I think the passengers would assume they were getting on a United flight with United crews and perhaps for those Spanish passengers, some route language flight attendants, who spoke Spanish from Spain for starters. So you would think it absolutely normal to fly to, let's say, Dublin to Moscow on a LAN (Chile) Airlines flight with French crew after booking your ticket with Aer Lingus? That would make perfect sense to you?
This whole operation is a subcontract under the guises of a codeshare. Both United and Aer Lingus are up to union busting basically and it does not take an expert to see that. Not to mention, the US is in a terrible recession and travel is way down. This is the wrong time to be doing this; United has been grasping at straws to keep market share. If Aer Lingus had been smart, they would have paired up with a carrier that actually is doing well or has a future like Continental. United has a terrible reputation right now for its service, and now that CAL is in the Star Alliance, most will choose to book with them instead. I will be surprised if this venture lasts past Summer 2010.
Other airlines have tried to crew with Americans, and it just does not work. They have a very casual approach to service. Open Skies being the most recent. The Americans could not deal with the rostering system, so most have quit (as they are obsessed with bidding), and the crewing is primarily from Orly. Another example would be the wetlease with USAir back in the 90's for BA. The CDS's that were sent over on that secondment were pulling their hair out, as the Tammy Fay's, Martha Sue's and LaQuita Sherrie LaQuanda's could not wrap their heads around professional customer service and had an interesting take on how to wear the BA uniform. The passenger comment forms from UK passengers indicated they were confused and sometimes could not understand what the crews were saying. I want you to have a vision: Rosie Perez in an Aer Lingus uniform: ' Oh no you didn't. Talk to da hand' This is what will be recruited for Spanish speakers. I embrace these individuals as equal human beings and find diversity to make life worth living, but in the US, if you have flown on an American carrier lately, you will see they struggle with customer service and professionlism. United Airlines has been known to covet its UK based crews as they are the only ones in their work group that is actually professional.
Why do you think British Airways and Virgin have such high percentages of American passengers? They don't like flying their own carriers! LOL They would probably prefer actual Aer Lingus crews to American ones..lol.
Just one more comment on the operation, and it seems silly, but their call out on standby from home is 45 minutes. It takes at least 25 minutes to get from the curb to the gate at IAD (US airport security plus those People Mover shuttles to get out to United's gates), and 15 minutes to get out of the airport perimeter. There is really not housing on the airport grounds, soit makes me wonder if they are familiar with that region, the lack of transport, the issues with parking, and the absolute traffic nightmares that exist. Not to mention, that region is one of the most expensive in the United States, thus most crews opt to commute to IAD. I doubt Aer Lingus would support any commuting, with their rostering system, and I am wondering what interline agreements they have. Most American airlines give crews their pass priveleges immediately at employment; most will not be interested if they have to wait 6 months, especially if the pay is low. I have noticed that Aer Lingus has lifted the deadline for application (after changing it twice). My guess is that they are not getting the professional crews they want.
Last edited by yaletown; 10th Dec 2009 at 15:52.