Miss Malone and her team are definitely using their imagination when writing their newsletters! Or is it lack of imagination.. ?
BASSA > Latest News
EUROFLEET MATRIX
Nov 13th, 2009 by admin
EUROFLEET MATRIX AND PRODUCT UPDATE
Many of you will by now have received the latest publication (or should we say ’comic’) from IFCE entitled crew complements and service standards.
We say comic, but of course the imposition of these draconian crewing levels is no laughing matter, so we’ll deal with these first.
It would seem, but not yet confirmed, that they have just realised that Gatwick only serve a deli box in ET on a Band 4, whereas we serve a hot meal.
The myth that our levels are aligned with Gatwick would be totally exposed if they kept the same crewing level with a completely different product.
So therefore on an A320 with 24+ Club you will have 5 crew. Also on a 767 (again Band 4 only) if over 20 Club you will now get an 8th crew member, although with a low club load and 80%+ loading this is still 2 less crew members than we currently get.
Don’t forget....Gatwick do NOT fly A320s/A321s/B757s/B767s so they have just cobbled together a matrix.
In case you think BA have done it out of concern for the crew, think again......
They have basically "robbed Peter, to pay Paul". They have increased the matrix on the 757 so that on many Band 3 flights with 56 Club you will only get 5 crew. Even more drastically they have culled the crewing levels on domestics (i.e. 3 on a NCL with 114 passengers should be fun, as should 4 on a MAN with 126 passengers).
Other than that, the matrix changes are as we warned you last week.
Moving on to the rest of the comic, if it wasn’t so sad what they are doing to this once proud company, some of it would be hilarious.
Glenn Reynolds (Manager EF) is no mug. After reading this comic he already seems to be distancing himself from the whole thing.
In his introduction, (2nd paragraph), he says "we’ve put this booklet together with your input". We are not certain who he is referring to?
Your TUs were "invited" to a presentation a couple of weeks ago - not a discussion or negotiation - just a presentation on the matrix. We refused......"turkeys not voting for Christmas springs to mind".
It is also not beyond IFCE to come out with a statement that they have had full discussion with us about the matrix, so to be totally clear, we have had NO input at all.
So unless some of you have secretly been sneaking into Waterside late at night to tell managers that it’s a great idea to cull the crewing levels, then possibly he realises the likely reaction to this "guide" and is already lining others up for the blame.
Just a quick glance at some of the pages will clearly show that crew had nothing to do with this.
Page 5 Crew role and responsibilities
- Who is responsible for overseeing ET on a 767?
Page 6 Allocation of crew - On an A319 with 3 crew, suggested resource allocation is 1 in Club and 2 in Euro or 2 Club and 1 in Euro
- That took 9 months to work out!
Page 9 Apple juice should not be proactively offered on Bands 1/2 - so they lie it down. - Sadly once opened lying it down is a bad idea as the top will be full of leaking juice!
Page 10 The trolley top pictures may well win a Turner art prize, but not very practical.
Page 11 PAs "on this flight today in ET we will be offering"
- It seems the words "sod all" have been missed out.
Page 12 Appendix 1 - Operating as the SCCM.
- Presumably they anticipate many more SCCMs going sick downroute, perhaps because of the increased workload or possibly one or two of them may decide to jump ship halfway through a trip as they have had enough of this whole sorry mess. Either way what a thoughtful touch - i.e. the acting SCCM should introduce yourself to flight crew. We’d never have thought of that!
Page13 Operating back to base with less than minimum crew i.e. A319 2 crew - suggest one at the front and one at the back.
- Wow! Touch of Mastermind there! Not sure what other options there were? Maybe one in the hold, and one in the flight deck?
By now you will have got the picture. This has been compiled by pen pushers in Waterside, with graphs and felt pens, who wouldn’t know a customer if one fell on them.
Everyday things for us like turbulence, an ill passenger, broken ovens, no IFE, a jammed trolley are like a foreign language to them. It’s all about timings & nothing to do with customer service e.g. you can serve a passenger in 38 seconds so 3 crew and 100 passengers become a doddle on a 40 minute flight.
But there is cunning in their plan. They know that our customers don’t fly with us for the product. They certainly don’t fly with us for the brand - Willie & Co have destroyed that, but they do fly with us for safety as we have the best pilots in the world, and they fly with us because of YOU - the best cabin crew in the world! and they know, because you care, even if there was 1 crew member and 200 passengers, that that crew member would still try to look after and attend to as many as possible, because this community is one of the few that actually care about OUR customers.
In the introduction of the new crew complements and service standards it says ‘In such challenging times it has never been so crucial for us to focus our efforts on delivering excellent service to our customers’, so it’s ironic that the revised "BA way" under BRITISH service standards are now actively anticipating that they will be an increase in conflict and confrontation as they would like us to be and we quote "dignified, respectful and calm in the face of frustration or anger from our customers" !!!!
BA are still determined to impose the matrix changes from the 1st Dec ’09.
The arguments over all the changes will be fought elsewhere.
Work as normally as you can in the meantime, but don’t cut corners putting yourself and others at risk.
Do not leap out of your seat as the wheels go up, or attempt to serve hot drinks if the seatbelt signs are on.
Forget about completing IFAs & the flight crew may have to make their own tea.
Record every occasion you can’t complete the service.
At a recent EF Health and Safety meeting, BASSA has insisted BA give us written guidelines for SCCMs regarding procedures if the cabin service including clearing in has not been completed at the 10 minutes to landing call, as this is a safety requirement.
The only duties crew should be performing after 10 minutes to landing call are safety related.
We suggest that you carry your useful (comic) reference guide with you, and show the first customer in ET on a Geneva that asks for a tomato juice why he can’t have it and show the last 4 rows of passengers on a NCL when disembarking why they couldn’t get a drink.
The answer is simple.....BA and it’s managers don’t think they’re worth it.
gl