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Old 21st Dec 2019, 03:06
  #27 (permalink)  
Rated De
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: Europe
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Airline management and Christmas cheer.

It is the week before Christmas, customary emails are dispatched strangely not on Friday, but a day early.
Continued in the hollow words are vague references to enjoying time off with family and loved ones, written and vetted from an air conditioned office well away from the operational parts of the business.
The computers, monitors and electronic equipment turned off, the desks on which they sit clean and uncluttered: The desks will remain that way well into the New Year, where resplendent from a break they return.
Those offices by close of business Thursday will be vacant not to be a hive of activity for a few weeks. There will be little activity, other than random patrols of contracted security,

Forgotten in the empty words form "leaders" and "managers" , "media and communications" is that they actually contribute very little to the bottom line. Sure buried in there are functions in support of operations, but other than manufactured workflows, one might posit what do they actually do?

Conspicuous in their absence, flights still depart on time. The passengers checked in, their bags scanned, loaded and safely onboard. The passengers greeted as they board, by enthusiastic cabin crew, trying to make their travel as pleasant as the operational constraints permit, they take their seat. The fuel loads, the catering, the flight plans are devoured by flight crew and the aircraft readied for take off.
Airline management keen to save on fuel, "encourage" crew to not use the APU for cooling or heating until required, engine starts are delayed and single engine taxi the standard...All to save energy.

In the antipodes, passengers and crew swelter, trying to save a thimble full of fuel. The fuel savings translate into real dollars; dollars not shared by the flight crew who generate them, rather straight into the pockets of people in offices.
In those same now empty offices, the silence is met with the light ever present hum of the air conditioning. Buildings, largely vacant kept at a comfy 23 degrees, while paying customers and operational crew swelter or freeze.

For the check in staff, the baggage handlers, the engineers, pilots and cabin crew, Christmas is but a contractual obligation. Failure to be there a serious disciplinary breach. Of course no action will be taken for a few weeks for HR isn't there.

Imagine the last week, the week before Christmas at most major western airlines: Imagine the buzz, Christmas parties, decorations and festivity.
Contrast that to the life of the operational staff.

Lucky to see a mince pie ir at all, the one thing consistent other than empty rhetoric from "management" about relaxing and enjoying the time, is scrooge.

While not a statistically valid sample, what does your airline do?
Do operational crew get anything other than rhetoric and thinly veiled threats?


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