Oh dear another person who seems to have forgotten that Mr Walsh is no longer the CEO of BA, it's Keith Williams. Mr Walsh is CEO of IAG. No matter. Presuambly the claim re the desire to turn BA into a WalMart can be substantiated . No ?
There is also the misguided assertion that high staff turnover equals unhappy staff. It could be due to the fact that the people who are likely to be the main cabin crew in the future may just see the job as being a stepping stone on a different career path. Something that is fun to do for a few years - an opportunity to see places that they wouldn't normally be able to. If the government stats are to be believed the likelihood is that 50% of the upcoming generation will be saddled with stonking student loans to pay off. So they won't have the same opportunities to travel that previous generations did. So a job that pays them a modest wage, keeps them below the theshold where the student loan repayments kick in and also affords them a chance to see a bit of the globe is pretty attractive. But not something that you might want to do for a lifetime. It really is time to wake up and realise that the newcomers may not want to be serving chicken or beef for 20 years, even if you paid them current maincrew wages. Not only that, but employers cannot guarantee that there will be a job serving chicken or beef in 20 years time.
The other dubious assumption is whether customers will want the same degree of contact with cabin crew. In an age when passengers may opt out from an airline meal, on board drinks etc, in a bid to shave a few more dollars off the ticket price, the degreeof contact with cabin crew will diminish. The major reservations systems are already geared up to allowing tailoring of the ticket price dependant on the extras the passenger wants, over and above a seat on the plane. So if Jo Public is on a shorthaul trip of a 90 minutes he/she may just want a seat, be happy to bring on board a sandwich from the terminal plus a drink and leave it at that. What customer contact will they have from the cabin crew aside from the safety demo and the hi & bye ?