.

Assuming Flybe keep swissport then they will indeed need a big recruitment drive for March 25th if not before but I am unsure wether some of our staff would choose to work for them but only time will tell.