Attention BA staff and shareholders

[swiss_tonni]

Hi all

Yes, first post, so I expect to get flamed, especially as I am one of "the suits" at Waterside.

Anyway, a colleague passed to me a notice which is being given to CSD's at the moment if they have to work "one crew member down". Now, when someone is sick in my area, we all work a bit harder and get the job done, we dont expect to get paid any extra........the same cannot be said for our cabin crew.

I think its time Mike Street resigned, and some one got to grips with the cost of our cabin crew.

Have a look at the following while I get back to my latte:


Dear CSD,
We are facing a significant shortage of worldwide cabin crew for the rest of this week. This is especially critical as the summer schedule, including flight switch changes, comes in to effect this weekend. The following alleviation has therefore been agreed between the company and your Trade Union representatives. The agreement is to allow all longhaul services, with the exception of B777J, to operate one main crew down on the agreed crew complements for a limited period of time.
The details are as follows:

Working one down from base - when gaps exist
Alleviation runs from services departing between 00:01 on 24 March to 23:59 on 29 March 2004.
Alleviation applies to B747, B777 (with the exception of the B777J) & B767 aircraft at both LHR and LGW.
Crew operating one down will be paid 4 hours ETP at the single standard higher rate per duty, not sector. For example LHR-AUH-MCT is equal to one duty.
4 hours single standard higher rates per duty are as follows:
CSD - £ 219.08
PSR - £ 193.84
JNR - £ 169.68
ln addition any crew operating one down will be given 1 additional LBT per itinerary, which will be financially discharged at the following rates:
CSD - £ 145.00
PSR - £ 125.00
JNR - £ 95.00
In the event a crew member needs to be removed from a service with a full crew complement
Volunteers to move services will be sought by the DOM's
Volunteers who move 'services will be paid all associated allowances/payments for their original rostered trip in addition to the allowances/payments for the new itinerary.
The replacement trip should fit within the boundaries of the original rostered trip, or the crew member can volunteer to flex 1 forward trip to accommodate the oew itinerary.
Other important information for services operating one down
CSD's should provide appropriate assistance in the onboard service wherever necessary, in recognition GPM delivery and collection will be suspended for the duration of the alleviation.
Appropriate guidelines on service delivery will be issued by the Worldwide Service Development Manager.
In the event of further reductions in crew complements due to downroute sickness the CSD should liaise with the DOM's who will in turn fully involve the TU duty rep in identifying the best possible solution for the Customers and the needs of the Crew in terms of refreshments breaks and bunk rest.
Current alleviations
The current alleviation of main crew working up as Purser remains unaffected by this alleviation.
Thank you for your co-operation and support on this matter.

Regards
Mike Harrington
IFS Operations Manager

[Justbelowcap]

Just so that you don't have to work it out that comes to:

£2200 for a CSD
£1600 for a junior crew member

That is on top of the normal allowances and back to back payments. Probably looking at somewhere in the region of £3800 for a CSD for 5 days work on top of basic salary.

Apart from anything else these payments are probably illegal as they are "allowances", only 18% are taxed. This is because allowances are used to pay for food etc when abroad and that was the rate agreed by the IR. However BA are now using this "allowance payment" as a tax free form of bonus payment which is totally against UK tax law. It's time the IR looked closely at this abuse of the system.

To say the other groups within BA are cross is the worlds biggest understatement.

In the past sickness amongst cabin crew was so high on some of the less popular routes that they now get a "Destination" payment to fly these routes. This comes to a couple of hundred pounds just because they actually turn up to do rostered work. The pilots who have never had a tenth of the sickness of cabin crew of course don't get these payments!

Also of interest is the fact that the LHR transport drivers are (this is rumour only) being paid £150 for each time they actually show up for rostered work during the week that "Flight Switch" takes place.

Talk amongst flight crew is that they will have to use industrial action to force the company to stop these types of payments. If that means the company ceases to exist then that it will only have brought forward the enevitable demise of BA.

Whichever company replaces it will probably make billions in profit.

It's time that Mike Street was made to resign.

[Shuttleworth]

I'm thrilled to see this posted up here.
Maybe it will make the National press.
It's an insult to the passengers who pay the fares - , the shareholders and most of all to all those other staff in BA who ( as has been pointed out above) work hard in other departments.

Basically I fee the more people are aware of such shocking practices - the sooner I hope they are bought to an end.

Mike Street has contributed nothing to this company for the last 10 years. I too hope to see Broughton dismiss him.
I have the utmost respect for RE and I think we are lucky to have him on board - but I'd like to see him try to justify this.

[Bluejay]

You have to be joking, how can this be justified!!!!!

The rest of the company has to deal with cr@p conditions to work in, tight management of sickness, FTJ, lates etc (got marked down as being 3 minutes late the other week, really annoying as I tend to be there at least 15-20 mins before the start of my shift on a regular basis!!!)

What kind of response do you think we would get if our TU reps asked our SM for a extra money just to turn up for work in the busy summer months, I will tell you, they will be laughed out of the conference room!!!!

This is a joke and someone has to do something about it

(Got to go or I will be late, however RANT mode definatley still on)

[HOVIS]

UNF****NGBELIEVABLE!!!:mad: :mad: :mad:

I am all for people getting a fair days pay etc but this just takes the p1zz.

Please tell me it's a wind up. :mad:

[Shuttleworth]

Hovis - sadly its true. Swisstoni - thanks for the post ...It's so important that people are aware of the facts.

[WhoopWhoop Whoops]

The problem with cabin crew remuneration is totally the result of the ineptitude of Mike Street and his department.

They have literally hundreds of managers , performance managers, product delivery managers, etc., most have never done a cabin crew job on an aircraft. All need to go!

They have endeavoured to create a mystique to cabin service in an effort to enhance their own position in the management organisation. Their numbers are totally out of control.

It is hardly surprising that they will do anything to buy off a potential problem so that it does not reflect on them.

The tragedy is that they have lost sight of where cabin crew remuneration is going with sweeteners all over the place.

Cabin crew in mainline still have a basically divisive pay system which will result in a major strike one day regardless of what add-ons come out.

Why?

Because of the two tier wage structure that Failing Ayling left BA.

Sooner rather than later the new contract cabin crew will be in the majority and in control of the union.

They do not care a dam about high CSD , Purser and old contract rates BECAUSE THEY DO NOT RECEIVE THEM. They want more in their own pocket.

BA has to renegotiate the whole package.

Old contract rates need to come down and new ones up.

At the same time funny money and sweeteners need to go, to give cabin crew a proper salary and pension.

Frankly MIKE STREET IS NOT UP TO IT. HE NEVER WAS.

Big Rod should have given him and his side kick departments the push ages ago. He belongs to the Failing Ayling era.

The question is has Big Rod got the B....s to do it .

He would probably have to get rid of a lot of allies Street has on the board as well.

But I suppose that will have to wait for the new chairman.

Watch this space.

[Da Dog]

Sadly very true............... :hmm: :{

[Jet II]

Volunteers who move 'services will be paid all associated allowances/payments for their original rostered trip in addition to the allowances/payments for the new itinerary .


Now I know that the companies screwed - how in the hell can something like this be allowed to happen -

Skippy best have his bags packed and be on his way back to Oz before I get into work next week. :mad:

[Diverse]

I'm sick of this blanket slagging of cabin crew salaries.


Even as cabin crew (shorthaul) I find this unbelievable and bloody annoying. These folk will get more than double the allowances for one trip than my total take home for the month.

Hmmm. What I could do with is a six month secondment to longhaul and that way I could get my mortgage paid off all together.

They'd better never come to me at LGW and talk about cost cutting. The last three years have been a total waste of time and the management a complete load of deceitful bas....

Personally if all this is true the company deserves to go to the wall.

Oh and just so folks know, if ever we operate one light we get £15.

Mind you after all this bile I note it is for one week only to maintain the op. This may not be as expensive as dumping flights. I still don't agree with it though.

[Schrodingers Cat]

Wasn't there a cabin crew strike at CX some time ago...all about working down and not being paid for it....who WAS it that was in charge of CX at the time...erm Mr R Eddington (shurely shome mishtake). Perhaps Rod has learnt his lesson over this............he obviuously approved of the concept. ;)

[Rimmer]

Why on earth doesnt Skippy take on the Longhaul CC,in engineering they just say one day " we no longer want CSDs " put the lot in job link and create a different grade after 6 months.

Sorry for any Longhaul CC reading but if you lot went on strike 1/2 of engineering ( some of us arnt that bad looking either ) would fill your shoes for a few weeks - you cant do that the other way around can you - think about it!

[maxy101]

Perhaps there will be less comments about overpaid BA pilots and more understanding of our requests for benchmarking across the whole airline. This has been going on for years. Ba has apparently stripped out over a billion in costs since 9/11. Yet we still fly pax and bags from A to B. It begs the question, why weren't these costs stripped out 10 yrs ago? People on the board need a kick up the arse and if this paydeal goes through , I fear they are going to get one.

[Diverse]

Reading it a bit more closely it's not a pay deal it is an alleviation which means the company can't get CC to do what they want for a week and so they are dangling a carrot. A BIG carrot. Most of this money will only come into force if the crew operate one crew member down or somebody goes sick. It is not going to be paid with normal operation.

The union will not allow the company to operate an aircraft with less cabin crew than we have now and due to lack of crews the company has had to go to the union and agree this. It's almost like a fine to the company for not getting it's act together and means that it is an alleviation from normal terms and conditions and will not set a presedent. I think.

It's only for this week and basically because of shortage of crew and the fact that it is impossible for crew to work overtime due to working hours restrictions the company is having to provide a sweetener to those crew that have to operate with one less.

In other industries it is possible to let staff work overtime to cover a shortfall, but it is not possible here.

Is my thinking right? Somebody.

[Anti-ice]

And perhaps swiss_tonni, you would like to publish full details of your pay and renumeration package.

The cabin crew are having a bloody hard time of it at the moment, with reduced crewing levels and ever higher expectations of our customers.

You are obviously a jumped up p**** who is totally out of touch with the real world (and like the rest of waterside - the airline in general) and you are just trying to stir up trouble.

While you were having your 'meetings' in your feng-shui glass tower and your focus groups in Mauritius, we were the ones building the airlines reputation .

I work on shorthaul at lhr, have done for 11 years fulltime doing a 50 hour week , and i am lucky to take home about £1300 for doing a months bloody hard work.
I bet you get alot more than that for sitting on yr fat a*** for 35 hours a week or 'working' at home....................

If you are looking at cutting costs, then why not look in your own back yard - it is totally laughable how BA is totally over managed.
People inside/outside of BA recognise that and always have.
Now that the cabin crew are down to LCC levels , (and still offering a full services in different cabins) perhaps we should get the rest of you down to their levels of management shall we?

The cabin crew and other frontline staff have made many sacrifices in the last 2 years and you are a total insult to the credibility they have maintained under some very trying circumstances .

You should check out the real world .... and be bloody ashamed of yourself.

Does anyone know who this is ?

[TimS]

Presumably, it is either difficult or impossible to provide the defined level of service with 'one cabin member' less ?

Therefore the product will to some extent reduce in these circumstances (surely this was the basis that cabin crew negotiated the above minimum operational crew permitted levels of maning).

The product is purchased by the passenger.

The passenger is the one receiving the 'reduced product'.

Surely the passenger is the one entitled to the 'sweetener' ?

What other job pays a standard 'slack day rate', compared with 'that was a bugg*r of day rate' and in this case (allegedly) 'a how did I cope with that I need a beer day rate' ?

Two questions ....

If you reduce the crew by one (between say 8% and 25%), why isn't this offset against the load which may well be be 50% of the target maximum ?

Take a theoretical 10 person crew, who in the event of 'Shirley' taking a sicky at the last moment will generate something in the region of GBP 15 - 18,000 between them. Couldn't they make Shirley's day off a very rewarding one ?

One statement ....

I have less and less desire every day to give BA my hard earned cash to throw about with such gay abandon.

TimS

[Carnage Matey!]

I think your loyalties may be slightly misplaced Anti-Ice. Just been chatting with a mate who's switched short haul to long haul. Been in the company 3 years, is taking home on average £2000 per month and enjoying doing much less work for much more money with bunk rest on almost every sector (1.5 hours on a 6 hour JFK recently). Sacrifices have been made by crew in the last two years, but with the exception of one crew memeber less on the aircraft (which was accompanied by a reduction of about 40 passengers due to dusking the aircraft) those sacrifices haven't been made by LHRWW.

[Anti-ice]

Not true TimS, the product has to pretty much stay the same.
Perhaps that is why they are rewarded in some way.

I have worked on full a/c with one or two down, and it is really hard - going - especially when you throw in 130 special meals, medical situations, long delays etc....

He is so out of touch ,as if this happens in an office , you prioritise and/or leave it till the next day - we don't have that option.

And Carnage Matey, my loyalties are fine thankyou.
Perhaps you want to put how much you take home each month v yr productivity ... and we can all make up our own minds.

I have friends who are pilots, their pay astounds me in all honesty - and when management/pilots about how much cabin crew get paid it is insulting.

Perhaps your friend does take this home per month , but i do not want to go longhaul , i like my homelife too much.
But when i'm on £5/hr in effect ,and someone who is on £30-60 / hour is putting me/ my colleagues down then yes i do get angry.

So swiss, carnage, TRUTHFULLY put your pay down here ,as i have, and we'll all make our own minds up who is dragging BA down.

[Carnage Matey!]

I take home about £3100 for a full months flying (no leave or simulator), 5 years in BA on short haul, flew 750 hours in the last 12 months, around 1350 hours on duty, no overtime. For your comparison, Easyjet pilots do around 800 hours per year at their busiest base (Luton), but don't have to put up with all the dicking around and inefficiency that comes with flying into LHR. Incidentally, are you full time Anti-Ice, because after 11 years on the old contract you're only making what my friend earned after two years on the new contract on short haul, which is also what the new guys from LGW are making as soon as they arrive at LHR.

[TimS]

Anti Ice,

That is exactly my point ....

If I accept that the reason for the maning level over minimum permisable maning level is its necessity to maintain the defined product (which for the purpose of this discussion I am more than willing to do) then ....

1) It is the passenger who gets short changed and who should receive the 'sweetener' (although I suspect he/she is more likely to get a lift home on the next passing pig)

2) No other job that I can think of pays a basic (and acceptable) rate and varies it if you have to work harder to achieve the set task.

As to the comment concerning that "if this happens in an office, you prioritise and/or leave it till the next day - we don't have that option" .......

I would suggest that my second gin and tonic or a 'kind word' is very likely to be prioritised (lowly of course).

In the office, the tendency is simply to cancel the dinner party and get it done (or at least it is in my office) - I accept (for the purpsoe of this discussion) that it is not possible or legal to extend the time applied to the tasks demanded. The cabin staff can simply do as much as is possible in the time allocated i.e it is the customer who suffers in terms of the product he/she receives.

Equally, if the defined product is achieved (by hard work) it is then - by default - possible, so why should anyone be rewarded additionally for doing what is possible ?

TimS

[Diverse]

Equally, if the defined product is achieved (by hard work) it is then - by default - possible, so why should anyone be rewarded additionally for doing what is possible ?

Possible but not necessarily acceptable.

[You Are Talking Crap]

As usual someone from another department in BA takes a swipe at another.

Yet again someone with a little bit of information, who does not fully understand another department's pay or conditions goes mouthing off knowing nothing about what they are talking.

It is cabin crew management who have got the numbers wrong yet again. Surprise surprise!

This is not the crew's fault.

And no we are not being offered £1000's of pounds to go to work.

The figure quoted is what we get (already multiplied by 4 NOT to be multiplied again and exagerated).

We are already working one crewmember down since 9/11 and on full flights it is not a happy experience working on board. With another crewmember down, with no alleviation for any reduced service, the passengers will not suffer. It is the crew who will have to go that extra mile again and get the job done. Believe me it is bloody exhausting as it is, never mind losing another crewmember.

Alot of crew would rather BA shoved their money where the sun dont shine. Enough is enough regarding taking any more crew off an aircraft.

BA and the unions have got together to keep the operation going and have given this alleviation for ONE WEEK ONLY. If the unions did not agree to this then what alternative would BA have but to cancel flights affecting passengers and the livelihoods of crews and indeed all BA employees.

So BA have offered a sweetener to crew for this week only and as I've already said not at the exaggerated amounts quoted.

If you are looking for anyone to blame for this then blame BA crew mis-management.

[Carnage Matey!]

Agreed its the fault of BAs usual appalling mis-management. BUT, in all this talk of working flat out, one down on a full aircraft, nobody ever discusses the flights that depart half full, or almost empty. The alleviation will apply to all flights working one down, regardless of the load factor. Seems hard to justify cash for working harder if you've only got 100 passengers in each direction.

[You Are Talking Crap]

With many special offers for fares at the moment, the GBP EUR/USD rate as it is, I can think of no longhaul destinations where there would be 100 passengers in each direction.

Any flights I have done recently have been FULL in all cabins.

If you know of any of these quiet flights please enlighten us because you are plainly talking rubbish.

Again someone else trying to make crew look bad in a situation which is none of their doing.

The only person looking stupid here is you!

[Justbelowcap]

It is true to say that there are no empty flights at the moment and if there are the company can close "cabins" if needs be.

The rate shown is for 4 hrs but that is then multiplied by 4 as there are 4 duties on a back to back trip.

What concerns me is the fact that the company can give a crew member "tax almost free allowances" from a trip they don't operate. How can that be legal? Anybody have any tax experience that could enlighten us how BA get away with this?

[Carnage Matey!]

Well there was a JFK-LHR service at the beginning of the month that had 60 passengers, that was the one my mate got 1.5 hrs bunk rest on. When he gets back from Dar I'll find out the flight number and date. As for engineers stepping into the cabin crew role, we'll the ex-Concorde flight engineers seem to be coping perfectly well and they all started out as 'oily rags'. I dare say they'd also be able to save money by fxing some of the 300 odd blocked sinks we have every month because the WW crew can't be bothered to dispose of liquid waste properly. Being cabin crew isn't rocket science you know, its a three week training course.

[You Are Talking Crap]

Find that still very difficult to believe only 60 pax on a 747 JFK-LHR. Think your friend may be telling porkies or you are.

So which flights in the next week have only 100 pax IN EACH DIRECTION? Please enlighten us.

Remember this alleviation and the payments are FOR ONE WEEK ONLY. Most crew would rather have the full crew compliment or let the operation go to pot and show the management up for what they are.

Regarding the payments again someone else talking through a hole in their head. You do not know our agreements so why do you mouth off not knowing what you are talking about.

36% of our meal allowances are taxable.

100% of ALL other payments, like our salaries including this money for the ONE WEEK alleviation would be taxed normally.

For the very few individuals who turn up for a trip, where one person has to come off to crew another flight, they will either volunteer or be made to do this on juniority.

It has been agreed fo them that they would get the allowances for the trip they were supposed to do and would get the regular allowances for whatever trip they get in it's place as way of compensation. If the trip they do is not the same length then their next trip would be flexed.

In other words someone could checkin for their flight, find they will be going somewhere else, perhaps not getting back when they thought they would and their next trip/days off are "up in the air" as well. Not something many would relish. We make plans for days off and they would go to pot. As crew our days off at home are very precious.

So for the VERY FEW individuals that would happen to they get both allowances and are taxed as they would be normally.

It has to be stressed that this is for ONE WEEK only that it is NOT normally like this. This alleviation agreed by the unions is to keep the operation going. How much money would it cost BA to cancel lots of flights? A fraction of what is being paid to crew.

This is not the fault of crew. This is the fault of BA Mis-Management.

I would agree that the job is not rocket science. Customer service, tact and diplomacy skills as well as many others are required for the job something this contributor clearly does not display.

You need not apply for the post!

[Rimmer]

You Are Talking Crap
Yes you are mate,let me tell you some facts - BA operates by Union consent at around about 40 to 50% more than the minimum stipulated number of cabin crew per PAX,agreed a lot of this is passenger class comfort but its NOT legislation,any payments made for being 1 crew member down is not to bribe you into breaking the law ( as you cant and that's that ) its a payment to stop you whining about it.

I for one am appalled at this sort of C***,we often have to work ( and we have to WORK as well ) long hard nights outside with half the shift missing and nobody gives a S***, let alone offers us some wedge to stomach it - I agree you lot on longhaul are a waste of space and i can only hope Rod has the balls to sort you out,i have my Pini ready and a weekend free for all the in-depth training.

If you read this Rod go for it - " Chicken or Beef " - see i am half way there already.

Oh by the way - What is a MEAL ALLOWANCE?

[bealine]

I've just taken a look at www.crewcom.co.uk (sorry, it's a private forum) to see the reaction from my aviating colleagues. Apart from the obvious anger and resentment, there are factors of which you should be made aware for balanced judgement:

1. The amounts quoted are incorrect. Yes, incentives are being paid BUT not nearly as much as those stated. Perhaps a Cabin Crew member could advise this forum of the correct figures.

2. The incentive is basic, good commercial sense. BA has been closing First Class cabins on some routes, resulting in refunding Very High Yield revenue, as well as compensating passengers and having the embarrassment of apparently "insulting" Foreign Diplomats, Royal Family members etc. It is cheaper to pay a handful of incentlives and have the crew work their socks off cheerfully and with goodwill, than to refund tickets that are often £4,000 or £5,000 each!

3. Sickness is an acknowledged problem within BA. The "average" is 16.7 days per annum for every man-jack in BA's employ. If incentives are paid, the guy who feels a bit low when the alarm goes off at 2.30 am, will be far less likely to phone in and throw a "sickie"!

I think I will reserve judgement until I am in full possession of the facts. Certainly, however, shareholders must be made aware that the company, and Mike Street, are acting to safeguard our revenue and BA's profits!

[Justbelowcap]

Bealine the first guy who posted has shown the correct letter. All the figures are completely correct, to get a copy just ask in the BASSA office.

It's just not on that crew are paying reduced tax on alowances for a destination they don't go to, that is tax fraud.

[Notso Fantastic]

I don't think the Inland Revenue will sit idly by watching a clever little number like this go down! Although they are being paid that type of pay, the taxman will have the full whack of Income Tax!

[bealine]

BTW - I can confirm that Ground Staff (including bus drivers) have been offered £150 for "perfect attendance" between 28th March and 12th April............the period Flightswitch, with all it's stress and headaches, occurs at LHR and a new High Aircraft Utilisation Scheme gets underway at LGW.

It will be bloody hard, stressful and chaotic - most flights are booked full during this period. Many people would feel like throwing a "sickie" - particularly as we are all operating with less than half the staff numbers we used to have, so the incentive is really self-financing!

Once again, people should wait until they are in full possession of the facts before flaming!

[swedish]

I am a member of the SLF which regulary travels BA longhaul, I also work for another airline. Ass I understand it:
1. BA are short of CC due to the season change - how can they recruit for such a short period. I also understand that the union contract insists on full leave allocation at this time when things would always be tight.
2. As a passenger I spend most of the night sectors waking up Cabin Crew or interupting galley meetings to get a simple drink.
I sugest BA Cabin Crew on LH get a life.
My opinion - and that is as a commercial customer - BA is a great company being runined by overpaid crew - remember who gave them the name Bad Attitude!!!! It is still deserved.

[TURIN]

121
as for the engineer who thinks he can step into our shoes,how long do you think we can retain our customers for if we get any old tom dick or harry pouring drinks with oiled stained finger nails

From what I've seen of some of the CC I don't think the customer would notice the difference.

ANTI-ICE
You want my rates of pay?

At the risk of repeating myself from a previous thread.....

BA LICENSED ENGINEER, CERTIFYING RESPONSIBILITY FOR 5 (YES FIVE) DIFFERENT AIRCRAFT TYPES, GOD KNOWS HOW MANY OTHER OPERATORS, 12 AT LAST COUNT, (EACH WITH THEIR OWN SET OF RULES, REGULATIONS, PAPERWORK AND PROCEDURES), WORKS APPROX 20 DAYS A MONTH (nominally a 38hr week), TAKE HOME LESS THAN £2000 A MONTH.


It took a five year apprenticeship just to be allowed to work on aeroplanes and a further seven years gaining experience and studying to get my licences.
For what? To get whinging CC look down their noses at me because I have a bit of oil under a nail?

I do not get paid overtime. It's time off in leiu hour for hour.

My gross pay over the last two years has dropped almost £10,000.

I work in all weathers and get treated with contempt from CC.

It takes three weeks to train CC. Three poxy weeks, and they think they have a hard time when asked to do their job.

The normal pay of CC makes me spit, when you add sweetners like this to it just to get them to work for a living I'm starting to foam at the mouth.

Bitter? You bet I am!:mad:

[TimS]

So someone with the user name 'You are Talking Crap', who apparently, by chance, only joined PPRune today for their first post is handing out lectures on "Customer service, tact and diplomacy skills".

While I have not chosen to apportion blame (is it the 'incompetant/coffee drinking management' or 'blackmailing/money grabbing/idle cabin crew?), because frankly I don't have the information available to make such a judgement, what I do know is the passenger is either:

1) receiving a reduced service as a result of insufficent cabin crew being provided

or

2) paying unecessary costs for completely unjustified expenditure by the company

or possibly both !

My final questions to this thread, which is rapidly deteriorating towards the lowest common denominator are:

a) If, as our 'tact and diplomacy' advocate indicates, - "BA have offered a sweetener to crew for this week only" and "this is for ONE WEEK only that it is NOT normally like this "what is unfair about asking the cabin staff to just swallow a 'demanding week' in the interests of the Company AND the customer that pays there wages (so far) ?

Certainly my colleagues (I am proud to say) do so on a far more regular basis.

b) How many people in this industry (and I have been in it for just over thirty years) recognise the circumstance where they might "perhaps not getting back when they thought they would and their next trip/days off are 'up in the air' as well" ?

I shall now retire to my bottle of Jack Daniels, and plot who else I can book with for the coming month's travel.

TimS

[Carnage Matey!]

£150 for perfect attendance over a stressful period? Perhaps next time snow is forecast and I can look forward to 6 days of late inbound aircraft, extensive delays for de-icing, missed slots, revolting (in the mutinous sense of the word) passengers, militant cabin crew, impossible turnaround times, reduced rest down route, more slot delays, extended holding with creeping EATs, unplanned runway closures at LHR, diversions, fuel emergencies, discretional increases to duty days and then no transport for 45 minutes to get me off the aircraft, perhaps I'll get £150 for turning up to do the job I'm paid for?

PS Can I please have my extra 11.7 sick days back for last year?

Please keep flying with us TimS and Swedish or you'll send me to the dole queue with the ingrates (if they're not sick on signing on day that is).

[Anti-ice]

Well perhaps TURIN you wanna change your attitude, as i don't see cabin crew sneering at engineers being a problem.

The opposite normally - so perhaps your initial approach is being reciprocated in the same way.
And i'm sure they wouldn't give a dam about your dirty hands as it comes with the territory!
Don't forget we've got the germs of 3-400 passengers on ours.

If you think it such a great job, with such great pay, then you do know of course that you can apply internally.

And if the thought of c/c has you frothing at the mouth with rage, then really perhaps you shouldn't be entrusted with the safety of the aircraft m8.

This whole thread is based on assumptions and sensationalised lies..........the reality is far different - and you would only know if you were cabin crew for BA.

Its that good there right now, that dozens are leaving in droves - even people who have been online for 3 weeks.

Some are overpaid, but the majority are not, and this could be said about ANY/MANY departments in the airline.

People will jump at any chance to run the crew down, but it can be a very demanding job that stretches you to/beyond the limit on a daily basis.

Don't even bother to comment if you don't know REALLY , what you are talking about.

[Rimmer]

121
QUOTE -

"once again in-flight services management have screwed up the crewing figures and the union have granted alleviation for the next few days so that BA don't have to cancel any flights"

This is to UNION agreed figures not legalities ( you wont find the pilots accepting a wedge to go solo,although i do see a lot of ETOP a/c with 3 man crews??? )

If BA are so short of staff why not draft in some of the 250 managers from Joblink ?




Quote -

"just typical of the incompetence of our management yet again"

Agreed - A report in the guardian 10 years ago said that BA had 12000 too many managers and 50% were incompetent,all the posts here support that assessment as true!!!





Quote

"As for the engineer who thinks he can step into our shoes,how long do you think we can retain our customers for if we get any old tom dick or Harry pouring drinks with oiled stained finger nails"

All the reports here refer to the whining Longhaul CC, we all know the Shorthaul crews work really hard,i for one would come forward to support the operation for ROD in the light of this kind of B****X,don't think for one minute that means i would help out if BA were messing with the lower paid hard working Shorthaul Crews.

Like to add though - we aren't all that bad at customer relations,there are lots of so called engineers cum engineering manager types,that go by the " Olympic Flame " mentality and aren't that oily as they " Don't go Out "!!!

[Anti-ice]

The managers from - careerlink - have all been offered it, and from what i have heard out of approx 250, only 12 came forward -

They obviously realise it is that bad a job at the moment, that even though they keep their high pay, they don't want to do it.

Of course they can leave it anytime too i understand ,as they have 3 chances of deployments before -judgement day- .

No message from the initiator swiss_tonni, he/she really wants to read the comments made about them on the c/c site.
Especially as the union believe he is in breach of contract for publishing details like that.

Well done m8. Just drag morale down even further with your carefully chosen venomous insults.

[Rimmer]

Anti-ice

Quote

" Especially as the union believe he is in breach of contract for publishing details like that "

Well i can understand the UNION not wanting details like this being public,nice to know someone reported it ASAP.

Quote

" They obviously realise it is that bad a job at the moment, that even though they keep their high pay, they don't want to do it."

Should think themselves lucky then, a REAL BUSINESS would have given them the option of that or a P45 and P*** off, what a joy to work for an institution then.

Quote

"Well done m8. Just drag morale down even further with your carefully chosen venomous insults."

Glad to oblige,its about time things were brought in the open,sorry and that's honest but i for one call a spade a spade,this is B*** S*** you and BA know it,they are sucking up to sections to keep them happy in fear of what will happen if they don't - its the same for the £150 fiasco mentioned and the Pension - Its about time they wised up!!.

[swiss_tonni]

Well anti-ice, your union can think what it likes. The "agreement" I posted was faxed to my area, as it was to many others within BA.

It is very difficult to keep things like that under wraps, because the green eyed God in us all rears its ugly head. Especially when many of us in the airline are working with less staff, trying to work smarter for the airline, and not getting a penny in "overtime" or extra payments because we have less staff than we used to.

I suspect you are rep for either BASSA or CC89.

I work in that wonderfull edifice Waterside, you know, the place thats "full of useless suits". I didnt ask for a stream running through the building, or for a Waitrose. Personally I would rather the stream was switched off, as it reminds me of the money which must be running down the drain daily in BA. Waitrose is actually useful, as it allows me to stay later at work, as I dont have to try and stop at a supermarket on the way home. In that respect it probably pays for itself.

We can't "prioritise" tasks and leave things for the next day, there are just too few people to cope with that. If someone is ill, we work harder, and longer, and get the job done, on the day. Its the way things have to be in the real world.

You work from Compass Centre, you know, the place with the nice view, restaurant, showers, sleeping area, grooming areas, extra strength condoms and lube in the loos, ..........you didnt ask for all that, but it was provided in case its usefull, and to enhance your experience at work.

We could both work just as efficiently from anonymous grey buildings, that choice is for the employer.

What astounds me is that the company has to offer inducements to get you to work when things might be "a little difficult". You say its a one week wonder, but the same was offered last year.....

I think you need to enter the real world. Have a look in the papers and see what real jobs pay, and what the working conditions and hours are like. I earn 24k, before tax. I cant "commute" from a cheaper area of the country, as I have to be at work daily.

We are all replaceable. And yes I do think an engineer could do your job.

I personally long for the day that BA gets some consultants in and does a bechmarking exercise. Compare comparable jobs throughout the airline with those of other full service airlines in the UK and Europe.

toodle pip

Swiss_tonni

......and in case you are wondering, no I dont access this forum at work, I do so from home, and then email a friend overseas, who posts it for me........protects my IP, and my job

[Wishing It Were True]

Current starting salary for cabin crew just £9000 so I don't blame them for taking any money that's on offer...
Fine for you on your £24k pa and home every night.
Yes they do get allowances but have higher expenses not being able to cook at home every night.

To Turin - your gross has gone down £10k over two years, so what? BA is currently recruiting cabin crew if you think you could do the job and are happy to do so for £9k pa.

With all this venom and vitriol flying about, it is worth mentioning that there are 12,000 cabin crew and I'd be surprised if 0.1% get any payments. It's only for crews either disrupted or for working below agreed manning levels.

As the leave buy back scheme is oversubscribed, I suspect very few flights will go undermanned

forgot to say - what a wonderfully typical 'suit' idea to employ even more overpaid suits in the guise of consultants to 'benchmark' cabin crew. :rolleyes:
All statistics available suggest the airline is topheavy in suits and not enough customer service staff...
:ok:

[marlowe]

If you want to see B.As pay scales for the future look no further than BA Citiexpress, they operate MAN JFK on the 767 the crews that have been operating this flight are moving on to LHR or LGW so the crews that are replacing them are on citiexpress T&Cs that currantly pays £1.90 FDP per hour its a 3 day trip, how many LHR or LGW crews would work for that money and be motivated to give high customer service?

[bealine]

I really can't believe what I'm reading! Those who are from management (in any company) and are posting such negative cr*p here, deserve swift redundancy!

If you look at any successful business out there, satff morale is kept high by incentives and/or recognition. At British Airways, since Lord King gave up control, the staff have had neither - indeed the wielding of big sticks, threats and cajoling have become ever more frequent!

British Airways has saved millions by deliberately overworking and overstressing us (2 check-in agents at Gatwick to check-in 1000 pax a few days ago!) The savings being made are far in excess of the odd sickie!

FWIW Cabin Crew salaries are £9000, Ground Staff (including shift pay) just over £7000 (I get £17000 'cos I've been around a long time - try paying your bloody mortgage with that and keep your kids nicely clothed!!!)

I am absolutely bloody gobsmacked that people out there have the effrontery to criticise this step in the right direction!!!

THATCHER'S SELFISHNESS LIVES ON!!!

[TURIN]

WIWT

To Turin - your gross has gone down £10k over two years, so what? BA is currently recruiting cabin crew if you think you could do the job and are happy to do so for £9k pa.

Going rate for the job then.

My point is that unskilled staff that go through a training program lasting 3 weeks are getting paid (in some cases) twice as much as a Licensed Aircraft Engineer who has gone through more training in a year than most CC see in 20 yrs service.
He will also be responsible for more lives and Dollars worth of equipment than CC can dish out Chicken or beef dinners!!

CC responsibility to their pax ends when they get off the aircraft. An engineers responsibility to his aircraft ends two years after the aircraft is destroyed or permenantly withdrawn from service.

Anti-ice

as i don't see cabin crew sneering at engineers being a problem.

Just about sums you up then doesn't it?

Its that good there right now, that dozens are leaving in droves - even people who have been online for 3 weeks.

Yes, and scores more are applying for their jobs! Must be something in it.

The opposite normally - so perhaps your initial approach is being reciprocated in the same way.And i'm sure they wouldn't give a dam about your dirty hands as it comes with the territory!
Don't forget we've got the germs of 3-400 passengers on ours.


We have the LIVES of 3-400,000,000 pax on ours plus numerous toxic substances that would turn you a funny colour just thinking about. :yuk:

[TightSlot]

By way of comparison, Charter carrier payments are as follows (at least in my case)

1 Crew member short £10 per duty period, taxed

2 Crew members short £15 per duty period, taxed

[chipmunkj]

With over 30 years in the airline industry I read with interest the deal Mike Street has set up for BA Long Haul Cabin Crews.

If my memory serves me well, in the 70s and 80s BA operated a 3 class, 400 seat jumbo with only 13 crew, no bunks and just 4 rest seats !!

In BA short haul, in charge cabin crew regularly have to beg for the right crewing level for the trip they are on, only to be told, they have no crew to spare and they will just have to downgrade the number of club pax. (This fiasco frequently goes on after the SLF have checked in!)

Do I work for the same company?? :)

[Wishing It Were True]

My point is that unskilled staff that go through a training program lasting 3 weeks are getting paid (in some cases) twice as much as a Licensed Aircraft Engineer


Unskilled? Perhaps in your view Customer Service Staff are unskilled because they don't handle a spanner & a length of duct tape... I wouldn't agree. I'd ask those passengers who's lives have been saved by either the medical intervention onboard, or an emergency evacuation. We all have different areas of experience & expertise, all of which is needed in the airline.

Three weeks training? Actually a six week formal training is the norm but a lifetime of experience. Being pedantic perhaps, but to someone who should be dealing in exacts, important hopefully.

Twice as much as a LAE? Who, where? Following the furore these payments seemed to have caused, I've had a look on the Airmech board and have learned that minimum £33k to around £40k for a LEA is the BA rate - I've done twenty years and don't earn (in total including all the variables) anywhere near that amount.

Now don't get me wrong - I do not resent what you are being paid, perhaps it should be more - I am happy to know that the aircraft I fly are properly maintained, as I am happy to know our flight crew, who are paid even more, are highly skilled - but I suspect that our passengers also value the knowledge that we can also possibly save their lives in the event of an emergency... along with serving them their chicken or beef.




All I was saying was that the UK Taxman is not so naive he will quite happily sit watching people being paid extra, lower taxed, flight allowances rather than regard those payments as standard fully taxed income.

NotsoFantastic - I think there has been a misunderstanding here (amongst many).

For the unlucky crew member who is taken off his rostered trip, for having his future roster disrupted, for being away a different length of trip than expected, all with less than 90 minutes notice - this person will receive an amount equivalent to the meal allowances he or she woud have received as some compensation for having their life thrown into total disaray.
This is of course fully taxable at the normal rate.

[christn]

I do not work for BA. What saddens me is how selfish and gullible we crew are. Management must be pi**ing themselves as they watch you all bicker and expose your petty jealousies. Why can't we all work together and respect each other's unique skills and contributions to the team effort. Just think what a formidable threat to Airline Management's intimidation we could be.

[Anti-ice]

Good to see you back swiss_tonni, your comments which have angered many initially are becoming quite laughable as you proceed on your little merry tour of dragging down those who are in real life - - your colleagues:rolleyes:

"as it allows me to stay later at work, as I dont have to try and stop at a supermarket on the way home." . . .

Haha, and how many flights manage to get into megabusy LHR ontime,and find a stand , and provide crew transport???
We've often waited 45mins-1hr for transport after a delayed flight, and then still have to go shopping on the way home.
Its almost a daily occurence at times:rolleyes:
-------
"If someone is ill, we work harder, and longer"

Well we have lost one/two or more crewmembers on every a/c type and have to do this on a daily basis, so this is now part of our everyday routine.
---------
"We are all replaceable. And yes I do think an engineer could do your job."

That is a VERY derisory comment to our engineers - i bet they are more highly skilled/trained than you'll ever be.
And what are you trying to say about the multi-faceted/flexible role of the cabin crew?
Don't knock it m8 - the basics might be simple , but then again so is pushing a mouse around. loser .
--------
"I personally long for the day that BA gets some consultants in and does a bechmarking exercise. Compare comparable jobs throughout the airline with those of other full service airlines in the UK and Europe."

Don't we all, and its long overdue at your little base.
Planes will always need cabin crew / pilots / groundstaff etc.....
as for you , perhaps thats why you are ranting on here, and realise you are one of the next '2000' to go in the longawaited admin shake-up?
---------
"Have a look in the papers and see what real jobs pay, and what the working conditions and hours are like."

Believe me we do; We are not quite as blinkered as you think.
The job really isn't worth doing anymore with the ludicrous proposals being fired at us from all directions from people who have no idea about customer expectations & what is possible....
Hence the current droves of cabin crew leaving.
---------
"Especially when many of us in the airline are working with less staff, trying to work smarter for the airline, and not getting a penny in "overtime" or extra payments because we have less staff than we used to."

......."work smarter" . . how many fengshui focus groups were needed to dream that one up??
About as many as the other popular management buzzword "cascade this information" which we hear far to often too:yuk:
I think you mean working harder, well we are all doing that , if we hadn't then millions of pounds would not have been saved .
I'm sure it wasn't entirely down to your office:rolleyes:


So get real, find out more about your airline - or if this is the way you are really feeling , perhaps you would be better off leaving, instead of trying to drag everybody else down in your malicious and deragatory little way.

[Wishing It Were True]

A 747-400 can legally be operated by just 10 cabin crew - one for each door.
We used to have 13 on a 747 Classic so that's not really the issue.

What is the issue is what level of customer service and product BA wants to provide (or can afford to provide) and still remain a "Full Service Airline"?

And it still doesn't alter the fact that compared to almost any other airline, we have far too many managers for the number of aircraft hulls and/or front line customer contact staff.
Until this simple fact is resolved, BA will struggle to survive.

[flyingdutchman]

Excellent post, christn,

'Divide et impera'. Divide and rule.

Company management are to be congratulated.

A la Julius Caesar, British Airways has its' workforce biting each other's heads off.

I wouldn't be surprised if our fellow forum member swiss_tonni is in fact the very Board member other people here have criticised so much

:ooh:

[Wishing It Were True]

Management to be congratulated?

I would have thought it would have been better concentrating on managing rather creating an atmosphere of despondancy and aggravation amongst the customer contact staff?

What is the end result of having everyone at everyones throats - is anyone going to go that extra mile for our customers when we are casting envious eyes or scowling at each other - I think not.

If BA wishes to remain a "Full Service Airline" then it has to accept it has to have motivated customer service staff.

[ThS]

Can't help speaking up now..

I'm CC myself, and now I feel my patiance is getting VERY low.

swiss_tonni wrote:

You work from Compass Centre, you know, the place with the nice view, restaurant, showers, sleeping area, grooming areas, extra strength condoms and lube in the loos, ..........you didnt ask for all that, but it was provided in case its usefull, and to enhance your experience at work. I think you need to enter the real world. Have a look in the papers and see what real jobs pay, and what the working conditions and hours are like. I earn 24k, before tax. I cant "commute" from a cheaper area of the country, as I have to be at work daily.

I would like to see those restaurants, sleeping areas, condoms you are talking about? ALSO.. if you are so bitter about CC, why don't you apply? we are hiring! or is that not enough for you?

We are all replaceable. And yes I do think an engineer could do your job.

......and in case you are wondering, no I dont access this forum at work, I do so from home, and then email a friend overseas, who posts it for me........protects my IP, and my job

so, you are afraid of what BA would do to you if you would use your computer at work!! or is so.. that you are about to loose your job, so you've you've been a BITTER little queen? Coz Waterworld/Latteland should dry up.. We are WAY to top heavy with people like you.. and other Suit people.

Swedish wrote:
I am a member of the SLF which regulary travels BA longhaul, I also work for another airline. Ass I understand it:
1. BA are short of CC due to the season change - how can they recruit for such a short period. I also understand that the union contract insists on full leave allocation at this time when things would always be tight.
2. As a passenger I spend most of the night sectors waking up Cabin Crew or interupting galley meetings to get a simple drink.
I sugest BA Cabin Crew on LH get a life.
My opinion - and that is as a commercial customer - BA is a great company being runined by overpaid crew - remember who gave them the name Bad Attitude!!!! It is still deserved

who are you?, what airline are you working for? Pilot? SAS?.. as a fellow Swede, I'm ashamed about people like you.

Turin wrote:

It took a five year apprenticeship just to be allowed to work on aeroplanes and a further seven years gaining experience and studying to get my licences. For what? To get whinging CC look down their noses at me because I have a bit of oil under a nail?
I do not get paid overtime. It's time off in leiu hour for hour. My gross pay over the last two years has dropped almost £10,000.
I work in all weathers and get treated with contempt from CC.

My oh My, what a little BITTER person you are.. why are you not complaining about the Pilots, or WAY to many managers?? I have HUGE respect for you guys & the work you do... and you say contempt?? have you try to be nice and smile and be polite to us? You know, treat people the way you want to be treated.

[NM163]

Consider this:
if you're an engineer/maintenance.. all the invisible people behind the scenes that allow the aircraft to get up and down again safely regardless of who is on board or at the controls... Whilst safety might not be a prime selling point in air transport some of us do research it, find out who contracts what to whom and who has internal facilities to carry out works, and what their record is before we fly with you.

It might be unfair, but to Joe public, the invisible work; everything that you people do in ops/maintenance etc.. i.e.whether it's sheltering under the wing whilst freezing rain is driven in by the wind to check the a/c or any other of the innumerable jobs involved with the a/c and loading it/operating it etc. so that it can get people from A to B safely, efficiently and quickly, with all of their belongings, however awkward they are, is no more than expected..never mind underappreciated.

I understand the guidelines have changed recently so flightdeck crew have to have more customer contact, but in the rest of ops. do you? Whether you like it or not, the front of house staff, CC and check in etc are the ones who encourage people to travel with the same airline AGAIN. They are the ones who convince the traveller that they've had service and value for money. Who says it's fair. no one.. but life isn't fair. Conversely, poor CC activley discourage repeat customers. a customer is easier to keep than recruit.

The only thing the airline exists for is to enable people to travel thats how it can make money. Management exists to collate all of this and guide you, not necessarily control it & you. to enable you all to work together, smoothly and efficiently, and to ensure employees, contractors and customers are content.

Wouldn't it be ideal if you all took home the same as one of the board members.. :) . it is difficult to manage, but do you really think management would jeopardise their own futures, their offices & perks by falling out with staff so early in this fragile industry recovery? No company actively seeks disgruntled employees, staff absenteeism is a corporate killer, but so is repetetive induction and training It's far better to retain&retrain than recruit.

What you can't do is collectively jeopardise the airline by comparing your pay to other groups and asking for what they have. Where is it going to come from? if you can identify that, then you can ask for it. Ask your union to put it forward. ok you have a good q3 profit. it is the first time in a while and you BA still has high gearing. debt repayments are a substantial cost to be factored into pay agreements that will run for some time.

IMHO, you all do a great job. thats why I have no concerns travelling BA. I know the plane's not going to fall from the sky with metal fatigue, be driven into a mountain by an untrained knackered pilot and that the bags I gave to the smiling staff in england will pass through several sets of hands before arriving safely for me at JFK. All of this goes on whilst I sit comfortably waited on hand and foot by pleasant staff serving chicken or beef, either of which is pretty good but were probabably both approved by a manager in a lounge 36k feet below and 2k miles east in england. Its not an easy job that any of you have but you do it really well. What's the difference between any of you? public visibility, that's all

In the fairly vacuous society in which we live...in case you don't hear it too often.. thanks.

[Connex]

Same sh*t – different (BA) day.


NM163 -,

Really hit the spot with that one. I loved the last line “in case you don’t hear it too often, Thanks”

Wait whilst I get another tissue, sob sob. That’s where I went wrong! I obviously forgot to say “thanks” last year when I spent 3 days waiting in a f*****g tent for a flight from T4, due to the swipe card issue.

Christn –

A good post with sensible points – problem is you are wasting your time. Reading this entire thread is just like reading the NATS thread on their recent pay issue. You, like our well meaning souls within NATS, have to accept that you are seeing the “business side” of human nature – its all “me me me me me”. Doesn’t matter what the rights and wrongs of the issues are – when money is concerned it’s everybody for themselves, whether they choose to declare or deny it on this forum or not. All this talk about Company loyalty, and “lets all work together” crap is wasted on a workforce that can’t see past the next pay packet. It’s been the same sh*t at BA for as long as I care to remember – only the faces have changed.

As a BA shareholder from the initial share issue, and now, through choice, ex-BA SLF, I am appalled at the continuous, apparent wastefulness and unnecessary financial extravagance of this Company, combined with apathetic Staff and pathetic Management. I have given up wondering whether my investment or the Company is doing well – I only keep the shares to hand on to my kids for posterity. “You know, son, this used to be a good Airline once, but…”.

I know many people who work for BA across the board, and not one of them has a good word to say for it, except that they get Staff Travel. They all have stories about how fed up they are, how the Management is crap, who’s on the fiddle, who’s running a business whilst they’re on the sick, who gets extra payments for this, that and everything else, etc etc. There’s never anything positive – why do you stay? Money, that’s why.

I do believe that the pilots earn their cash – it is a skilled profession. I don’t believe for one minute that CSDs or any other CC are worth anything remotely like a pilot’s wage, or £67k, a figure being bandied about on the other BA pay thread. There are just as many people outside of BA who have been taught to save a life, sell you a bottle of perfume, or serve you a meal, but they don’t get £67k. I’d rather see nurses get £67k than CC – that’s real value for money.

BA went down the toilet when it was privatised. The bane of privatisation – the selfish element - became paramount in every facet of the Company and its Staff. The Staff started arguing the day the initial share price was announced (it’s too much!), and how many shares the Staff would receive (not enough!), and it has snowballed since then.

To all you BA Staff out there – it is truly sad that things have degenerated to today’s levels, but your past reputation as “The World’s Favourite Airline” is nothing more than a memory. Be thankful that, for now, you have a job to go to. If push comes to shove, you will never save yourselves by combined effort – you are all too departmentally self-centred for that. It’ll be “All for One, and, er…..All for One!”

Remember though, if the Company finally goes tits up, the Cabin Crew (preference will be given to those with clean nails!) will be in a stronger position for the vacancies at McDonald’s – “is that the McBeefburger or the McChicken Sandwich, sir?” And don’t forget to smile – you’ll be getting £4.80 per hour!

[Skylion]

Absolutely right for the question to be raised. Absolutely wrong the defensive, slagging off everyone else in many replies.
Facts are: Some Cabin Crew are world class/ excellent and deliver superb service and persuade passnegers to fly BA again and again Some are dreadful and persuade passengers never to fly BA again.
Some of the management/Waterside are excellent, some are awful. Bob did his best to get rid of anyone believed to be " airline people" and destroyed the demography of the company ( ie anyone over 45 was dead).
The separation of the airlines operational people ( to Compass centre) . the Management, marketing, sales etc people ( to Waterside) and the Engineers ( stayed where they were at Hatton Cross to be increasingly surrounded by the BAAs non airline developments) was a disaster and has produced the sort of misguided, misinformed antagonisms and misunderstandings seen in these exchanges.
To survive, BA people must learn,- and quickly,- to like each other and get along , but even more quickly to love their customers and put them first. If they dont there is only one possible outcome:P45s all round.

[Wishing It Were True]

I do believe that the pilots earn their cash – it is a skilled profession. I don’t believe for one minute that CSDs or any other CC are worth anything remotely like a pilot’s wage, or £67k, a figure being bandied about on the other BA pay thread. There are just as many people outside of BA who have been taught to save a life, sell you a bottle of perfume, or serve you a meal, but they don’t get £67k. I’d rather see nurses get £67k than CC – that’s real value for money.

Connex - I was quite happily agreeing with most of this post until I came across this load of tripe.
If you truly believe that cabin crew earn anything like this amount, you need your head examined.
My takehome as a purser after 20 years is approximately one third of the amount you quote. And for new entrants it is now definitely a lot worse - £4.80 per hour would be a wage increase.

It's a pity that a reasoned point of view was spoiled by malicious falsehoods.

[Well thats Me]

Wishing It Were True

I tend to agree with you and most of the Engineering staff know the score,Shorthaul and the majority of Longhaul Cabin Crew don't make a fortune - The CSDs are paid more than they are worth but you can read my post about that on the pensions thread.

What has got my backup and most of my colleagues is you are now ( By BA ) included in the " pampered ones " by way of the payments for flying with a member short -- that's what this thread is really all about - payments for helping the company out when they are unable to meet a union negotiated agreement.

The same applies to the GSS payment of £150 for not going sick " IF ITS TRUE ", that is equally ludicrous.

[ThS]

Connex..

where do you get your numbers from???

I'm on the new contract, and a basic pay of £10,800/year.

And as it was said before me £4,80/hr would be a payrise.

so before you start slagging CC off..

Get you f***king numbers right. :mad: :*

[Ricky Butcher]

That may be your basic, but if you're working a full time contract at LHR then you'd be unlucky to be taking home on average less than £1300 per month. Even if you only worked a ten month year ( to allow for leave, sickness and some bad allowance weeks), thats still a TAKE HOME of £13000 per year. By my reckoning you'd need to be on about £18000 per year gross to take that home in a normal job. Still think you're badly paid?

[Wishing It Were True]

And now for a dose of reality...


Website fiasco costs BA £40m
Jeremy Skidmore,
28 March 2004

BRITISH Airways is ready to write off an estimated £40m investment in loss-making travel website Opodo.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/business/articles/timid76350?source=

...puts the amounts paid to cabin crew, to be paid to GSS into some sort of perspective. And again chalk another one up to the suits - remember GO anyone?

[Kempus]

hi guys!

Was just about to go to bed but decided to spend 40 mins reading this thread.

Now i've just started to work for BA, LH as it happens. Now When i first went into Waterworld, the first thing i thought was f**k! What the hell do all these people do? Is there any need?

I aint seen so many middle management in my life!

Anyway, lately on-line i've encountered many many of these middle management types on wait for it, a 3 three month secondment. We're talking sales, marketing here.
When i heard this i wondered what was the point of putting these people through 4 weeks training which cost x amount, only for them to moan that when on line, they were not making enough money and the working day was longer so then going back so they can sit at thier desk and work monday to friday!

Now as cabin crew i'm a bit insulted by the anyone can do the job. Would you be able to hanndle hearing someones ribs crack as you give chest compressions to keep them alive. Would anybody be able to deal with a death onboard with 3 hours to go before land. How would you console those on that aircraft? How would you console yourself? How would you handle a body go through the first stages of rigamortis and decay in front of you?

Then when the aircraft catches fire when in the air, who is trusted to put it out whilst suffering burns and toxic smoke inhalation? And should you wanna be picky, since the likes of the kegworth crash and sept 11 the cabin crew are the eyes and ears of the flight crew. Keeping a constant look out for anything unfimilar. Can guarentee that the pilots and the engineers aren't gonna get shot should an aircraft be hijacked!

Now i think BA is a great company, there is a lot of new fresh people coming into the company which will certainly give it a large boast in morale. What i dont like is someone saying that my job is worth nothing and really "chicken or beef" is the only thing i'm good at!

Now for however that said, i've an aero engineering background so yes i'd happily swap for the day and give it a "bash", pardon the pun oh and what can you say about someone who go's into the loo's and notices the lube and extra hard condoms. Curiosity there?

We're all meant to be part of the same team! Stop destroying each other!

Oh and for the the record, no i dont feel i get paid but isn't everyone like that?

nite
:zzz:

[L337]

Connex:

Honestly m8ty you need to get another job. If working for BA upsets you that much you need to move on.

L337

[Skylion]

Kempus:
If youve just joined BA its far too early for you to have the remotest idea of what it takes to run, plan, market, sell, supply etc etc the airline, so judgements about the value of the people you see in Waterside are premature. The vast majority do useful jobs which come together with the departure of the aircraft which you get aboard without having to worry about buying it, when , from whom , for how much, negotiating the supply and purchase of everything from fuel to catering , planning its most profitable utilisation and route deployment, the landing and handling fees at each airports, the overflying charges, the manpower recruitment and development needs for the next few years ( unsurprising that there is the occasional glitch giving short term shortfalls), the costs of everything, keeping the shareholders happy, managing the often unnecessarily difficult industrial relations scene, figuring out the most effective marketing, sales and distribution strategies, securing the most favourable possible government agreements on traffic rights ( ie where you fly), getting the best achievable mix of yields on board, ensuring the right technical and other training, watching over your safety and security,making sure you are paid etc etc.
Most of the incidents you mention will happen once in a lifetime,- if that. You have got a life many envy.Enjoy it and start understanding and appreciate what others do to make your day a good one. Then you will start contributing.

[flyingdutchman]

Dear Wishing It Were True,

I think you may have missed my point.

A little sarcasm, etc. :ok:

[TightSlot]

Skylion Quite right, all of those areas need to be managed, but surely, the real question is, how much and by how many? I don't work for BA, and so don't know what the ratio of managers/office staff to flights is: However, if that ratio is significantly higher in BA than in competitor airlines, then BA would seem to have a problem, whereas if the ratio is lean and mean, then your post is competely valid.

Just out of interest, does anyone know whether BA is actually top heavy (i.e. it has been quantified) or whether the evidence is purely anecdotal and down to perception?

[Wee Weasley Welshman]

easyJet will be running a fleet of 90 aircraft this summer with bases in 4 countries and that is still all managed out of 20 portacabins. This, frankly, shows sometimes :O

Neverthless.

Cheers

WWW

[ThS]

some facts, read in an article. BA has about 200 managers/flight, and other airlines have about 90/flight..

look at Waterworld... too bad if you can't see it..

A normal company will have a pyramid standing right.. with managers from the top, BA is the other way around.. it's stuck in the 80 is...

Skylion!

You wrote,

Enjoy it and start understanding and appreciate what others do to make your day a good one. Then you will start contributing..

I can have understanding for them to a 100%, but when they have NO understanding for mine.. We've got people running an airline, who has NO idea how to run an airline.. Only see their firstclass seat.. if they ever get on an aircraft

[flybonanza]

It's a pity to read how a pilot thinks the various company managers don't know how to run an airline. Such a categorical statement shows poor judgment. I am certain BA management don't go in public stating how poor some pilots have performed in their recent checks etc. I wonder how well you really would perform in say the BA marketing team. Those jobs are challenging to say the least in present times and working hours are long.

How about some support to management. You are highly paid and have a great job with one of the largest airlines flying some of the newest aircraft. If you feel easyjet or some others are so much better why not join them. You will be satisfied for a day or two and then you will start the same song over again, right?

[Kempus]

hi,

Yes a maybe new but i've never came across any company where the people working for it are so against it! If its that bad please go find another job instead of bringing the morale of the company down past a level it is already at! If my contribution to the company is nothing from day one you gotta ask yourself and your peers at waterside why the hell are we taking these folk on as we simply dont do anything for us.

I do understand what goes on at waterside and think you all do a great job in making BA such a name. What i was purley stating was that why is there so many doing the same job but with a different job title??

Maybe we should start closing down 1 or 2 resturants and cafe's at waterside then maybe some there will realise we're in this together.

kempus

[Skylion]

ThS:
The notion that BAs management have no idea how to run an airline and all they see is their First Class seat is unfortunately part of the prejudicial way that too many on the flying side see people who arent actually operating on the aircraft. It is not a realistic or a helpful view. The " management" are not an over cossetted bunch of freeloaders, but for the most part dedicated, hard working and out to get the job done,- ie just like any other group. There are some poor managers just as there are some poor pilots, cabin crew, engineers and anyone else but dont lets get sidetracked into negative stereotypes by that.
All the established previous " national carriers " (BA, LH, AF. KL, AZ etc) need substantial organisational simplification which itself would bring numbers down. They do however have much more complex operations than the Low Costs which operate simple networks, mainly in the " first world" generally with one type of aircraft, with a very simple product and distribution systems. The new entrants have also been able to start with the clean sheet of paper which the unions have often denied BA, who are therefore stuck with working practices, rostering restrictions ,pay levels , structures and overall productivity which , if starting again, they would bin and rewrite.
BA does need to slim down, decide and focus on its priorities and become much more productive. This does not get away from the original proposition in this post,- which seems to have been trodden underfoot in some of the hysteria,- that it should not be having to buy every bit of flexibility it needs to keep its operation and service on the road at a high price. To be successful , its staff must WANT it to be successful and work together without demanding extra payments for anything out of the ordinary.

[CR2]

Question for THS (or anyone else who can answer).

Interesting to see the managers/flight ratio. How does that work out in terms of managers per aircraft?

My only interest is so that I can relate it to the airline I work for (pure freight).

Ta.

[overstress]

Just to bring us back to the subject of the thread.

LH CC are being offered obscene amounts of money for turning up to work and having to work a little harder. One man down means that there is a little less time for a chat in the galley, or that a service has to be done a little quicker.

The point is that BA is scared to death of the CC unions and dare not tackle the issue for fear of a disastrous strike.

I have seen the original document and can confirm it is true. The dispatchers, loaders and everyone else could not believe it at first either.

Talk to BA flight crew - who are amongst the most productive in the world - and you will get tales of highly-strung cc who will refuse to do a legal duty because it is slightly outside the union agreement.

BA recently recruited 120 or so Midland cc. I spoke to one who said she had to remind her purser one day that the passengers actually had a choice of which airline they used.

Another said that she could not believe that BA shorthaul crew will not do an a/c turnround at main base.

Meanwhile, flight crew will, almost without exception, pull out all the stops to keep the operation running. Our manager, by contrast with the nonsense being offered to L/H crew, has sent us a message in which he thanks us in advance for our co-operation in keeping the show on the road.

To sum up the mood of some of my colleagues over the last few days, the feeling is that CC unions are gaily (pun intended) bleeding the company dry whilst revenues struggle.

We are fed up with some intransigent crew rigidly working to union agreements oblivious to the direction the company is heading.

The vast majority of crew are a pleasure to work with and do their jobs professionally. It is the actions of the militant minority who are dragging the whole lot of us down.

[HZ123]

The Management cannot be that bad as many of them after finishing with BA, either with a big cheque or large pension or both, go on to manage many other outfits. Britannia to name but one, and a recent look thru the Airlines of the UK brochure given with one of the airline mags showed about six ex BA managers in key positions. Even Easy have one of our departed Safety and Security managers, Tesco - Southport, Virgin trains, BUPA is chaired by Val Gooding also ex BA.

Mind it is a pity some of them didn't shine when they were with us.

[parcel]

Overstress:
Cabin crew unions enforce the rules. BA CC have to phone the union to get permission to extend duty, turnaround at base, whatever. And they often do this, to help the passengers.
As individuals they are often/mainly very dedicated and hard working. The occasional slip will happen in any company.
Companies like Ezy and Ryanair exploit their crews; BA does not. It is, as ever, a question of balance. :rolleyes:

[overstress]

parcel

yes I agree entirely, but as I said before it is always the few rotten apples which spoil the whole barrel.

The main point is why BA mgmt feel they have to offer crews these inducements in times of upheaval, the flight crew tend to get on with it and we are surprised and pleased to get merely a letter of thanks.

[Wishing It Were True]

Cabin crew would be amazed to get a letter of thanks!

We get bullied, harrassed, ripped off, conned, cheated & criticised... and that's just from our own departmental management.

Chicken & Egg I suspect, If the above wasn't the case, then we'd be more motivated to 'help out'

But it is, so I guess cabin crew will work to the letter of their agreements...

I do not accept any of the flak being thrown around here because management have made such a huge c*ck up, as opposed to the everyday little ones they continue to inflict upon us.

[overstress]

wishing:

I was fairly amazed as well. It came the week after the strike last summer where we operated to the limit of discretion to get the empty a/c home.

Thereby hangs a tale, and I won't labour the point but the purser when told we were taking the EMPTY (ie no work to do) ac to LHR from our UK diversion said

"well the crew aren't happy, we want to get off"

to which we replied you can do what you like, but we're taking the ac back.

Faces like cat's bottoms all round, but they came back.

If you want more tales, I've a bookful, but it would make me look spiteful.

The main point is, why does BA feel it has to offer bribes to CC?

[Diverse]

I've never worked in an industry which sees it's employees show such little respect or understanding of each other. Different departments seem to have so much hate for no reason.

To those who apparently treat anyone else like s**t, stop now you are a long way from being the superior race, those people you treat with contempt are human beings too.

To those who imagine that they are the only person who trained hard in life to get where they are stop kidding yourselves.

To those who think everybody's job is easier than their job wise up. Everyone has easy aspects and difficult aspects to their job.

All of you/us treat each other with respect and consideration and then maybe the days will seem shorter.

To the passengers, crew, management and anyone else to whom this may apply, you are not the centre of the universe, if you die tomorrow we will miss you but will carry on.

Finally, I do think that this website polarises opinion and maybe should not be treated as the way things really are but as things occasionally are.

[jumbodriver]

I think swiss toni should be congratualated for bringing this information into the public domain.

It highlites the extent of the problem that exists within BA and very specifically within cabin services.
There can be no doubt that BA cabin crew are overpaid,particularly in long haul.
I recall a stopover in mexico some 3-4 years ago.Coming up to tax return time and the 4 pursers and csd discussing their annual gross salary.It ranged from 43 to 60k.more than most junior pilots in the company.

They operate within the confines of an industrial agreement that should have been consigned to the dustbin years ago.

I have experienced first hand, the intransigence and apathy that many of them display toward BA, the very organisation that provides them with what ammounts to very generous terms and conditions.
I can site,literally,dozens of examples when their inflexibility and unwillingness to go the extra mile when the job needs to get done has lead to massive disruption to the customer and cost the company thousands of pounds.

The pilot community in BA have been through a benchmarking process to ascertain where we stand with respect to our terms and conditions and other major european airlines.
It is clear the the pilot community in BA offer the organisation value for money as well as efficiency and flexibility.

Other longhaul airlines operate with less crew than we do-and i am sure for less money.I am sure that they also provide a full service.
perhaps the benchmarking process should be extended to cabin services?

jumbo

[Wishing It Were True]

Benchmarking - yes please. I look forward to my improved salary, benefits and T&C's

Why do you think the management don't want to see this - it'll end up being more expensive.

I think we could all do worse than to re-read the 'Diverse' posting and taking time to inwardly digest.

[disappointed]

Well jumbo you have been had!!
all i can say is those pursers and csd got you good and proper .. you shouldnt believe what you eaves drop on. Not to even begin a discussion regarding how long those people had been with the airline and how many years service they had given compared to your junior pilots.

As for the other long haul airlines who operate with less crew than we do.... yes there are some... but only the ones with rotten customer service reputations!! Airlines we are in competition with for service awards such as cathay, singapore, thai etc ... have MORE.

I personally feel quite sick at the jealousy, back stabbing, petty name calling and bitterness displayed here ... thats all it boils down to.

Swiss toni, the very fact that you have to hide behind someone elses ip and email says it all to me! And i can only take comfort in the belief that what goes around comes around... as someone else stated... bring on the bench marking youre so keen on... we all know how top heavy we are in the managers department..


The rest of you.. I dont believe for one minute that if you were offered this money to work outside your agreement .. you would say ... "oh no!! thanks but no thanks BA... you just keep your money! i dont need it! Ill work as much as you want me to as short staffed as you want me to for nothing more!!!"

To everyone else who has engaged in the new sport of crew bashing... i feel sorry for you that you have nothing else to do with your time. If you truly believe youre capable of doing a crew member job, and you want the money you imagine we make yet dont deserve SOOO much.. i believe there are openings.

you will be expected to work as a nurse , a cook, a waitress, a barman, a babysitter, a counsellor, a secretary , a shop assistant, a communicator, a policeman, a security guard, a fireman, a linguist or translator, a care assistant, a travel agent, a newspaper deliverer, a cleaner, a toilet monitor, a night watchman, a diplomat.

Youll need to deal with sick people, dead people, bereaved people, drunk people, rude people, aggressive people, nice people, sad people, threatening behaviour, upset people, nervous people, people so petrified they cannot breathe or let go of your hand... from infants...to illiterate people, from brain surgeons to royalty, from those with learning difficulties to those with behavioral problems, from those threatening miscarriage or birth to thosewith terminal illnesses going home to die.

You might be away from home and get a call to say your mother died or your child got sick and is in hospital, you might miss his first words or his first steps, you will never be there for all of his birthday parties or school plays.

But because you want to be cabin crew you will accept all this... however... noone will ever notice what you do, what you accept and tolerate... only when you get a little something extra will anyone care and notice.

still want to join?

[Connex]

Wishing it were True –

Sorry you don’t agree, but I still maintain that no CC member is worth anything like a pilot’s wage. The £67k figure is quoted as a CSD salary on another thread about BA pay – if its been quoted wrong, so what? The principle is still the same. And if your new CC are signing up for less than £4.80 an hour, and then moaning about it, then they deserve all they get – which ain’t much by the sound of it!! By your own reckoning, you must be taking home c£22k pa – that’s about £29k before tax – don’t sound too bad? It’s a lot more than a nurse gets!

L337 –

Honestly, m8ty – you need to read my post a little more carefully! I didn’t say I work for BA – doh!!

ThS -

Oh dear! Rattled the cage a bit, did I?

I read your previous reply (!) to swiss toni, Swedish, turin et al.. Bloody hell!! We’ve got a right old Jekyll and Hyde here! How did YOU get past the selection board?

I’m very thankful that I won’t ever have the pleasure of your service when I next jet off somewhere nice – wouldn’t want to ruin my hols before they had really started! I take it that as you are on £10800, you must be a relatively “new-hire”. Typical – been there five minutes, and telling us all where we’re going wrong. Knows it all – knows f**k all! I think a portion of my investment in BA has been wasted on you – I shall ask for a refund! Anyway, £10800pa is plenty for you to go and buy a couple of kilos of extra “slap” to disguise that obviously permanently-ingrained scowl on your dial! Either that or go and sell some burgers – AND get a pay rise!!
:E :E

[M.Mouse]

BA CC have to phone the union to get permission to extend duty, turnaround at base, whatever. And they often do this, to help the passengers.

We must have a different experience of 'often' then.

[HOVIS]

DISAPOINTED
Youll need to deal with sick people, dead people, bereaved people, drunk people, rude people, aggressive people, nice people, sad people, threatening behaviour, upset people, nervous people, people so petrified they cannot breathe or let go of your hand...

Thats no way to talk about your colleagues on the flight deck.:E

[disappointed]

Hovis ....:ok: :p

[Wishing It Were True]

Hovis - < LMAO >

:ok: :ok: :ok:

[overstress]

Disappointed:

<To everyone else who has engaged in the new sport of crew bashing... i feel sorry for you that you have nothing else to do with your time>

I write this from a hotel room on an enforced night stop because crew wouldn't work beyond limits.... ;)

[disappointed]

well there are limits we have a choice to work beyond and there are limits we cant legally work beyond...

any reason youre not out for a drink together with your colleagues ?

[Anti-ice]

"I write this from a hotel room on an enforced night stop because crew wouldn't work beyond limits.... "

Well who would at the risk of the CAA removing your a/c licences????

[Lou Scannon]

As someone outside BA, I take heart from the fact there is still someone in the company who is prepared to report such abuse of the system and still some BA Pprune contributors who are prepared to support them.

There is no other airline in the world that would, or could carry this attitude from the cabin staff.

Any one of thoise cabin staff who require such inducements as these could be replaced in four weeks by experienced cabin staff from the rest of the industry.

Heaven help the CSD's if BA ever hire cabin crew managers that are competent.

[disappointed]

...... have you bothered to read ANY of the thread other than swiss toniis original posting?

There is NO abuse of any system here... if you think there is then perhaps you would care to detail what system exactly you are referring to.
Cabin Crew did not REQUIRE anything... we didnt say ..well we wont do this unless you pay us... it was OFFERED TO US .. WHY? because we are already working one crew member down and have been since 9/11 and for this week they NEEDED us to work ANOTHER crew member down. Now if ANYONE can hand on heart say they wouldnt take a payment they are offered by their employers i will debate that as being a fib. So i am not quite sure what ATTITUDE youre referring to ( trendy word to use in a posting though isnt it)
WHY did BA offer the payment? Because .. its more cost effective than cancelling the flight.
WHY did it need to happen in the first place? BECAUSE the twits at the top cocked up....
now perhaps you need to really think about WHY youre having such a go at crew ...especially when youre not even BA staff...


and finally...."Heaven help the CSD's if BA ever hire cabin crew managers that are competent "
why csds specifically?
This last statement of yours could apply to every dept within the airline as general consensus is that very few of our managers are competent.

[jumbodriver]

dissappointed-what an appropriate handle!

lou has every right to express an opinion here-this is a proffessional pilots forum and he is a proffessional pilot.
your attitude is exactly what is wrong within cabin services in BA.
Anal-to say the least.

jumbo

[disappointed]

did i say he didnt have a right?
and what attitude is that? is it not MY right to respond with my views then?

[TightSlot]

is it not MY right to respond with my views then?
Yes of course it is, but you are allowing emotion to colour your judgement - possibly take a deep breath before posting again: Nobody can win in a flame war.
:rolleyes:

[Diverse]

This event seems to have opened up a wound which is possibly far deeper than the intial post would have people assume. There seems to be a deep seated and general dislike of cabin crew appearing in the posts which I don't come across when working online, maybe it all goes over my head, I hope not, I hope people can be frank and honest with me.

I hope I have been as courteous and hard working as possible to all the staff I have come into contact with in the last 5 years and resent the generalisations which have been posted on this forum about us all being money grubbing time wasters who wouldn't know a hard days work if it bit them.

I have met ignorant self opinionated and greedy people from all walks of life but have never been able to ascribe these character traits to one single profession and neither can anybody here.

I still love the job and will do it to the best of my ability, I will also never turn money away that is offered me.

Neither should anyone else.

[Well thats Me]

disappointed

Quote
"WHY did BA offer the payment? Because .. its more cost effective than cancelling the flight."

How could that happen? - because the UNION would tell them to.

Thats a trade union like the one i belong too, strange mine doesn't tell me anything about having to work in the P***ing rain with 24 B737 at 3 am in the morning - shame i have a s*** union but that's what its all its about,its not " Aviation Law "

WHY did it need to happen in the first place? BECAUSE the twits at the top cocked up....

- Well that's your impression but its just " Union Interpretation " - If the BA CC managers want to fly a Jumbo with 10 CC total even if BA lost all its Pax appeal, that's their choice surely - all i and you can do is show them the error of their ways.

[baboy]

Ok......
I agree with some points being made but disagree with others.
The only thing I can say to some is try working for a BA franchise where we have 6 days on 2 days off almost all summer with maybe one 12 hr nightstop a month, and have just been told if we request days off in one month our days off could be reduced to 1 between blocks of flying !!!!!! We now operate 1 crew down on all flights under 3 hrs. Our union has just offered 2% payrise for cabin crew to have it chucked back in there faces...... I for one would love a payment for going one crew down but that is never going to happen here.
To all the BA cabin crew out there..... I dont really agree with what the BA boffins are offering you.... but you are all hard working,friendly and skilled people and enjoy your job

[Hotel Mode]

I'd like to think that if overstress' crew are too tired to operate past industrial (Not LEGAL) limits then they are too tired to go for drinks. I suspect not, but we can hope.

[bealine]

As a BA shareholder from the initial share issue, and now, through choice, ex-BA SLF, I am appalled at the continuous, apparent wastefulness and unnecessary financial extravagance of this Company, combined with apathetic Staff and pathetic Management.

As a BA Shareholder from the initial issue (and I still proudly hang on to my stock because I know it will still climb upwards) I disagree vehemently with your viewpoint! The piddling bonus you lot are up in arms about is an investment - anyone with a grain of business acumen will know that motivated staff will keep the customers coming back time after time after time! Additionally, if you were not aware, some of my colleagues were (and possibly still are) planning a walk-out over the Easter Holiday to protest at the pay and conditions recently proposed by Rod Eddington. This "perfect attendance" bonus will make it very difficult for a walk-out to occur as few people will want to lose it! (And, if last year's walk-out cost £85m, and customers were only enticed back by reducing fares, how much would another period of unrest cost the company - and at what value would our shares settle?)

For money wasting, get this!!! Rod Eddington, post 09/11 at a time when BA was allegedly "haemorraging" money at the rate of £25m per day, Lithuanian Airlines were paid £12m for their Heathrow slots and free handling at Gatwick negotiated - just so that long-haul flights could be moved from Gatwick to Heathrow to satisfy the petty wishes of the old "BOAC" ******s!!! I put it to you that this was wanton wastefulness......not a small handout to loyal staff who, frankly, have put up with a disgusting, filthy working environment and appalling conditions since 09/11.

No, I think Mike Street is doing okay - leave the man alone!

(It's the dead-beats on the Board that need replacing!)

[etrang]

As SLF i have flown on the following airlines, LH and SH, in the last 6 months:

CX
SQ
Austrian Airlines (forget the code)
LH
BR
BA


I would rate the passenger service in that order too. The Asian airlines are well known for high quality service (Eva was a full flight to Taiwan with a tired and run-down looking crew and plane). Austrian was surprisingly good. BA was, well, i really felt i was supposed to be greatful that i was being alowed to fly. The BA, LHR - Milan flight was delayed 2 hrs and when questioned the CC response was "Just wait for the captain's announcement".

[M.Mouse]

"I write this from a hotel room on an enforced night stop because crew wouldn't work beyond limits.... "

Well who would at the risk of the CAA removing your a/c licences????

Talking industrial limits, which in the case of BA CC are way more restrictive than legal limits.

What licences to CC hold then? Are they like pilot licences?

[ThS]

Connex,

is that who you work for??? :D

first of all... I was employed by BA because of my perfect skills.
And my first class training and KNOW how to treat people right.

And I do a perfect job, THANKS!!

And since I'm well educated and have a VERY broad knowledge in life, I do know what I'm talking about.. AND treat my pax and collegues perfect.

BUT it's just when petty little people like you come in and think you know better.. then it's then when I raise my voice and won't take any crap from.

so better take your bitter little ¨spent 3 days in a tent¨ a** and go and get your facts right before you start with me. :D

[global707]

Question

If this extra payment had not been offered by management, would the CSD's refused to have worked (or any of the orther crew members on board.

I am assuming BA cabin crew numbers are driven by a Service requirement and not a safety requirement (1 for every 50 pax ?)

Just flown BA long haul (again) and again they were good. Being consistent in this game is hard. They will always be bad flights. I have experienced them.

[Skylion]

1) Disappointed:
" expected to work like a nurse, cook, waitress etc etc."Yes, thats what the job is. Presumably you wanted to do it when you joined and you knew what the T&C were and gladly signed up. If you dont now like these things you are a free person and have the option of doing something else.

2) Parcel: "EZY and Ryan exploit their crews". No they dont. They specify the job and what the T&C are. If people sign up they accept them. From the look of another thread running on EZY most of their people are saying they have a good time and enjoy it. I havent seen anyone working for BA ( who are paid more and have generally easier rosters etc.) in this thread yet say its a fun place to be.

3) Wish it were True:
You think a benchmarking exercise would bring improved T & C etc. Well, forget about benchmarking with the European majors,- they all share the same problem. The far easterns are far more demanding of their people and for less money. The companys to benchmark with are the new entrants such as Virgin, and the low costs as they are the new model and expanding rapidly. They are also generally more fun to fly with.

[Lucifer]

ThS:

Not a hint of arrogance there in your post is there?

Quote:

'Perfect Skills'
'I do a Perfect Job'
'KNOW how to treat people right (sic)'

And I won't even mention your willingness to 'raise your voice' in any situation, because that certainly is not suitable for any operating environment.

If you are displaying a pompous attitude such as that in the cabin - forgive me but you may be doing a great job - the attitude is not going to win you any favours with your colleagues, especially if you ever display that in front of customers...:suspect:...all there is to say is - do you really want to be perceived as many US crew are for what they are? Overpaid dragons who have lost touch with what the job is about, and believe they are worth their weight in gold?


Shall we get back on topic then?


Disappointed:

You are probably close to the truth in terms of why the payment is made, however you only have to look at some customer experiences to understand the perception of other employee groups do you not? Further the abuse of the system that is being referred to is the UK Tax System is it not? For that reason alone I would be more worried.

Perhaps you should all read what Diverse wrote and stop bickering among groups, which only enables senior management to erode hard fought Ts&Cs of each group in turn. Pull the boat the same direction etc?

[heavy crew]

I am reading this post and can't get over the arrogance and bad will on here directed to BA cabin crew.

This situation makes me think if all people in BA have this anti cabin crew attitude it would certainly go some way to explain why BA can no longer keep their cabin crew.

This is the company that never used to have trouble keeping crew, quite the opposite, the crew all used to stay for years untill retirement and so the staff average age was quite high and it took many years to get promotion, up to 15 years for purser.

Oh yes BA cabin services can't keep crew any longer, even the old ones, Now it appears these crew along with new contract crew are starting to leave and leave they are, in droves BA can't recruit enough to stop the outflux.

That is the truth behind this offer to the crew to work one down.

Swiss toni and his collegues years ago dreamed of a wonderfull world where cabin crew were not paid what they considered exhorbitant salaries, so they created a new contract, they then decided to get as many perks like overtime, MT and london weighting ect into the current salary as possible so that all that joined after the golden date of Jan 1997 would get less money.

After a costly strike Swiss toni and freinds were happy as each year went by the saving became greater, unfortunately they fiddled as rome burned and the savings were redirected instead of inproving the bottomline.

When sep 11th happened, the airline was thrown into freefall, Swiss toni had not expected this and there seemed no way to stem the losses, so they went to all the departments and all again had to give savings, some gave more than other's for example Flight ops gave up their cheeseboard.

In cabin services they removed a crewmember, this obviously put greater strain on each crew member, morale had been low to begin with, but at least the loads were low.

Then BA do a huge sales push dirt cheap prices to combat the low cost carriers and loads have remained high ever since, as the loads were high the unions asked for the return of the crewmember, swiss toni thought about it and then refused.

The workload continued to grow swiss tonis guard dogs IFS management were sent to continue performing disipliplinaries on any crew for any reason no matter how small, as Tonis secret plan started to have effect.

The secret plan hatched was at the same time as the new contract.

It was to push the cabin crew harder and harder stop any enjoyment downroute, stop bus drinks but most of all engender a feeling of being watched, for what swiss toni wanted rid off was the old contract crew as new contract crew were cheap.

All this has come to pass now the cabin crew are reduced to levels where each full flight is tougher and tougher, the customers have higher expectations and the crew have less product and less collegues to deliver it with.

On a tripple 7 for example there are now empty galleys as the crew are all out in the cabin, even the old CSD has a role in the cabin service.

After the sep 11th crewmember was not returned swiss toni and his optically challenged freinds tried to reduce the crew by one more, both unions refused and stated that if toni just did it anyway then there would be a ballot for industrial action.

At this time Swiss toni realised that there were no longer enough crew to actually do the job so again blame the sickness (it has worked before) and start recruitment, the unions did not trust toni any longer as he had conned them when they helped during 911.

The option was to cap First cabins this was generally unpopular especially with pilots for many reasons one being it messed with their hols (F entitlement), it also upset toni's collegues for the same reasons.

Sadly Cabin crew are still leaving in droves, it seems quicker than we can recruit, this has exasperated the change over period, as the closed zones was so unpopular toni's collegues designed this bribe .

It astounds me that none of all this has been mentioned, but as it was born in the ivory towers of warterworld perhaps not.

If anybody thinks that current cabin crew are well paid and have good conditions are living in a fools paradise, they need to wake up and smell the coffee.

For example skylion ( ex Bcal I presume) don't even dream that BA crew are loads better off than even Virgin or Ryanair they are not and they are certainly a great deal worse off than the competitors that the flight crew benchmaked against.

I welcome any comments after all everything I have posted is true.

Sorry for such a long first post but I can't believe so many supposedly inteligent people can be so wide of the mark.

[Diesel]

Hi there Heavy

What a post! Fascinating reading. You paint quite a dire picture indeed.

I have had access to the BASSA site on a number of occasions and am often shocked at the level of vitriol directed at me for being FC. I mention this to encourage you not to feel that everyone is anti-crew as you put it. I do not believe that every CC member is anti-FC despite what I have seen written.

Regards the recent payments I do not believe for a moment that the CC should be attacked for that. I would not attack anyone for extracting a good deal from their employer. I did not see any FC reject the payments made to them for the day trip TLV we used to operate. Rather I would attack the dreadful management that has brought us to this position. Like you I suspect the sickness issue is used to cover the poor management planning.

Perhaps the frustration you hear expressed is less to do specifically with the recent payments and more to do with the different approaches FC and CC take to off schedule ops. i.e FC tend to stick with it as a rule (yes I'm generallising here...) while CC tend to stick rigidly to agreements. I understand the arguments for this but it is frustrating to be thwarted at the last by this downroute.

I do not accept that CC are the only people to have seen their Ts and Cs eroded. Despite your implication FC lost rather more than a cheeseboard and good friends of mine on the ground have experienced very significant changes to their working conditions. Maybe lots of newer CC are leaving but the number of longer serving CC leaving is still I suspect low. My partner is S/H part time CC and still earns as much as a teacher friend of ours.

Best Regards

Diesel

[ThS]

Lucifer..

First of all... this is a forum.. and WE can and WILL express our thought and will raise our voices..

And IF you think that I'm not skillful enough to think about it when I'm working with crew OR with pax then I think this conversation is done...

[Connex]

Bealine –

Are you a rare survivor from the BEA/BOAC bygone age? If you are really a member of the “Old Guard”, did you ever win the £100 jackpot from the fruit machine at the Viscount Club, LHR?

Sorry you don’t agree – your prerogative. Trouble is, the “piddling bonus” you refer to, and even all the other numerous niggles and issues, are not the problem. The problem is that your Company is now being held to ransom by certain groups who think that they can influence Company policy with the threat of walkouts, as per the swipe card issue. This is cutting your nose off to spite your face. Might work once, or even twice. After that your punters will walk away in droves, your Company will go bust, and you’ll all be out of a job. Very sensible!

Even if you don’t like it, rational discussion and negotiation is the ONLY way to resolve issues for a PLC if it is to have any chance of survival. For that to work, you have to be united. Sadly, for all of you at BA, this will never happen for as long as you’ve got a hole in your ar*e. You do not have “motivated” staff at BA – you have selfish staff. Nobody will support anybody else – the self/me me me/greed factor rears its head again. The competition out there may not be as big, but it will surely gain from your collective intransigence towards each other.

I like your reference to “BOAC wan*ers” – from what I remember, they always were better at everything than your lot – even wan*ing, I expect.

ThS –

Quote: “go and get your facts right before you start with me”

What “facts” are we referring to here, little viper?

Anyway, enough of that - in the spirit of UK/Swedish harmony, I am truly pleased to see that somebody who is as “well educated” as yourself was able to secure a position at the envious rate of £10800pa. Obviously all down to another resounding graduation with honours from the “Stockholm Academy of Talking Boll**ks”!

And with reference to your reply to Lucifer, yes you are correct – YOUR conversation is done.

With regard to the CC “slagging” on this thread, and irrespective to what they will say in their defence, yes – CC DO think they’re the Dogs Whatsits – they have always held that attitude. I tend to agree to a point – many of them look like DWs.
:E :E

And for all you BA bods reading this post - as a shareholder in your Company, I want to see BA be successful, and there is always the "loyalty to the flag carrier" bit as well. What a shame you cannot harness the energy and intensity you use to verbally destroy each other to try, for once, to work with each other - you may be surprised at the outcome. At the very least, you may retain the support of Joe Public in your struggles against unpopular Management policy - support which could mean the difference between you having a job or joining good old ThS at McBurgers in the not-too-distant future.

:ok:

[ThS]

Connex...

I pity you BIG time...

dunno what you have against CC, (or was it acutally so that you have tried to get in? and got refused? ) ;0)

I/we are here to defend ourself from people like you, which if you haven't walked in my shoes and HAVE no IDEA about what we are talking about... (you only see and what has been written)

We need and STAND together against people like you..

I choose to work for BA, regardless of education (which I ahve and got, thank YOU very much!).. coz it's a FAB LIFESTYLE.. prob much better than yours..

won't even ask what you do...

but as I said, BEFORE you have walked in my shoes.. done my job.. AND actually WORKED inside BA.. then get your f**king facts right before you start with me...

you still saying the same s**t over and over again.. and I will fight for mine and my collegues right.

[Anti-ice]

Brilliant post heavy crew.

Well reasoned and well balanced too . Well done.

We need people like you, beacuse if people who are as narrow-mined as swiss_tonni et al even bothered to really find out what goes on in the c/c community , he would certainly be stopped in his tracks and think twice about writing such damaging posts filled with such vitriol.

Unfortunately there are a few precious types in the cabin crew community who make it hard for everyone else.

On the whole though, they are a great group of people , who have adapted and now work even harder with one or more crew members down to achieve exceding to our customers expectations day in and day out.

The company don't listen (they've only just acknowledged that), and so we have lost and are losing some brilliant people right now, some of the best.

Alot of what is written is just hype , and doesn't apply to the majority of staff.
Morale is rock bottom at BA and sinking .......
But really ,as we've seen for the last 6 years, they are so totally,completely out of touch, they really aren't bothered.

[maxy101]

At the risk of being non PC here, let us not forget that we are talking about a minority of CC that do themselves and their colleagues no favours. Many of the staff do put more into the job than BA pay them for.. However , there are many others that earn ludicrous amounts of money and do very little for it. I think those are the people that the above posters resent and begrudge. That coupled with the superior attitude that some of them have doesn't endear them to passengers nor fellow staff.
The problem that BA have is dealing with these individuals as they are very well protected by their union and industrial law. It would appear that BA has given up on selectively culling the slackers and is using the "shotgun" approach in its industrial relations now.
All this on top of BA's announcement that it cannot afford to pay our pensions or afford a payrise whilst writing off 40 million quid in a bad internet investment does stick in the throat.

[ThS]

Anti Ice my friend..

perfect point.. and very well written..

we have to stick together.. and until anyone has seen it, been inside BA, nobody can understand what we are talking about...

and we will fight..

we know the bad people within BA... and there are a few.. actually they are in every company... but as far as I know..

on my flights, almost EVERYBODY walks off with a smile on their faces.. and almost everytime.. ¨Thanks for a GREAT flight¨ You are the best!

that's all I need.... that makes my day! :D

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Heavycrew,

Fantastic posting.. AND soo true!.....

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diesel,


Thanks for your concern and it feels good to know that one is sort of on our side...

I generally have nothing against F/C, however.....

During my 4 yrs of flying I've met more w***ers than good intresting guys/girls. And even more now on L/H.

Think it's the attitude we come across 85% of the time.. it's ME, ME, ME from the F/C and no real respect from the other 5-15 crew working onboard the aircraft.

Have to be special newspapers(preferably 3 of them), 5 bottles of water each, choice of food before everybody else.. (even if you got your own, specially brought on)

and then going out downroute, F/C says/thinks.. lets have a 3 course meal.. and expects everybody to split the bill.. even poor Sally who only had a salad. (that actually happend on one of my flights), and it's not the only time I've heard it aswell.

Do you honesty think that's ok?

AND, it haven't been better since you guys, F/D went on hourly pay. My oh my.. what ignorent people I've met.

Dunno what the solution is, think CRM went out the window when the new doors came in.. But .. you tell me???

[dontdoit]

Can someone confirm for me why the BA cabin operatives talk about having a "Licence"? I've had a look through the CAA website and can't see any mention of a cabin crew "Licence". What ON EARTH are they talking about???

[etrang]

ThS
"I was employed by BA because of my perfect skills.
And my first class training and KNOW how to treat people right.

And I do a perfect job, "


As a customer, i find this type of attitude very arrogant and its the main reason i prefer NOT to fly BA. In my experience no CC does a PERFECT job, and anyone who believes that they do has stopped trying to improve. . .

[maxy101]

ThS While I think I understand where you are coming from, I feel that you aren´t doing yourself any favours by commenting "off for a FAB 5 day trip to Cape Town.. you know paid first class hotel and just chilling out"
I think you will find that this is exactly the sort of thing that our pax and envious staff members are referring to as excessive. You and I both know that you need a decent hotel to rest in down route, when you spend half of your life away. Many non flying staff can only dream of being looked after so well when on duty.

[Diesel]

ThS

Sorry to read of your experience. Are you REALLY telling me that nearly 9 times out of 10 ALL of your comments apply? It's just that you appear to me to be combining all the caricatures in to one.

On the vast majority of times the crew I encounter are perfectly normal, pleasant individuals. Occasionally I am met with hostility, disregard, disinterest and rudeness. But only occasionally. After encountering such a person it's always easy to make sweeping generalisations about "All CC this or that etc". If you say something enough then you begin to think it's true.

As for restaurants, when I was an FO the bill invariably fell to me to sort out. I can tell you that if it was short, and it often was it would not be FC failing to pay.....indeed I very often had to split the extra with my colleague. I do not however make any conclusions about CC as a WHOLE from this.

All I'm trying to say is that perhaps if you speak to them, the guys and girls up front are not so bad!

Of course maybe you're right and it's only my flights where the FC i meet are generally pleasant, friendly and approachable.


Best Regards

Diesel

[SFG]

Heavy Crew wrote:

"For example skylion ( ex Bcal I presume)........ "

How did BCal sudenly become a part of this thread? What did they do to you? Remember that they, and I was one of them, were taken over by BA so have no relevence in this discussion. Maybe you're one of those that your, BA, management screwed by keeping a former BCal employee, flight or ground staff, in a position that you think you should have had. It wasn't the staff that kept BCal people where they were or 'held back' original BA staff but the BA management after discussions with the BA / BCal unions.

In my Crewing days, I'm not there any more, I used to get very worked up by the Cabin Crew 'stuffing' the airline with their apparent intrasigence regarding working ' to the rule book'. As I became older though, and I like to think wiser, I realised that it was not the fault of the unions but the fault of management for giving in to what were often seen as union demands. If therefore, as appears to be the case with the current BA issue, the management once again f**k it up then we should not be blaming the CC even though it might appear that they are being paid a great deal extra to do the job they're employed for. That just boils down to envy - we'd all like some extra if we were offered it wouldn't we? These payments are for such a short time it won't be them that drives BA out of business, god forbid, it'll be mainly down to poor management decisions over the last many years

This whole thread should really be finished - after all none of us really knows the true reasons for these payments - and even if we think we do we're not going to a) stop them or b) get the CC bosses reprimanded for incompetance.

I've not always been known for supporting crews, or unions for that matter, but I really don't think we should hammer either because after all, whatever the reasons, it's the management that make the final decisions so we should be aiming any abuse (verbal only) at them.

Brgds

Ps. Although I no longer work for BA they are very much my airline of choice whenever I travel on business, which is quite frequently. Most CC appear to be very good at their jobs, although I'd not presume to suggest that I'm in a position to judge them because I've never been CC myself, just travelled a lot and drunk with many over the last 34 years.

[heavy crew]

Well I am suprised by the reception that my first post recieved.
Thank you all.

I must say that I do not hold with my collegue THS, although in mitigation connex does seem to be getting his rag,I feel that maxy 101 has a very valid point, THS, and their post deserves to be scrutinised by you.

Diesel I feel that we may have crossed swords on a different forum perhaps you would be good enough to confirm if this is true, I actually agree, in the main, with your posting as the vast majority of piots I work alongside are solid professionals who do an outstanding job and recognise the role that the cabin crew perform.

Connex dear, dear, dear, what are you actually trying to achieve.

If you are a shareholder, as incidentaly I also am, what do you expect to gain from this agressive confrontational aproach, if you feel agreaved by these bonuses where is the benefit of shooting the horse because the stable boy has given it too much food.

I am certain, if indeed you are a true investor not a small potato's share holder like me, that you would normally look toward a more balanced global view.

The information I endevoured to put across should interest you a great deal more than small symptoms of mismanagement, which these bonuses clearly are.

If indeed my observations about the loss of cabin crew are correct think about the consequences of that.

If BA are losing cabin crewin the numbers I am saying, they are not losing the 4.80 mcburger crew you so eloquantly envisage they are losing the quality crew, as they are the ones that are having no problems finding better T&C.

BA will be left with a higher percentage of your mcburger's, this certainly will not improve our customer service, this is compounded by the old BOAC brigade retireing who by your own admission "I like your reference to “BOAC wan*ers” – from what I remember, they always were better at everything than your lot – even wan*ing, I expect." will weaken things further.

I do not have all the answers to this problem I wish I did but the one thing I do realise is that, for the sake of your's and my shares medium term viability, If cabin services fail so does the airline.

It is a mute point how well the A/C is flown or how good the engineering or anything else if the company has lost it's cabin service we have the life expectancy of a Dodo.

As for your comment of the 100 quid jackpot fruit machines I remember them, they were in all BA clubs not just the Viscount, but before you jump to incorrect assumptions my father worked for BA from before I was born and so, as it is in my blood so to speak, I have the companys well being at heart not just the value of its shares.

Don'tdoit What is your point?

Actually the cabin crew do have a license but they never hold it as it is deemed by the CAA to be held by the airline that the cabin crew work for.

I actually feel this is unfair as the cabin crew should take individual resposibility for it, much the same as our collegues in the flight deck do, It would certainly focus them to their resposibilities which would never be a bad thing.

Yes they can lose it for various reasons, for similar ones as pilots, and then no carrier would employ them.

If you are the same diesel that I think you are you will know that I am an advocate of all cabin crew going on to the same overall systems as flight crew, I feel that would bring huge benefits only one being that pilots would have better relations with their collegues in the cabin.

I realise that this would not cure all ills but it would be a start.

I wonder where the old BCal sealion has gone with the ol' benchmark gag?

C'est la vie.

Safe flying:ok:

[swiss_tonni]

Hi all, swiss_tonni here again

My, I seem to have touched a raw nerve with a few people!

Firstly, dont shoot the messenger. Us "suits" at waterside dont wear a "uniform" provided by our employer. We have to wear "neat business attire" as could reasonably be expected at most corporate headquarters. So, you just have to accept that our uniform is a suit.

Not all the "suits" at Waterside are "da management". There are indians, as well as chiefs, at waterside. We work with and for our colleagues in Engineering, Flight Crew, Cabin Crew, Sales and Marketing, Revenue Management, IM etc............take away all the "suits" and the business would stop........eventually.

I suggested benchmarking by outside consultants, as I thought their findings may be more easily accepted by all work-groups. A similar exercise was done in the run-up to privatisation (the old, but still excellent book "Struggle for lift-off" details it for those of you too young to have experienced it.)

Now, to my detractors:

Heavy Crew: The cheeseboard Colleagues informed me at the time that the cheeseboard was given up by the pilots to help fund the pension for Flight Engineer Officers who were being made redundant.

Things not mentioned in Waterworlds ivory towers Things are mentioned, but there are managers who are climbing the greasy pole and who dont act on it. Good news seems to get passed upward, but bad news doesnt. When it does, its so rarely that people like Mike Street don't believe it.

Will you perhaps state what the new and old salary scales for cabin crew are?

Will you state the payments the cabin crew get for a Box A, Box B, Box C, Box D, and Box E?

Will you state the payment made to each cabin crew member for operating to an "unpopular destination"?

Will you state the payment for operating through the purpose built CAT lounge?

If you changed from being paid on the greater of actual or scheduled times, to just scheduled times, there wouldnt be the massive leap from, say, a Box D to a Box E for being a few minutes late. Everyone in the company is aware that sometimes you ask the pilots "for a slow taxy" so that you achieve the next Box payment. It could save the company quite a bit (might be worth considering you know!)

Post Sept 11, one crew member removed I note from Mike Harington's recent letter (now faxed widely within BA) that the GPM (inflight survey forms) do not have to be handed out when a crew is working "one down". Surely this allows the CSD to pitch in and help to a greater degree, as anyone ins a "manager" or "director" role should be able to, and willing to.

BA crews worse off than Virgin or Ryanair I seriously disagree!! I think you are well paid, that you do have good conditions, and that you personally are living in a fools paradise.

Wishing it were true You said that your take home pay is about 1/3 of 67k, so about 22.3k after tax, N.I, Pension, and FSRC are deducted. It really is a very good salary. Have a look in the employment pages and compare!!

Benchmarking would improve your salary, benefits and T&C's I really dont think so, again, check the newspapers and industry publications.

ThS Basic pay of 10.8k ? What is your total average gross pay?

Employed by BA because of your "perfect" skills, you do a "perfect" job . No problem with your self worth then.

disappointed You deal with sick people, dead people, bereaved people etc, well so do many ground staff, and loads of people in other occupations, for a whole lot less. Its part of the job!!

So BA offered £ 'ss without any discussion or negotiation? If that is true then someone needs to be sacked. I have heard from one source that over 50 flights have departed with one Cabin Crew member down. Everyone needs to realise if we want to keeps the company going, we need to reduce costs. Its not a joke. If we dont, there will be no BA.

To everyone else Its such a shame that some workgroups within the airline refuse to see that things have to change. A long term view has to be taken, our pre-occupation with going from one month to the next, only assures our survival from one month to the next.

All Staff, and All Unions have to realise the situation we are in. Without the realisation, there will be no desire to change.

If the there is no change, in a couple of years there will be no BA.

Think about it. Question your managers and your unions. If we dont do anything, BA will disappear.

Have a look in the papers and industry publications and consider if redundacy happened tomorrow, would anyone else pay you the same for the same job? You might realise that we are all on a very good wicket. A small change might be better to achieve a long term future.

Senior Management and Directors need to feel the pain, and show humility. Mike Street and co should accept a smaller number of share options, not an ever increasing number. Management cars should be smaller and cheaper (no pain, no gain)

We need leadership, we need to accept that there is a problem, and we need to change.

Toodle pip

Swiss_Tonni

Working for an airline is a lot like making love to a beautifull woman ( lost on those who didnt watch The Fast Show!)

[Diesel]

Heavy

Yup it's me! Got fed up doing DIY on my days off so here I am...

As for being on the same work system - sounds like a good idea to me. It would probably lead to Flt ops and IFS becoming one - perhaps a lot of people would not like that and therein is the problem.


Swiss-toni,

I suspect it would be very unwise of any CC member to openly print salary details as you request on a a public forum. Such info can be manipulated and before you know it there's something in the Daily Mail attacking CC pay, claiming the reason the last flight you travelled on was late was the CC demanding this that or the other.

BA has c*cked up crewing and has asked the CC community to dig them out of a hole. In return a small number of people will benefit by receiving extra pay. If you turned up at work and your employer asked you to cover for your absent colleague and work late and then offered you x pounds to do it would you say "oh no don't pay me....."

The blame for this lies with whoever has allowed the management structure in BA to become so utterly ineffective and yet so able to dig itself out of self imposed holes by throwing money around, not with those lucky enough to be on the reeiving end.

Regards the request for slow taxi etc - got to say it's largely a thing of the past. More urban myth than reality.

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe CC are all sweetness and light. Nor any dept for that matter. Nor do I accept CC are poorly paid - In the main I suspect the opposite is usually true - However this particular mess has highlighted for me the dreadful way in which we are run rather than anything about CC.

If CC salary were all just salary, removing the titles for cat pymnt/destination paymnt/ETP/ etc.. perhaps what is earnt would seem less controversial. Do you object to the total salary being earnt or the manner in which it is earnt?

On the whole my CC colleagues do a good job in often difficult circumstances. They spend a great deal of time away from home and their loved ones and are paid, in the main, a good salary for that(IMHO). While I would personally take issue with their union's approach to on the day flexibilty I have to say that the current b*lls up is not their responsibilty at all.

Regards

Diesel

[Well thats Me]

swiss_tonni

QUOTE

"All Staff, and All Unions have to realise the situation we are in. Without the realisation, there will be no desire to change.

If the there is no change, in a couple of years there will be no BA.

Think about it. Question your managers and your unions. If we don't do anything, BA will disappear."

************************************************************ ************************************************

Then its probable going to disappear sadly,by that i don't mean that i want it too but how can i convince my manager to leave BA because that's what it needs to start the ball rolling with regards change.

Your probably thinking what on earth is he on about - We all know BA is vastly top heavy,all the sections are,you know it,i know it and the media know it - so how can that change?.

Option 1 _ The one preferred by My managers,Your managers in Water world and the 30% of non productive employees at BA ( who would love your call for you and me to get together and discuss our T + C changes ).

>>>> Get the productive staff to accept what amounts to a pay cut there by artificially correcting the situation and keeping them in long term employment they couldn't hope to reproduce elsewhere.

OR

Option 2 _ The common sense approach is to ask ,exactly what does BA as an airline need to run as a business and make money?
>> Pilots yes, Cabin crew yes,Admin staff yes, Managers - some ( big further list here but all productive staff - one way or the other )

Flight crew managers - need a few ( less than 10 i would think ), CSDs - nope don't need them, Engineering TEMs - Nope, 125 menu planners - Buy a PC for that, Feng shui consultants - having a laugh now >>> i could go on but it amounts to about 12000 staff in Non required jobs and we all know it.

The bottom line is BA will have no respect and will not be taken seriously by myself or others regardless what they say while them employ people to sit at home or offer people extra money to do the jobs they are employed for in the first place


I want option 2 my manager wants option 1 - What to do with this then?

[dontdoit]

Heavy Crew - I've just checked with the CAA, sorry, you don't have a licence, no more than the kid who works the fryer in Burger King has a licence to fry chips. The pilots have a licence which belongs to them, not the airline, but when the airline goes under, the plate layers do not have any professional qualification which can be taken elsewhere.

[Selhurst Parkie]

Swiss Tony get your facts right before spouting out utter sh*te like most of your colleagues do in Waterworld on a regular basis!!
As mentionned previously the figures stated were the totals, not per hour, and it took the union virtually no time at all to get the company to agree those figures because the company knew it was their screw up. Yes, thats right yet another f**k up by yet another total incompetant sitting in an office drinking coffee and really doing nothing towards keeping passengers flying with us (someone probably a bit like yourself with nothing better to do during their working day than spread total bulls**t to make another department look bad, then go for another coffee break disguised as a meeting to plan a meeting to plan a meeting whilst relaxing in one of the cosmopolitan caffs on "the Street")
This money was also only paid to flights that actually did leave short, many didn't. My Los Angeles was fully crewed thank God, and even so with the scenes in the back galley half way through the flight it was just as well that it was fully crewed. Arguments left right and centre with passengers who were still hungry with four hours to go till the next meal service and nothing left for them to eat until then because some ar*e in an office (yes yet another one and there's plenty more where this one came from!!) has reduced the product on board so there aren't enough mid flight snacks to go round, then only having water (tap water courtesy of the boeing spring I might add), tea and coffee to serve with the second meal service because yet another incompetant ar*e in an office has reduced the amount of juices and canned drinks on board.
So to sum up my rant DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON THE OVERPAID UNDERWORKED CABIN CREW WHINGE THAT YOU LOT FROM THE OFFICES SPURT OUT ON A DAY TO DAY BASIS; ANY OF THE CREWS UNLUCKY ENOUGH TO HAVE GONE ONE DOWN AT THE WEEKEND WOULD HAVE WORKED THEIR AR*ES OFF FOR THE EXTRA MONEY AND GIVEN A CHOICE MOST WOULD HAVE RATHER HAD THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF CREW IN THE FIRST PLACE HAD "THE SUITS" NOT MADE ANOTHER FAMOUS FU*K UP!! CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT THE NEXT ONE IS GOING TO BE THEN WE CAN EARN EVEN MORE MONEY WHILE YOU LOT WORK OUT "DUH, WOT WENT WRONG THIS TIME????????????"

[Wishing It Were True]

Swiss - I never said I was poorly paid, I simply took issue with figures being bandied about here. As someone who has done twenty years and in a supervisory grade I think the remuneration package is adequate (no more) which is why I continue in the job.

[qoute] Will you perhaps state what the new and old salary scales for cabin crew are?

Will you state the payments the cabin crew get for a Box A, Box B, Box C, Box D, and Box E?

Will you state the payment made to each cabin crew member for operating to an "unpopular destination"?

Will you state the payment for operating through the purpose built CAT lounge? [/quote]

1. Will you publish on this site, the details & salary scales of your job?
2. No such thing as "Boxes A,B,C,D nor E. "
3. No such thing as an "Unpopular Destination" payment.
4. No idea as that is a EF payment, like comparing chalk & cheese.

Perhaps I am being pedantic but I have no intention of discussing particular elements of a departments pay package taken out of context. I have already disclosed my personal earnings over the past 12 months. Perhaps those who are criticising cabin crew payment should reveal details of their own pay packages?

[Human Factor]

As for being on the same work system - sounds like a good idea to me. It would probably lead to Flt ops and IFS becoming one - perhaps a lot of people would not like that and therein is the problem.

A lot of people are probably going to have to lump it sooner or later then. The CAA is looking at this and asking the question why BA is different to every other airline in the world.

[ThS]

well thats me, wishing it were true, selhurst parkie

good postings..

maxy101

sorry i was a bit out of line, but it was what came out at the mo.
aswell, felt I can't be bothered with the energy to reply back to the .........

etrang

well, you may call it bad attitude, but I don't think so.
also, this is a forum and it can be a heated debate.
And if you think I would take my personal views and use them at work, then think again my friend. I wasn't born y-day.

Diesel

Sadly I would say, during my time with E/F made me very anti F/D
only coz I found them needy, greedy...

I bet there is a lot of good guys/girls out there, but if you have a few to many bad experiences, then I frankly can not be asked.
And in MY opinion, it hasn't really helped after the door got locked.

swiss tonni

WOW.. here we go...

what can I more say, then already been said by Selhurst, Well and wishing

will add a few things.. if you look at our salaries. If you live in London, with the cost of living and all.. We are NOT well paid.

and btw to all others...

what is wrong to be able and say, I was emplyed for my PERFECT skills and doing a PERFECT job! I know it's a VERY American way of thinking, but I did work for an American company before. I know I do a good job, and willing to learn more!

[heavy crew]

OK don't doit how do they, the caa, know that whoever is operating on a BA a/c is qualified then?

To continue why do we take annual exams, just pay 90 people to constantly sit in cranebank and then just use anybody you like,just get an ID and bingo, after all all that training must be expensive eh?

Are you a muppet?

Don't answer it's patantly clear.

Thanks rescue3 I think you are correct, BA as I understand it have a blanket scheme that covers all crew which the CAA can inspect at will I assume.

In going back to cabin crew carrying their own as it would encourage a general feeling of ownership, that in itself being a benefit in encouraging crew to keep recent ect and improving standards.

To all people who feel that BA cabin crew are overpaid why have BA had to raise their recruitment start wage from 8k to just over 9k.

This raise has been highly unpopular within cabin crew because BA have raised the new entrant salary to the wage of the last recruits current salary.

So basically they have worked for over 5 years getting yearly increments and are only 3 years away from their wages being capped and the new recruits get the same wage as they do nice!

Why would the company need to do that to such overpaid people?

Are you aware that new crew with Ryan air earn aprox 25k per year, (now I accept that they pay for their own training, so probably hold their own licence) I may not wish to work for them but show me a BA Main crew member who gets to that not many even at LHR WW no chance for the rest like LGW WW and EF.

Are you also aware that Virgin pay considerably more basic salary to their new entrants than we do, I accept that once you get to the pinacles of LHR WW then you may edge ahead but our basic never catches them and theirs is not capped after 8 years,

Suffice to say that you have to get to LHR WW damn quick and that probably will not happen and I am not talking A fleet here you need to be at B div which means giving up promotion.

Therefore you always just fall back.

Oh yes lets say YEAH BUT A CSD EARNS MILLIONS.

Oh get a grip after how long?

Think about it,

Why do you think everyones leaving?

[Diesel]

ThS

What a sad admission! There are something like 3500 pilots - have you met them all? The vast majority of FC I encounter are pleasant and friendly.

I'm sorry that you have had some bad experiences. However your decision to become "anti FD" does you no credit.

I for one will not resort to condemning all my colleagues because of the occasional idiot I encounter. Perhaps if there were less generalisation we would all be able to be much happier at work?

Regards

Diesel

[fruitbat]

The idea that a person can be generalised because of their job just cracks me up! If we all met in a pub could you seriously say all FD would be trumped up idiots, or that ALL cabin crew would be happy and charming. Think you need to look beyond the uniform, we weren't born to do our selected jobs! I guess all the JJ's had a personality transplant when they changed job?

The money mentioned here is for some of the top earners in CC, and yes it is a lot of money. What needs to be done is to put everyone on a fair, transparent system that will even out the rewards. There shouldn't be the disparity between LH and SH, it is the same job. People could then choose the lifestyle that actually suits them, and then the satisfaction levels might increase.

If people are leaving in droves then BA will be rubbing their hands with glee. More cheap new entrants to play off against the old contract, divide and rule, oldest trick in the book. Do Virgin worry that their staff only stay a few years, no, they positively encourage it. See the world for a years, full of enthusiasm and feeling of wonderment at the job, then leave and get a 'normal' job.

A benchmarking exercise for some BA crew would be financial suicide, and hence we haven't seen any such process.

[heavy crew]

Human I am understandably interested in your last remark.

Are BA the only other company to work cabin crew to a differing system than the pilots.

If that is so I take it that means that other company's cabin crew have a limit of around 900 flying hours like pilots, by the fact that they are working to the same systems.

Or is that assumption incorrect?

fruit bat I do not feel that people should be forced to take basic salary pay cuts do you agree?

Therefore the restructuring may work for most but the guys at LHR B div will get a kicking if it goes ahead, but as it is not basic salary that we are talking about it should be possible.

I actually am in favour of pay restructuring for cabin crew as the present system only suits the very senior CSD'sand PSRs at B Div.

The CSD's would lose out somewhat the pursers however could go for promotion to mitigate their losses and after promotion should be better off, same for the main crew.

The current system encourages crew to avoid promotion and stay within the grade they are until their no comes round.

There must be a increase in crew morale when people can choose the lifestyle that suits and get promotion for more salary, rather than having to stay at LHRWW Bdiv because any move even promotion is a pay drop.

That system is insane.:(

Finaly your comment that a benchmark exercise would be finacial suicide, you are correct.

It would cost BA a packet especially if we used the same european carriers as the flight crew did.

Lets also not forget that BA are not rubbing their hands that much as many of the crew that are leaving ARE new contract, so no real saving just the cost of recruitment, training, uniform ect.:(

[Human Factor]

Sorry heavy,

Probably didn't make myself clear. What I meant was that BA is the only company in the world not to have their cabin crew run by the Flight Ops department. It is a source of a few troubles which is why the CAA are looking into it.

As far as hours limits go, my knowledge is only of BA. I'm sure it's normal for FC and CC to have different hourly limits (as per the discussion going on elsewhere on the web). Not saying I necessarily agree with it though ....

HF

[Roobarb]

Senior Management and Directors need to feel the pain, and show humility. Mike Street and co should accept a smaller number of share options, not an ever increasing number. Management cars should be smaller and cheaper (no pain, no gain)
- Senior Managers and Directors should listen to the workforce. Most of them have nearly thirty years experience in the Worlds best airline, they beat the pants of your smartest consultant.

- Mike Street should accept the gold carriage clock and nothing else – ever.

- Management cars should be used for leaving the car park one last time.

It would probably lead to Flt ops and IFS becoming one - perhaps a lot of people would not like that and therein is the problem.
Please do not. We have quite enough wukfits of our own. The thought of adding touchy feely pinky PC is enough to tip me off the edge.

Get rid of 20000
Benchmark all departments
Yesterday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/roobarb/images/32/09.gif

[heavy crew]

Ahh Human I take it I have you are the same human factor I have debated before, I think you may even have cotributed to the cabin crew don't work as many hours as pilots thread we had a week or so ago.

You are not a gullible fool by any measure enableing me to get people dragged into that old chestnut:E

Oh well seriously thanks for your comment I obviously feel that cabin crew should be working to the same 900 hours as pilots, after all pretty much all BA pilots yourself included get as near as possible to it and its Knackering.

No real aviator worth his salt would really want to operate an A/C with fatigued cabin crew would they?

Roobarb can I say that all deprtments are pretty much at or below benchmark, Honest.

The only people left above in all departments are people on the old contract for what they do.

Do you feel that the company should cut these peoples basic salary, I think it would be a brave person who did.

After all over a period of time they will all be gone, In cabin services the old contract are already outnumbered by the new and surely the company owes them the living they started on after all they have been long serving.

The only fat left in the company is in the Management level, Swiss toni and his friends.

The way to cure all BA's woes would be to set off the fire alarms at Waterside, compass and jubilee house at 0930 monday morning, once every one is lined up in the carpark lock the doors.

As the days go by, people will be needed, call them in from the carpark and let them get back to work.

Once we get to the next Monday morning go into the carpark and any body that is still standing there tell to F@CK OFF.:ok:

[Human Factor]

You are not a gullible fool by any measure enableing me to get people dragged into that old chestnut

You're too kind. Yes, I'm the same one! :D



The way to cure all BA's woes would be to set off the fire alarms at Waterside, compass and jubilee house at 0930 monday morning, once every one is lined up in the carpark lock the doors.

You press the button, I'll show them which way to run.

[Ricky Butcher]

heavy crew

To respond to some of your points:

'how do they, the caa, know that whoever is operating on a BA a/c is qualified then?'

Because they audit BA and check their processes for ensuring such. They can't check that every single spare part in our engineering inventory is bona fide, but they audit our procurement process to ensure our regulations are compliant. I'm afraid don'tdoit is correct, there is no licence to be cabin crew. If you doubt this then ring the CAA and ask what they know about you. Unless you hold a PPL they won't even know your name. The idea of a cabin crew licence is a pipedream of someone in IFS Training, a department which was soundly slapped down by the CAA during their last audit (ever wonder why a prescribed briefing format and policing mangers turned up overnight?).

'To all people who feel that BA cabin crew are overpaid why have BA had to raise their recruitment start wage from 8k to just over 9k.'

Because they can't advertise the gross income. Still had over 20000 applicant for 300 places though.

'This raise has been highly unpopular within cabin crew because BA have raised the new entrant salary to the wage of the last recruits current salary.'

Yes that truly sucks. Typical IFS management ineptitude.

'Are you aware that new crew with Ryan air earn aprox 25k per year'

But they also work six sector days. The maximum you will get from any EF cabin crew will be four sectors in one day. Frequently they will only one work one sector into or out of a nightstop, and in the worst case (HEL standover) its one sector out, day off, one sector home. This week I've also been flying with crew who object to the new 'fixed link' trial, which would allow them to transit LHR with a 45 min turnaround. You can't expect to earn Ryanair money when you only do 2/3rds of the work.

'Are you also aware that Virgin pay considerably more basic salary to their new entrants than we do'

Not considerably. A bit more, and their take home pay is substantially less. I know people who've done both in the last twelve months, EF take home is about 30% more than Virgin.

', I accept that once you get to the pinacles of LHR WW then you may edge ahead but our basic never catches them and theirs is not capped after 8 years'

No its capped after one year. There is no annual increment. One grade, one pay scale, a 10 year IFS earns the same as a one year IFS.

'Finaly your comment that a benchmark exercise would be finacial suicide, you are correct.

It would cost BA a packet especially if we used the same european carriers as the flight crew did'
'

Depends who you benchmark against. The ex Air France crew (we have a few you know) seem to think it would work out roughly even ( more for main crew, much less for seniors). Against Lufthansa you'd just look exorbitant.

[swiss_tonni]

Hello all, and the few bitter and twisted cc who have leapt onto pprune from the confines of the BASSA forum.

I am appalled by the comments that have been placed here by cabin crew about their feelings about their flight crew colleagues. Heaven help us if we are faced with the sort of incident British Midland were faced with a few years ago.

If you dont want to split a bill, and it is being dicsussed at the start of a meal, why dont you speak up? If it is being discussed at the end of a meal why dont you speak up? If there is a PA discussing an engine that has been shut down, and you can see a problem with a different engine, would you have the guts to speak up then?

I was wrong about the box payments, they are not Box A etc, they are Box 1, thru to Box 5.

You do call the pilots and ask for a certain time of arrival on stand, or later, I, and others, have heard it done. Perhaps BA should stop rewarding you when a flight is late!

You have made a large number of comments about getting rid of "the suits" at Waterside. Do you actually know any positions that are surplus to requirements? If you do, I know of someone who will be interested, its [email protected]

You are replaceable. A maximum of five days training would get the SEP out of the way. That would provide a minimum service. Dont delude yourselves.

Also, dont put yourselves on too high a pedestal, the rest of the company do not see you in the same light as you do in your grooming mirrors at Compass Centre. If there is any threat of a dispute, you will get NO support from outside your little world.

Toodle pip

Swiss_tonni

[L337]

Diesel:

Regards the request for slow taxi etc - got to say it's largely a thing of the past. More urban myth than reality

I was asked "for a slow taxi" by the CSD within the last week.

It still happens. Not often, but it still happens.

L337

[Diesel]

L337

Yes sadly there is stilll the odd one out there. HOwever would you not say it's far rarer occurence than it used to be? And beyond that I suspect FC are leass amenable than in times gone by,,,,

Diesel

[Diverse]

swiss_tonni your right the generalised comments and nastiness from some of the cabin crew posts is unacceptable but then again generalised comments and nastiness back isn't going to help, is it.


Your right 'of course' that you could train a lot of people to do the cabin crew job over night to replace us. If you can get on with it because there are record numbers of people leaving, your going to need them, perhaps if we'd trained a few folk over night the company wouldn't be in this mess.

[openfly]

I worked for BA, as flight crew, for many years.
I am now in business and fly considerably as a premium passenger on both long and short haul flights. I am now in a position to take a long look at the quality of service in the cabins of various carriers.
Believe me, I try to see BA in a better light, but I am finding it increasingly difficult.
Flying on Virgin in Upper Class is a pleasure...apart from the dreadful seats! The cabin crew make me feel welcome and seem to enjoy their job. They work hard at the product, from check-in to the limo. They are consistently good.
Flying on BA can be BAD. It appears that many CC in BA think they are sheer perfection ... the bad news is that they are not. There are a lot of arrogant, lemon-suckers in the cabin. I am the nuisance that is stopping them getting to their crew bunks. They seem to lose sight of the fact that I am paying a lot for my Club/First seat.
But, there are also some EXCELLENT BA cabin crew out there. I flew to JNB last week and the southbound crew were superb, in every way. Coming back was appalling....totally disinterested, not a smile anywhere, a request for a de-caf coffee greeted with a grunt, a shambles of a meal service, nothing cleared away etc etc etc. I bet they were on a massive long-sector payment as well. The CSD didn't show his face once on the upper deck.
So, back to Virgin for the next trip.
BA cabin-crew must realise that there is another world out there...an inferior one, to the one they know. Carry on like this and that is where they will be.
Maybe I am just an old fart share-holder who expects too much!

[ThS]

swiss_tonni

First of all, yeah it's sad that bitterness and hard word are spoken here, but when you come across people like yourself, who's got NO idea what you are talking about, then we/I have to speak up..

If I have offended anyone on here, I'm sorry!

Then you wrote this:

You are replaceable. A maximum of five days training would get the SEP out of the way. That would provide a minimum service. Dont delude yourselves.

Would LOVE to see what kind of crew you would get in 5 days training.
Again it seems like that you and some others here, actually have NO idea about what the job is all about..

There are people, like myself and others who takes pride in what they do.. and does it well. Som for 30 years and some for a few.

Then coming across ignorent people working for the same company.. ????? :rolleyes:

was it United we stand???? in this case...

then dear swiss... you come on with this...

Also, dont put yourselves on too high a pedestal, the rest of the company do not see you in the same light as you do in your grooming mirrors at Compass Centre. If there is any threat of a dispute, you will get NO support from outside your little world.

well, I look VERY good in my mirror.. :D :ok: LOL

BUT that comment sort of explaines why I feel like I'm from Mars when I come into Waterworld/Latteland.

HARDLY ever being met by a hello, or just a friendly look from men/women in suits.. more or less like a piece of dirt..
(except from the lovely people in the cantine, when I buy myself a latte!)

So turn this back to you swiss_tonni, what happend to manners of being polite?... a smile will take you a mile!

LAST on here..

I agree with we got the best and the worst of CC.. mostly VERY good.. asked a few people around.. and said which is the BEST airline to fly with and most people said BA.

If you take away the asian carriers, in the sense they are like robots.. no real human contact.. can't really joke and have a laugh with them.. in the sense you can with a western carrier.. then I think we are doing very well.

[heavy crew]

Hello ricky.
May I tackle some of your points please.

Yes I accept that the CAA slapped down IFS training, and quite right too.

The company had the csd's talking for 12 minutes about business issues and how the service will be done and other secondary crap.

Top and bottom don't dream that IFS training wish for us to hold our own licences, why would they? it is commited cabin crew that are sick of the shortcommings that IFS safety demonstrate that do.

The breifing is IMHO the place to consider recent SEP changes and refresh the whole teams knowledge of That perticular A/C type, what it has to do with club meals, I never understood and am glad to see the end of that.

The reason I would like to see individual licences is that each crew member would be more responsible for their role, after all it is not every flight by far, but sometimes crew do not properly check their equipment, on one flight a crew member pressed the evac button not the horn silence button, cabins are not correctly secured.

These are mistakes that are made because of carelessness, if the crew each had a licence then these things could be recorded and if someone does not give a Fig or consistantly scrapes by or fails annual check then it can be dealt with.

I hear a lot of waffle on here, by my best mate toni for one, that I can be replaced in five days, well that may be so, but not by somebody who is as committed and that has the experience levels that I do.

I certainly, over my carreer, have never met a pilot that does not wish to have only alert, experienced, inteligent well organised and led cabin crew dealing with the day to day behind the locked door, let alone when it all goes horribly wrong.

Individual licencing would be a solid step in the right direction.

20,000 aplications for 300 places oh please did you think this statement up before you got out of bed:E

In the headdy succesful days just after privatisation with unemployment running at over 10% BA cabin crew would beat about a seventy people to each place are you saying that is still the case HA HA come on.

I know for a fact that we are really struggleing to recruit suitable aplicants, this is generally well known if you wish I will find out the exact figures.

Glad to see that you have nothing to say about the huge amount leaving however, or perhaps that is a figment of my imagination too.

Your quote "But they also work six sector days. "

But how many flying hours and is it safe, the top and bottom is that Ryan earn about 25K I as I am sure you don't either have any Idea what the total flying hours are for their cabin crew.

I have recently had a huge, and very enjoyable debate about the missconception that BA cabin crew are underworked I must say that I am at what is generally considered to be the easiest base work wise for BA cabin crew, yet it suprised all of the piots that last year I did 991 FLYING HOURS, this is not that big a deal as I expext to get well above the thousand this year.

If any carrier is doing considerably more than this it must be a safety issue after all I am sure there are pilots doing less than half my hours and the guys that do over 800 are, rightly, considered to work perhaps too hard, and lets not forget that I am at what is considered London's easiest fleet.

Top and botom sectors are not everything, personally I would like to change to the same system as the pilots, I just wonder if the extra flexibility can outweigh the extra Hours I am doing to the company.

I think as regards to your benchmarking statement you will find that Air France do work out about the same as us, yet they all work part time, lufthansa well we will have to look at that one.

After all on one of the other forums I frequent we have people who partners work for lufthansa and they feel that it would be slightly less for the juniors loads more for the Pursers but no CSD so we couldn't compare like with like there.

Again they efectively work part time comparitively.

Lets be honest about this ol' benchmark thing, There have been many quarters, flight crew included, that feel it is a great tool to beat cabin crew with, well as each year goes by cabin crew get cheaper as the old contracts leave or retire, look in the mirror and ask if that is true of your department?

If not perhaps its only a matter of time till this whole arguement comes back and like a junk yard dog bites the hand that once petted it.
:ok:

Ahh Good ol Toni,

Hello again, I would like to add to my collegue THS.

As is usual with you waterside dwellers you talk about Box payments yet have no idea what exactly they are and who gets them.

The majority of cabin crew never see them as they are a long range payment, and lets be honest how many times do you guys stay working for over 25hrs.

I say 25 as it is generally accepted that working one hour at altitude is equivalent to 2 on the ground.

I will explain so you can correct your collegues, in latte land, box payments are earned, only really by LHR WW crew they are paid for planned duties in excess of 12.30 at night or 13hrs in the day.

Silly, is it not that all your comments are aimed at a fraction of the crew community still I suppose if the management don't understand the basics in cabin crew it goes to show that it is no shock you feel we are all overpaid and underworked.

To be candid toni you asked "Do you actually know any positions that are surplus to requirements? "

Yes yours and all the suits like you, as you have no idea what you are talking about as regards the day to day running of this airline.

The biggest mistake was moving all the managers away from the coalface as they have lost sight of what we actually do.

Face it toni I take 5 days to train a replacement you don't need replacing we can do without you and yours, after all you are doing no work as you are probably on your laptop working from home doing this forum:ok:

[heavy crew]

Openfly, firstly let me say that although there is a high possibility that you are b@llsh1t I will accept for the sake of arguement that you are not and your post is genuine.

I am deeply saddened to read some of your post especially as you are the kind of passinger that we should be working hard to keep.

I must agree that Virgin are very good and their cabin crew of course are good at what they do.

It is a shame that you are finding cabin crew with "lemon" attitudes, there is no excuse really.

The company is destroying Cabin services and morale is in the toilet, compounded by the fact that all cabin crew suffer from 6 of the 7 work related stresses, will never be an excuse for the CSD not walking their cabins especially premium ones.

It seems to me that a crew is generally as good or bad as the CSD That leads them, and in that case the CSD's you have flown with have let you down as they should have dealt with the crew in question, If a CSD can't do that they should be brought to book.

Sadly that has to be balanced against the fact that Virgin do have aprox 2.5 Cabin crew more on a 747 and that was before this one further fiasco.

How do they have 2.5 more eh well it works something like this .

Virgin have one more crew member but they dont have a first so the Galley op that is trapped in the galley in ba can help elsewhere also as we have a larger club cabin and that is more man power intensive I add a further half hence 2.5.

That is some advantage and with all good will in the world a tough one to overcome, it also makes us as crew more efficient benchmark wise but thats an arguement for another day.

I do feel however that CSD's are sometimes fighting with their hands tied between their backs as a great deal of the excellent cabin crew that lit up the cabins and inspired all the crew around them (lets be honest in the old days we had loads of them) seem to have left or are leaving.

As such the job of delivering that scintillating BA service, where the Pax all think that the crew fly together every week, as they gell so well together, has become harder to deliver, after all you have to make an omlette with the eggs at hand.

This is a depressing way to end this post as I am usually an upbeat guy, so one thing I will say however is that we are getting some good new crew however, so the future is not totally black, lets just hope we can keep them.

Just one small point do you think the Virgin crew loved you and the BA crew all had faces like lemons because you always travel with an open fly?:O

[Basil Smallpiece]

What on earth is a 'CSD'? Isn't the Chief Steward/Stewardess called a Purser?

[FrozenATPL]

Dear Swiss Tonni,

It seems to me THAT you are actually the bitter and twisted one.....

Pilots and Cabin Crew should work as a team - we need them as much as they need us!

Maybe you should put your name on the e-mail to Rod! The dinosaurs died because of their "brain size" - seems like the ICE AGE is knocking on your office door!

Have a lovely day! Next time I'll pay for your coffee (started to think yet?!?!)

Yours respectfully (if you still know the meaning of that word!)

FrozenATPL :ok:

[Anti-ice]

Exactly, you SO come over as the bitter and twisted one swissy - what is so fundementally wrong with your little life???

And you say we are replaceable , with a 5 day course . . . .mmmm - you really are on another planet .

As for you, well you may not need to be replaced - - your position is probably untenable, like so many around you, don't delude yourself.

We'll never know why you had to start this horrible little thread, but really all you've done is confirm the suspicions of many people within BA and outside.....
That you have totally distanced yourself into some precious little cocoon so far removed from the airline , that in effect you have no idea and really don't care what is going on on the frontline.

No doubt you strut around WTS like some self-important pr**k believing you are immune to the real goings on in the airline industry and the effect on your customers and colleagues.

BA would be a brilliant company again without people like you around, and if your idea of fun is to start something like this , perhaps you are best gone and long-forgotten.

BA used to be run by people with a passion for aviation and excellent customer service - till a load of self important wannabe's came along and (together with world events) ruined the hard work of previous years....

Bye - -Bye http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/ban.gif

[FrozenATPL]

You need to realise that without the cabin crew WE wouldn't be doing the job we are doing....

We work together as a team!

Your statement just shows how "narrow" your views are.

You say - anybody could be trained up on SEP in 5 days! Ever heard of the little thing called CRM - or are you THE ONE that still to this day doesn't know what that means?

When I look at all your post on this forum (and on the others - or did you not realise that people know who you really are?....) it just shows: YOU HAVE NO RESPECT FOR ANYBODY BUT Y.O.U.R.S.E.L.F.! Your attitude is a slap in every pilots face and an insult to every cabin crew member.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank our cabin crew for all the hard work they put in! We might loose sight of how hard that job actually is! I would and could not do it!
I've looked at our cabin crew members pay scales- and the wages are not "over the top". They reflect the price of the great customer service we give our passengers on a daily basis. It doesn't matter how "smooth" we land the plane (let's face it - it's our job and we get paid to do it!) - passengers always remember the service they received during the flight! Try flying with other airlines, you'll soon see what I mean!

You've just got to get over the fact that NO STEWARDESS would touch you with a 10 ft pole (anymore! I'm not talking about the one that ran off with 50 % of your pension!). Just get over it!

See you soon!

Your respectfully,

FrozenATPL :ok:

PS This might be my last post on pprune - because I'm just going to stand in the shadows and continue to watch over certain people!

[kfw]

Well how about ataster of box paymnets for CC ......

HKG LHR CSD £ 218.52 Main crew £ 135.41 plus £ 41.18 / hour over 12 hrs 30 for a CSD and £53.17 after 15 hours for this one sector , plus allowances plus basic salary .

No CC don't have licences but BA are thinking of introducing an operations certificate for CSDs .

This certificate will be valid for 12 mths and will need renewing by undertaking a line check which must be conducted by a CAA authorised examiner . Apparantly the only people on the a/c likely to be CAA examiners are Training Captains / F/Os . Ooops I'd better start being nice to them then . Sorry skip was it the fish or beef from First you wanted ? :{

Destination payment £ 62.66 back to back payment £170.83 but you didn't hear it from me Right ?

[sixmilehighclub]

Okay, I havent even started my crew training yet, and already I'm defensive!!

I have flown as pax with BA for years and whilst the large majority of crew are great, i agree there are some crew who do not always have smiles on their faces, but most of us humans are reasonable enough to understand its hard work, and not all nighstops and room parties, crew are only human too!!

I once worked for a low-cost start up which often entailed up to 70 sectors per month, 13 hour days, involved the crew cleaning the a/c on short turnarounds including toilets, walking out to the a/c, sleeping on the a/c seats in Ibiza airport for 5 hours on a split duty, helping with boarding, no crew food, sometimes helping unload the hold where the groundcrew had gone home for the night, operating 148 pax with minimum crew, operating a complex inflight service. But the crew always encouraged eachother to keep going, and laugh it off. The rumour starters and troublemakers were singled out and became friendless.

I flew transatlantic with another carrier following 9/11. They scared the pax around me, and myself with their boarding PAs, detailing the exact reasons for the delay due to enhanced security (too much information), they looked good but were unapproachable, unable to hold a conversation, offered appalling service and really seemed like they felt they were above all others. One girl got stroppy because a pax had stood up and knocked her hair out of place. My lifejacket was missing, I asked for one and I was looked upon like it wasnt my business to check!! So whose was it then???????? Everything was an effort.

I have wanted to work for BA for 25 years. I have dropped £15k in salary to take this job. The airline has changed but my passion hasnt. I hope that all the new entrants coming on line this year dont have their enthusiasm quoshed by negative comments made like those on here.

Encourage us please, so we can use that enthusiasm to try and make a small difference at least, even if its just to a handful of passengers a day.

[etrang]

6 mile high, good luck with your new job. I recommend that you try flying with CX or SQ to see a better type of CC srevice.

[ThS]

sixmilehighclub

welcome back to the world of CC.

Have to ask you, which comments on here are you angry or upset about?

The CC on this forum who is defending our world within BA?? or from the attackers from various places, even inside BA.??

swiss_tonni started this, and he works for us as one of the MANY managers within BA. (won't go down this path of .... again)

We, the CC are a great bunch of people, some are good, some are bad. But that's what you get in all kinds of jobs.

SO from a fellow CC, welcome and don't loose your spirit! you will love it..

and etrang

if you don't like us that much.. why don't you go and fly somewhere else?? it's pure and simple! :D :hmm:

[Hotel Mode]

Hopefully got another 28 yrs with BA, so bit of a stakeholder and i have to say that what disturbs me in this thread is not the Cabin crew pay system. but the attitude that many of the CC on this thread are taking that if a passenger doesnt like it they can lump it. This is NOT how we are going to survive the next 5 years let alone 30. I know the customer isnt always right and whilst we give excellent service most of the time, there are a large number of our wage payers who think that some of our crew are aloof and unfreindly. Right or wrong thats the opinion they have developed and we should be trying to change their minds. The response of go and fly somewhere else is not helpful and you do your colleagues a great disservice.

[Calle Belle]

Swiss Toni...why all the vitriol? If as you state, cabin crew in BA are pampered and overpaid, why do you not apply for the position? You seem to think, all we do is swan around from continent to continent, being paid delsey full of money!
I appreciate all the background work done by admin staff. At the end of the day, we all need each other, we are all clogs in the big wheel, that enable it to turn, but surely, even YOU must see, and read, how top heavy we are in BA?
By airing your dirty washing on a public site such as this, all you have done is to prove, or should I say, highlight the divisions within BA.
Someone on an earlier reply said that prior to joining the cabin crew community within BA, he had worked at Waterside, and he could not believe the number of people wondering around doing nothing! This is coming from one of your own!
The fact that you have to post your comments via your friends pc, just goes to prove that you are nothing but a coward. (Though I have to say, your real name is now common knowledge!)
All you have managed to prove is...what a load of managers we have who are soooo out of sync with their own workforce! If I feel anything for you, it is pity..and at least you made me laugh.
Best wishes Swiss Toni

Hotel Mode, Thank you for your concerns regarding the attitude of some BA cabin crew. Are you seriously trying to tell us, that in EVERY DAY of your life, you please EVERY ONE?? If the answer is yes, I can only think you are lying. I do my job, to the best of my abilities that I was employed for. I enjoy interaction with my passengers, (makes the time go quicker for a start!) People get off my flights, and say goodbye as if to a long lost friend. Honest they do. That also includes the last time I was delayed for 24 hrs, and missed my own birthday party!
Just as there can be sullen cabin crew, there are certain passengers that can never be appeased. The last one that springs to mind, is a gentleman in club, who when told we did not have that certain wine on board that day, (menu said A OR B), he wripped up his menu, told me to take his tray away, and sulked the rest of the journey! GEEEZ..and this guy was probably some captain of industry somewhere! BUT, his attitude did not affect my treatment of the rest of my passengers. There is only certain number of times/ways one can lick arse. Guess who felt like a P@@@K when he got off? Me or him? Hmmm...live and learn I guess. regards CB

[overstress]

Hmmm...
This seems to have turned into a CC blowing sunshine up themselves thread.

The point was that management have hosed money at cc fot turning up to work and doing their jobs.

Someone mentioned the HEL standover. This is not untypical of the fact that you get a lot more for your money out of BA S/H pilots than you do from the cc.

Some (I stress some) crew who are posting prolifically on this forum don't seem to recognise that the qualifications required to do ther job are:

nothing

the training is

a few weeks

the experience required to be an 'in charge' member by the CAA is

1 yr

If BA cc were benchmarked there would be a sudden glut of second-hand Boxsters, Audi TTs and Mercedes CLKs in the Thames Valley Autotrader.

Anyone who doesn't believe that, just loiter on the Northern Perimeter road for a while!

[DarkStar]

Overstress - can't agree with you more! I was unfortunate enough to be undertaking a course at Cranebank whereupon blasting through the wall came Tina Turners 'Simply the Best'. Apparantly, it was the first day of a new CC intake!! It was sickening to hear them whooping it up while we were undergoing an examination. Anyone.... and I mean anyone, can be trained to be CC. Bring on the bench-marking!

Also agree about your comments about their luxury cars, there was a rumour that any car parked in the CC carpark which was over two years old would quietly towed away and crushed.:E

When Size and Shape 2 was announced a senior CSD was seen sobbing just by the coffee bar in Compass, a Manager tried to comfort him saying 'not to worry, you'll be o.k, you've got plenty going for you' to which he sniffed, I'm not worried about my job, I've done plenty of years, its that I've just had to pay for my own Latte!'

[overstress]

Darkstar

Hope you managed self-restraint!

To any BA CC reading this and my posting above, please don't get me wrong. The vast majority do a fine job. My comments are directed at those who genuinely do not realise how well-off they are in comparative terms.

The telling feature is the vast number of v senior crew (in age, I mean)

In many other airlines, there are very few crew in their late 30s. Why are there so many in BA? It is because they are paid at the very highest levels for CC in the UK. This is a fact, it is not a point of envy, why as a pilot should I envy them, or even resent their levels of pay.

It is simply the fact that they are very well off as crew, some do not recognise this.

Some of their restrictive practices drive me to despair, despair for the future of the company in that crew can have a huge influence on the profitability of the company and they do not recognise this. See my comments earlier on the comments of newly-joined ex-Midland crew who have the guilty air of kids let loose in the sweetshop. They at least have the decency to recognise that they are very much better off in a company which remunerates its CC very well.

The bringing of CC management under the umbrella of flt ops is long overdue and is a nettle which RE must grasp unless he is to preside over the slow bleeding to death of a once-great company.

[Calle Belle]

Jealousy and envy are a terrible thing...
If I believed everything I read on here, I would give up my salary and work for nothing..since it seems, it is PURELY my wages that is stopping the comany being on the breadline or doing well...lol...how shortsighted are the suits in waterside?

[sixmilehighclub]

Thanks ThS, glad to be back!

Overstress & Darkstar, Qualifications required to do CCs job are none??? OK, its true that CC dont require a CPL/ ATPL, a degree, or a Multi-X licence.

They just need 5 GCSEs above grade C, a qualification in Travel & Tourism, hospitality or nursing, some customer service experience, resilience, patience.......

Qualifications are more than just on paper.

For anyone who feels cabin crew are bottom of the pile, could you do a their job? Would you want to? Could you still smile and keep your cool after serving and assisting pax for 12 hours? Politely dealing with someone laying on the floor staring up your skirt, in front of onlookers? Could you console a man who has just left his comatosed wife in an overseas hospital to fly home to make funeral arrangements? How about calming down the passenger who has just witnessed her daughters first epileptic fit?

No qualification in the world could have helped me deal with those things. They are qualities.

I have paper qualifications from when I had a job out of flying, (which incidentallly is how I got my car) but I have chosen not to use them and to have a job I enjoy instead.

So if when I have made it through the Tina Turner rendition and SEP, CST and AvMed exams and I'm finally online, and anyone hears me whining about anything onboard, please slap me and remind me why I chose to be here!!

I thank you


:ok:

[Anti-ice]

overstress and Darkstar - very sad - you are obviously a whole bunch of fun to be with - not.

Go and tell that to all your colleagues you fly with over the next few weeks.

You are so up yourselves its hard to believe you actually exist.

So , you REALLY want your airline to go down to your local dole office, and pick up the first few people they come across for your next new entrant intake do you?

The criteria for cabin crew is actually quite high, and includes a good o level/equivalent education, responsibilty, trust, pride in appearance, good health, and a whole lot more.
And the one thing you two sadly lack - people skills .

You may use a few neurons at the beginning/end of a flight, but for the bit in between you sit there monitoring a radio .:rolleyes: , we are physically doing a whole lot more and reacting to a host of varying situations and demands.

Why is it that some pilots (probably like you) are invariably scared /or in complete denial when it comes to any situation beyond your f/d door??

Probably because they'd rather leave it to the cabin crew - after all they are the best equipped to deal with many trying circumstances.

And you are SO wrong about the cars - there are some right heaps in the crew car park :rolleyes:
I've been there 10+yrs , have a 9yr old ford with 143,000 on the clock and no hope of changing it in the foreseeable future.
Its the flight crew who have the latest Audi,BMW,Mercs etc.....
A few c/c, but mostly girls that have married well!
The majority of c/c can't even afford to buy their own home.

You are very blinkered in your outlook, and i hope any crew you fly with pick up on this and treat you with the full contempt you so fully deserve.:yuk:

[Jet II]

Politely dealing with someone laying on the floor staring up your skirt, in front of onlookers?

Oh, he's only an Engineer - just give him a kick;)

[stormin norman]

There's a rumour going round that some redeployed staff flying as junior crew are getting as much as £85K.If so they certainly don't need the extra money being thrown about.

[ThS]

overstress & Darkstar

reading your points on here makes me sick.. and full of anger..

but hey! will not happen.. think positive..!

First of ALL.. reg your car ideas...

The TT's, Boxters, SLK's and all other expensive cars I see in the car park.. funny enough.. it's all people in pilot uniforms!!

so could it be that CC are pretending to be Pilots??? NOT..

sure some of them are driven by Stwss's (prob bought it themselves or married well. or CSD's or Pursers (who's been working sometime)

I drive an 14 year old Fiat, which I love..

GET a fat reality check man!

EASY to be CC?? let's see.. 6 weeks of training, tests more or less all day.. out of the 6, 3 weeks SEP.. tests everyday.. AVMED!
you name it!!!

and before that, interviews.... HARD interviews..

And then you claim that you can become a Purser or CSD after 1 year???? wow... I've NEVER heard that.. mabye I should check at work.. hummmmm..

As far as I know.. it's a minimum of 15 yrs seniority to apply for incharge role.. check it out yourself...

Simply the best??? at Cranebank??? never happend to me..

could it be you heard it in your own little head???

stormin norman

don't think so....

however some of the managers who were paid at home.. could apply for crew on a 6-9 months temp contract.. on their salary they had a Waterworld.. (that was what the rumour said)

[Calle Belle]

If your return on your £500 BA shares does not digest too well with you...SELL THEM! If your do not flying BA..we never forget you have a choice! Stick that where the sun does not shine..JEEEEZ..the mentality of our managers..(no doubt you are one) never ceases to amaze me! What a loser you must be in industry! If you cannot even chose the shares that perform well on your portfolio!

[overstress]

Anti-ice, Ths, you don't know me yet you flame me in a pilots forum. You can have no idea how I relate with crew as you do not know who I am. Your replies display a worryingly thin-skinned attitude for someone dedicated to customer service.

The CAA do not require 15 years seniority for 'in-charge' crew, how do you think start-up airlines do it?

My car remarks were meant to be light-hearted in tone but serious in content. You missed the main points I made and I still worry for the future of the airline when attitudes like these prevail.

[ThS]

sure we don't know who you are....

but since i work for BA, as crew

and I KNOW that it takes up to 15 yrs to reach Purser or CSD.

just so you know...

and aswell...

we feel we have a desire to defend something we think it's nobodys business other than the community inside BA.

So if you are outside, you can HAVE no idea of what's going on.

And I know some of them on here and I know, we give and knows customerservice.

Just so you know....

[Lao Che]

This whole thread has degenerated into a total slanging match.

I really don´t think that anyone is going to get anything constructive out of it so shouldn´t we just knock it on the head now?

I work for BA, I want to keep my job, feed my kids and do the best I can each day I´m at work. If we all do the same our passengers and staff will get the most out of the whole experience of travelling with us, and as a result we should make it through one of the most difficult periods in aviation history.

We work for the same outfit, as a team, so let´s start/keep up the good work!

Regards to ALL.

[disappointed]

I am a cabin crew member and have been for 18 years.
I , like many others, feel offended and insulted by a lot that has been said against us on this forum . However, I also feel that some of my colleagues have let the side down with some badly argued points, resorting to insults never did anyone any good.

This whole thread should not be a ' them and us' thread at all. As I have said before, the money offered to us was not demanded by a crew member, just as the shortage of crew was not down to crew sickness...despite all the rumours.

There are and always will be good crew who will go out of their way to keep the customer happy, and if anyone remembers a course we all did TOGETHER several years ago, within this company , at one time or another, we are all each others customers!
At the same time there are inflexible, money grabbing people in ALL departments and all walks of life who, sadly, create bad and lasting impressions .

I personally feel that swiss-toni has a lot to answer for. His/her post has deepened a divide which already existed to some extent between different parts of the BA community. . . and for what reason? none other than jealousy.
Surely the blame lies with the managers who got the figures wrong -

As for all the threats, 'I'm better than you' , infantile and downright insulting name calling... no matter what dept you are from, or what walk of life, you impress noone and let only yourself down with such weak debating skills.

I find being referred to as posh acting, bollock talking, OTT dressing and expense creaming particularly offensive...
I also find it sad that people who claim cabin crew are uneducated, easily replaceable minions... implying themselves to be on a higher scale of intelligence and of much more use to the world... actually have to resort to such drivel...

But I suppose that confirms my belief that an education can be bought and worked for.... a personality however .. you either have or dont have.


Final opinion, for me then, is that there are good crew and bad crew.. just as there are good and bad managers and good and bad pilots....
these arguments achieve nothing, especially when so many points are misinterpreted and down right inaccurate.

The crew who do their job well do, imho, earn every penny. Those who make a stand for the sake of it, who are 100% inflexible yet have no idea what they're standing against or why... don't deserve their job!

( For the record.. we do not stay in 5 star hotels .... and our allowances / box payments / destination payments etc do not afford us porche boxters etc unless we live way beyond our means! )

[overstress]

Lao Che

You appear on a discussion forum and on your first posting you demand the closure of a thread...

There are a couple of options

1. You are genuinely new, and do not understand the purpose of PPRuNe

2. You are a lurker who has just registered with a second (or third) username to protect your more usual one

Could you enlighten us?

[Danny]

I've just removed a series of posts because a minority element of posters are unable to act in a reasonably mature and intelligent manner. If a few of you are going to throw your toys out of the pram at the slightest provocation or demand handbags at 20 paces just because you are unable to figure out that someone is trying the oldest trick in the book of 'divide and rule' then you just don't belong on this forum taking part in what started out as an interesting but provocative debate.

Now children, those of you who want to carry on in a mature and civilised manner, take a deep breath, count to ten and then put your thoughts to print. It is extremely disappointing that a minority are able to ruin an intelligent debate by 'losing it' so easily. :*

[Anti-ice]

Well said Danny, and let's hope this put's a stop to the many comments and derisory remarks aimed at all your colleagues. . . . the cabin crew.

A good point made just before , was that there are good crew and bad crew.. just as there are good and bad managers and good and bad pilots....

Some of these in ALL departments are either fairly paid , badly paid or overpaid.

Certainly all the c/c friends i have made in the last 5-10 years have no hope of ever owning their own home at the current rate, surely there is a message in that.
Many of them can't even afford to run a car - old or new.

Those that the original post refered to, are very much in the minority, but as i said - you could find that anywhere.

Alot of what is on this thread is divide and rule,very misleading, and written by some very misguided people.

Remember, we are in the flying in the face of a world crisis security wise, and so working together and promoting good CRM is a good thing for all.
(Hopefully never), but we may depend on it one day. . . .

[DarkStar]

I can only relate what I know. I live next door to a 'old contract' CSD. We meet and socialise often. He drives a 02 Reg Merc SLK and he has said many times that he earns more than the 'drivers', even he has a rye grin when he re-iterates this every now and again. On visual facts alone, I found it hard to disbelieve him.

The new CC starter rates are perhaps the beginning of bench-marking with the Airline CC community, but I don't know what EZY or Ryanair CC earn compared to BA. Can anyone enlighten PPrune?

The majority of CC do a great job, however, the militant minority seem hell bent on throwing spanners in the works.

The original thread was about Crew being given money to work 'one down'. Most areas in BA and many other business's face staff shortfalls every day, but those who are left with the extra workload do not get a penny extra and to be honest, don't expect to be offered anything extra - in this economic climate, extra work and less reward seems to be the norm, although it doesn't make it right.

As unpalatable as it may be to Swiss Tonni, BA has got itself into it's own mess with agreements that were ludicrous in the first place. However, has BA got the will and courage to change these agreements whilst knowing the militant minority are licking their lips knowing they hold the ultimate card up their sleeve?

[marlowe]

Well after umpteen pages of text what can we conclude?? It seems as if being cabin crew is a fantastic job and everybody wants to be one or at least have their pay packet, so if its all that its cracked up to be why doesnt every one apply??? obviously the pilots are not happy with their lot and management are not happy with their role in the company, so come and join us because we are obviously the work group that you are all jealous of, so if ya cant beat em join em!!

[AJ]

The new CC starter rates are perhaps the beginning of bench-marking with the Airline CC community, but I don't know what EZY or Ryanair CC earn compared to BA. Can anyone enlighten PPrune?

At Ezy, given a 'heavy' summer month with a majority of 4-sector days, it is possible for CC to earn sums in excess of GBP1400-1700 after tax (after a 6-month probationary period); during a lean month with no NCE nightsops (where nighstop allowances for junior CC of GBP 22 are added), junior CC can expect around GBP 1300+ after tax.

Reasonable pay in comparison to other airlines, but extremely fatiguing due to nature of our operation (that applies to FD too).

cheers

N.B. Figures for LTN-based crew, that seem to predominantly operate 4-sector days + nightsops

[Human Factor]

Spoke to one of our new contract LHR long haul crew today. For them it works out at about £30k gross after six years or so. Doesn't seem shockingly over the odds to me .....

[sixmilehighclub]

I am told other airlines compensate cc for being crew down.

Not sure if this is true. Either way, I agree its nice to offer some reward for extra hard work but perhaps vouchers worth a lower value towards duty frees or a beauty salon would be more cost effective and just as suitable? Or travel vouchers so at least the value would be spent back into the company!

Why give cash? Dont get me wrong, I wouldnt complain if it was my paypacket, but CC dont suffer any financial problems as a result of the crew shortage, would it be acceptable to receive (if anything) a treat or benefit instead to help de-stress? Shouldn't the reward fit the reason for the reward?

It should be fair. Flight deck don't work harder if the cabin is a member down, but then they may have to work harder than the cabin crew in some situations.

We all have to be prepared to be flexible for 'operational circumstances' but rewards should be given for many of these unusual circumstances to promote fairness. How these are measured is another matter.

Am I making any sense or have I got my over-reasonable head on today??!

[marlowe]

just give me the cash i can buy my own treats thanks very mutch!! infact why not stop paying cabin crew cash at all pay us in vouchers then we can be true second class citizens .

[sixmilehighclub]

Sorry marlowe, didnt mean to insult you. Hey like I said, If it was my paypacket I wouldnt complain!!!

Cash bonuses are great, but after reading how just a handful of peoples feelings about it, surely there needs to be a smarter, fairer, lower expenditured solution.

If my idea makes you feel second class instead of the first class you are now, then I apologise, take the cash!! (and lend me a fiver so I can buy myself a gag!! lol)


Six
:ok:

[Anti-ice]

Darkstar, you may live next to an 'old contract' CSD, but they only make up probably 1% of the BA cabin crew community.......,
so anything they earn will not be wholly representative:rolleyes:

Remember , approx 6000 cabin crew have joined on the new contract, starting on £8,900 with poor increments and now make up approx 50% of the BA c/c workforce.
I can't see many of them getting a mortgage in W London on that.
Duh, yes 4x (£14,000) , oh yes sir/madam , we can offer you a mortgage of £56,000. Great .

AJ say's that 'Easyjet' crew earn between £1400-1700 / month in a busy summer month in their first year.
Since 1997, i have only ONCE taken home more than £1600 at BA ,full-time, and i have been there over 10 years , so all this talk of being overpaid is in many cases ........cobblers.

Marlowe says "It seems as if being cabin crew is a fantastic job......"
Well
A) anyone can apply that fits the criteria
B) Yes , it has its good points (in my view the other crew, 90% of them are great fun to be with).........but then >>>>>> >

If you don't want to be giving out hot breakfasts at 6am everyday,
or cleaning toilets on a packed nightflight,
or dealing with people vomiting,
or 4-5 hour delays,
or total sleep deprivation at times,
or 70% of your life is away from home,
or having to adhere to very strict guidelines,
or flying the face of adversity with constant terror threats,
or being verbally abused fairly regularly/treated with contempt,
or putting up with stodgy un-nutritious food all the time,
or regularly working 12hr+ shifts with about 7-8 hrs at home in between
or . . . the list could go on. . .

Yes it can be a great job,but there can be many situations that aren't so good too .
Like anything in life ,we have a choice .
It's up to you to make yourself happy.

[maxell]

From a purely personal point of view I don’t see what the problem here is. I am on an old contract that meant that a lot of my pay was so called red ringed, and no one can now earn as much as I do as an engineer. So some cabin crew are on the old contract and some on the new with less pay.
All I can say is good luck to the folk on the old contracts and I hope you have many more years to go, as for the people that are on the new ones what’s your problem you knew what you were getting when you started so why whinge about the pay and conditions now.
As for the people who are looking across trades so what if someone gets more than you do, their agreements are totally different than yours so get used to it, and to each there own and that is the way it should be.
The so called managers that live and work in palace water world where nothing gets done, should stop trying to stir things up across the airline and get back to doing what they are paid for, or do they get bonus points towards their next car for starting things like this thread. There again maybe that’s all they can do because they certainly don’t seem able to manage, maybe it’s their way of actually getting a name for themselves besides the one’s they are normally called by the people who do actually work in this airline.
End of rant for now

[bealine]

All I can say is good luck to the folk on the old contracts and I hope you have many more years to go, as for the people that are on the new ones what’s your problem you knew what you were getting when you started so why whinge about the pay and conditions now.

Okay! Rant Mode Definitely ON! Why should you continue to receive more than someone else performing exactly the same function as yourself with qualifications equal or better than yours? Yes, a new entrant can expect to earn less than colleagues who have been in position for a while - life has always been thus - but new entrants should have the right to expect their pay and conditions to improve over time to match yours! To do otherwise is blatant discrimination!!!

[Jet II]

bealine - whilst I broadly agree with you, if the company changes the T&C's for a particular job then anyone joining after that change is, supposedly, aware of them and happy with the new T&C's.

Just look at the pension - older employees are in APS (a good scheme), newer employees are in NAPS (a c**p scheme) and the newest don't have any FS scheme at all!.

But each group of employees knew what they were getting when they signed on the bottom line.

[ThS]

maxell

As crew on the new contract would like to say this to you.

I & most of my other collegues, knew very well what we got, and we don't complain about the pay at all.
But If you look at cost of living in London then you will see we are NOT well paid at all.

Also if you read Anti Ice's post just before that sums it all up.

If I wanted to have the old contract pay, then I had to apply to get in before 97. When the contract changed.

This thread is not about the old vers new contract. But we can only supply the facts to what is going on.

[heavy crew]

Anti ice I whole heartedly agree with your post.

To expand we have Pursers at Gatwick longhaul not taking home more than 1700 per month.

AJ could you give me an idea of how many flying hours the cabin crew at ryan easy ect are doing per month or better still per year.

I must say that over all it is not suprising that we still have pilots who claim to know CSD's who live in a palace and drive a Bentley to work cause the suitcase won't go in the boot of the Ferrari.

Lets be honest here Cabin crew are paid peanuts compared to pilots.

Even If Darkstar's fantasy CSD is real they would, when compared to a captain of equal seniority, earn a pittance.

The sad thing, that people like darkstar and others do not realise, is that it is the unfair cabin crew wage system that gives us the anomalies of the B div CSD/PSR.

It is a sad state of affairs that to earn good money matters less about your rank than it does about what fleet you are on.

For example a main crew member on B Div would probably take home more per month than a CSD at LGW.

This effectively means that If darkstar's immaginary CSD neighbour does exist it is obvious that they have not long to retirement and they are B div, the comparable Captain however would earn around 120k.

Lets be honest guys If you want to earn big money stay being a pilot after all you will never earn 120k per year being cabin crew.

That point made it makes it difficult to envision why you are all so far off the mark?

Let alone upset by payment that in the grand scheme of things only displays a lack of compitance of our management and a lack of understanding by some contributors here.

[AJ]

heavy crew

Monthly hours vary, but as an indication, I had 105 block hours last month - if every month was equally busy or busier that would take us all to over 1000 hours/year.

Factor in about 35 days leave/year and you get approx 900-1000 hours/annum (for busy CC on 4-sector days, which is the way things appear to be going, at least at LTN; I know some of our BFS/EDI based CC are on 6-sector days).

However, everyone knows what they are getting themselves into when they apply for easyJet.

[heavy crew]

Sounds fair last year I did 991 flying hours but am looking like I will do well over a thousand perhaps just short of 1200, here at BA longhaul.

If you are easy cabin crew unless you want to work for less money stay there, its only after many years when you can get to LHR that there is any thing like decent money.

PS if you wish to know the main crew here earn from 800 to 1300 take home per month for about 1000 hours per year.

OH yes out of that you have to feed yourself downroute as well.

Lets put it this way Why do you think we can't keep or find enough cabin crew at BA these days.

Sorry to say AJ but the masively overpayed and underworked cabin crew Darkstar and other myopic pilots seem to constantly bleat about are long gone.

The last few are retireing we that are left here are leaving in droves:\

Benchmark for the cabin crew,we are the vast majority so don't take the p1ss, most of the main crew here would need 400 quid a month more to get level with easy and ryan are better still:{

Oh and to add insult to injury you would't Have to do cabin service with them so you would walk a hell of a lot less miles in your 1200 hours:ugh:

[FaPoGai]

ANTI ICE et al

Well of course, if you don't like that much you can always go back to Woolworths.
Rgds. FPG

[fruitbat]

Heavy crew

Please explain why cabin crew should earn similar salaries to their pilot colleagues? Should the guy stoking the boiler on a cruise ship earn the same as the captain, or should every MP earn the same as Tony Blair?

They are entirely different jobs, requiring different qualifications and attributes, and involve differing levels of skill and responsibility. Fact. Any other argument is purely an emotional response.

[ThS]

come on Fruitbat...

I don't believe for a second that Heavycrew meant we, CC should get the same pay as F/D..

Think now that he was talking about new and old contract..

WHICH.. this thread is not about...

and WHY FaPoGai

should we go back to Woolworth? :D :rolleyes:

[heavy crew]

Fruit bat Your point is?

All I was trying to get across is that I do not understand why pilots who will go on to take home over 7000 quid in a month are bothered about cabin crew wages.

Darkstar seemed very envious of his neighbours CLK because he was a csd, I pointed out that he should stay a pilot bacause he would earn a great deal more.

What on earth has that to do with "Please explain why cabin crew should earn similar salaries to their pilot colleagues? Should the guy stoking the boiler on a cruise ship earn the same as the captain, or should every MP earn the same as Tony Blair?"

Taking that point onboard however and expanding could you not question why a pilot earns more than Tony Blair.

At which point however did I make the conclusion that they are jobs that should be compared, I just don't understand why all pilots seem to know CSD's with mercs.

The rub of this fruitbat and anybody else, is that it seems that pilots feel that BA cabin crew are overpaid and underworked.

As my last posting should tell you it is far from the case.

What we need is a little common sence.

You can't benchmark us against easy as they do no cabin service yet we are paid (at my base) up to 400 quid a month less.

We do around the same (if not more) hours.

We have a monthley Diners bill to come out of wage.

We work harder onboard with a more intricate product and more variation than any other crew including Virgin.

yet we still have muppets droning on how expensive we are.

If our pilot collegues on this and other forums actually looked at the truth and saw it, instead of seeing what they wished to see they would be very concerned for their 7000 per month.

As for Go back to Woolworths well you must have the IQ of a wallnut, Fipogai, get you head out of the sand and open your eyes.

We are already losing cabin crew by the bucket load, not the woolworths or burger types, the talented ones who obviously are having no problems getting better T @ C elsewhere, thes are the people BA must keep or else cabin services will fail ultimately.

Guess what if the cabin services department within BA fails so does BA and how well you fly the A/C will not matter a bit.

[AJ]

Heavy crew, we DO have to provide a service aboard ALL easyJet flights - the only difference is that our passengers have to pay for food & drinks. We also operate a Gift Shop service on all flights too.

As to who works harder/has more hours, as I don't work for BA I couldn't comment; BUT, lest anyone else get the wrong impression, staff at ANY LCC will work extremely hard - 4 sector days with 25 minute turnarounds (including cleaning the aircraft ourselves, crumb by crumb) is no light task.

I invite anyone to operate a LTN-FAO-LTN-AMS-LTN service under aforementioned conditions; both FD and CC work extremely hard 6 on 3 off nonstop at ezy and fatigue is a major problem. The reason for the relatively good pay is simply that staff operate a high number of sectors every month. Work hard = good pay.

But then no one forces us into the job, and I still enjoy inviting our passengers aboard every day.

rgds

[heavy crew]

Thanks for that AJ.

I don't believe that anybody on the planet, would accuse anyone who worked for easy or Ryan air, of not working hard, and I certainly don't fancy cleaning the plane during the turnarounds.

On a side point do your pilots generally help you guy's, I realise that they don't have to but generally do they?

Oh yes it seems that 6 and 3 though once popular at BA has been changed to a bid system or 5 and 2 on the main.

Do many of your customers actually buy food and drinks, the reason I ask is because as it is free on BA our customers generally have it and sometimes too much of it.

Do most people at easy feel like you, that you are well paid?

Would you consider coming to BA for aproximately 1200 pounds take home working slightly more hours.

You will have to wait many years for promotion or transfer, and as there are night stops you will have to feed yourself, genuinely if you are careful and don't drink too much you will have a diners bill of about 200 quid that comes out of your wages.

If this does not sound like the dream of BA that you have heard about, I can promise you it is a total reality, ahh but when I get to long haul you say, sadly this is long haul I am talking about.:{

[FaPoGai]

Amigos
Heavy Crew ,Ths, et al.

Why should you not go back to Woolworths?
Because you might then get a grasp on what the real world is doing.
See you all at the Labour Exchange soon.
Rgds. FPG.

[ThS]

FaPoGai


First of all, who are you?

Since you seems to know everything and all about it?

Second, what make you think we don't have a grip on reality?

[AJ]

Hi again heavy crew

Yes, FD help as & when they can with cleaning, and their help is of course much appreciated. One of the things I like about ezy is the fantastic working environment & atmosphere between crews, flightdeck or cabin.

I think you will find most ezy crew (or at least those I talk to) say they are amongst the best paid; apparently we get paid more than Virgin and charters and according to your figures, more than juniors at BA (I am very surprised to hear this). Nevertheless, some seniors have jumped to join BA, Emirates and ANZ (pay at the latter is meant to be very good...)

Regarding the food/drink - on flights to sunspots (Malaga etc.) we make an absolute fortune - my housemate has just come back from a FAO/AMS and back and they apparently made GBP 700 and 220 euros; given 10% commission on anything sold, this is not an insignificant boost to wages!

As a rule, English passengers seem to buy lots of food/drink, foreign pax don't, so it depends on the demography of a particular flight. Despite prices that I will admit are a complete rip-off, those pax just keep buying...

Regarding flying for anyone else, my preference would be Emirates given I can't bear many more British winters...(I'm English, but was born in Brazil).

regards

[BusyB]

FaPoGai,
I suggest you stick to what you know something about. From personal experience I know there is a well stirred mix of fiction and non-fiction on this thread!

[heavy crew]

AJ can I offer a heartfelt thanks for your information.

It is a total breath of fresh air to talk so candidly on a forum, especially one with pilots and be given the truth not politically engineered half truths.

Thanks again.

I must say that I envy you your relationship with your pilots, I do not think we at BA have anywhere near that level of closeness.

Obviously you at easy have the advantage of being a smaller and newer company and so benefit from the closeness that comes from both those situations, I certainly can't see our pilots helping to clean the A/C they would feel it was below them.

With your commision at the levels you state you are paid dramatically more than we are we do get commision but only on duty free sales and again at the same 10% rate as yourself, it is very rarely worth talking about a few quid per flight except lagos where it is often over 20 quid.

I can truthfully say that the seniors that have left you guys to come to BA will probably be shocked at how much money they have dropped, it will take them many years to better the money that they were earning at Easy.

Busy I hope that your fiction comment is not aimed at AJ or myself, it is posible that AJ is a wind up, and the info I am getting from them is spurious, if that is the case, then well done AJ you got me, my information is not fiction however and just because certain elements of BA don't believe it, does not mean that the information I have put forward is in any way incorrect.

I have however been asked by a collegue of mine to not post any thing further about our conditions and as I promised that if I was ever asked I would, I shall refrain.

AJ if you are pukka thanks if not you got me, fair play.

Perhaps a good idea with regard to busys comment
Fipogai grow up.

If I did go to woolworths it would be as the store manager, where, as you would be the van driver I would be your boss, so consider this your first verbal warning:D

[AJ]

Heavy I can assure you I am who I say I am; I started my training course in October, still on 6 month's probation and based @ LTN; other than that, I would prefer to remain annonymous as I know ezy management read pprune - you only have to look at the drop-down address bar on the PCs at easyland :}

Thanks for your post

rgds

[Classic]

Having read Heavy Crew's attempts to decry his/her terms and conditions and to resist all claims that BA long haul cabin crew have a well recompensed career, I feel I should balance these points with some clarification.

When HC states that the duty free commission on BA long haul is so poor, you have to remember that out of 15 or so crew on board only a handful crew actually sell duty free. They get double commission whilst the rest of the crew get half that amount. Admittedly the amounts are not large, but for most of the crew it is for making no duty free sales whatsoever!

As for take home pay, the amounts I have seen on this thread are often misleading. Basic pay rates, especially for new crew are low, BUT the allowances can easily double basic pay and the allowances are taxed at minimal rates. I have twice received the payslip of a LH purser who lives near me and have unwittingly opened it (outwardly identical to mine). The first time, 4 years ago, she took home £2450, the second time, around a year ago, she took home £2600. Mind you, that did include a few destination payments, (paid when operating to unpopular desinations eg Miami as so many crew go 'sick' for these trips.)

My wife, with a good degree from a good university, a post-grad teaching qualification and 15 years teaching takes home less than £2k a month, so let's not hear how tough life is in BA LH.

Let's suggest benchmarking cabin crew pay with comparable competitors and then watch the uproar from BASSA et al!

[Paterbrat]

Thought provoking reading. Thirty years in aviation and a number of companies, I realised that there will always be some rivalry and discussion about other sections, but the level of bitterness and almost hate displayed here is quite sobering.
As a frequent BA longhaul passenger over many years I can say that for me the overall standard of service in the cabin has declined, both in comparison to earlier years and to that given by some other companies. There appears to have been a slow but perceptible change in general attitude of the cabin staff towards the punter, then of course over the years so too have they changed.
Some of the threads here have appeared thoughtful, even constructive, others emotional and vindictive, what is undisputable is that there does seem to be an inherent 'them' and 'us' syndrome and an unfortunate dearth of 'we' or sense of BA as an entity. Individual empires and inter section rivalry seem to be the order of the day. The few who call for unity, and appear to be the calm voices of reason, are simply ignored while the vociferous and opinionated continue to imperviously blast out their particular dogma. Sadly what does come through loud and clear is an overall sense of millitancy and bloody mindedness.
What also appears to have been well and truly lost is a sense of teamwork, pulling in a common direction for the good, and perhaps even survival, of all. A sad comment on a venerable institution that has for many years represented to the world all that was the very best in British Transport Aviation

[heavy crew]

Firstly can I ask a moderator to report Clasics IP address immediately to the police, as I feel they should talk to them over the criminal offence of intercepting someone elses mail.

After all, Classic, your defence of "outwardly identical to mine." does not wash with me, unless of course you have the same name and address.

Talking of name and address the police will of course be more interested in what is printed in bold above that.

Oh yes private and confidential and to add insult to your p45 in the top right hand corner it gives the address to return it to if it is not correctly delivered.

Not good for you when your CRC time is upon you eh, bestlook out of the window the old bill are there!!

Well we all know that the police are not going to question Classic because his first statement will get him released with out charge, what is classics first statement you ask?

Well it will clearly sound something like this,

"Oh sorry officer but I was talking bullsh@t, I was just trying to prove this fellow heavy crew was lying and I thought that telling porkies was the best way"

Classic the only liar here is clearly you.

Thanks AJ I am glad you are actually for real it has presented me with some interesting info, my figure Thet I have given thus far are the gods given truth working longhaul ex LGW, I have started a thread on my union site that will decide if I should divulge any further information.

I have had it pointed out to me that as this is a public site publishing sensitive info may not be a good thing for me to do even though true they are.

I hope to converse with you further but can't talk for the meantime about BA terms and conditions.

Peter sadly some of your comments are very accurate, though it sadens me.

Normally I do not come onto this website but overall it has appeared that one of our most vociferous combatants have actually been the crew we work closest to, the flight crew.

The are many exceptions but overall our pilots seem to feel that cabin crew are overpaid, underworked, unskilled muppets who should be on minimum wage, you only need to look back through this posting to see many examples of us being refered to as woolworths or references to making burgers.

This actually shows a general lack of respect to the job we do onboard, I generally feel that many on these forums don't feel we are nessesary at all.

At work I must say I find that the attitude very different and generally perhaps 99% of the time I work with excellent professionals who treat me with respect as I do them and we work very well together.

Lets be honest If all flight crew were like classic and darkstar and others the locked door would be a good thing, but obviously the vast majority are not or hide it well.

Still we might not have Classic for much longer he he:E

On a serious note I am dismayed, though not totally suprised to hear your comments about our cabin service over the last few years.

I will obviously point you toward the fact that in 97 the crew joining did so on substantially lower wages and over the years we have had less of the quality candidates coming online.

Over the last few years it seems that even the crew on the old contract are starting to leave and we are having trouble recruiting on the salary that we used to have so the company has recently increased it, I hope it helps, although it is still less than Virgin.

Another point and more relevant still is that over the years there have been less of us onboard yet the product demands have increased this obviously streaches us and sadly it is showing.

I am not alone in saying that BA cabin crew want to do the best job possible but the company has some issues in the way it treats us and obviously if everyone in the company feels the way the comments on here show things will eventually faulter and fail.

I wish to finish off by saying don't mistake a few stupid comments and ill considered words, made on a forum, to represent BA as over all the company is manned by get it done professionals, that try at all costs to get the job done

[sixmilehighclub]

A team needs the support and co-ordination of all its members to function succesfully.

Our teams are made up of flight deck, cabin crew, dispatch, crewing, cleaners, check-in, managers....... and the list goes on. Without one team member another can't function. I remember something in the back of my head called CRM, did it die a death? Surely now with the security issues in aviation, we ALL need to pull together to keep us all flying??

Now what was the original point of this topic again...?????

Six


:D

[Nearly Man]

"The cabin crew are having a bloody hard time of it at the moment, with reduced crewing levels and ever higher expectations of our customers."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! In BA, yehhhhhhhh right :}

[etrang]

ThS,

"and etrang
if you don't like us that much.. why don't you go and fly somewhere else?? it's pure and simple! "


Yes indeed, and where possible i do follow your advice. However, my European business trips are normally arranged by the London office and scheduling often makes BA the most convenient choice. I will however pass on your recommendation.

[YYC F/A]

Wow,

What a mega thread. So long that even at my fairly zippy reading speed I had to break for a night stop and resume after min rest the next morning!

At times I laughed. For some reason the whole insinuation that one of the posters (Connex) might actually work at said organisation yet criticise BA's standards and dirty laundry made me chortle.

At times I was angry. The 'Woolworth's' comments and comments about Cabin Crew qualifications being 'none' were particularly 'constructive'.

At times I was frustrated. But, in the sense of debate, and in the hope that despite the fact that the vitriol has been flying so thick and fast that I've perfected my duck and dodge, I thought I'd chip in my tuppence (or "dime's") worth.

I'm just starting with BA as EF Cabin Crew. I've worked 'down the back' for several carriers. One of them was Midland at LHR for a number of years, one of them was a low cost, and one of them was a heavily unionised US carrier. Throw in the 6 month contract I did at a charter airline, and I think you could say that while I may not be an expert at all things BA as of yet, I've nonetheless 'been around'! :ooh:

First and foremost, it's been said before, but it's so important (and so many people seem to be missing it) that it's worth bringing up again. CRM. And the concept of Internal Customers.

Us Cabin Crew cannot alone an airline make. Of course there are the pilots. There's the engineering team. There's the great and hardworking ground staff and CSA's. There's Payroll, HR, Admin... and of course a management team. With some exceptions, as well as department heads and directors, I think It's safe to say that most of the management team should really be there to serve US, the workforce, as internal customers. Whether it's in monitoring and managing service standards, developing new policies and procedures, or working to improve efficiency at the airline (yes, cost cutting), ultimately the management team are doing a lot of behind the scenes work that should enable the general workforce to be able to do their jobs better, more effectively, and yes, at times more cost efficiently. Sometimes however it's better to spend a penny or two here and save a small fortune later than it is to spend nothing.

In addition to flying about 80 odd hours a month, I've been working as a scheduler for a hotel and airline management company (yeah, I'm a work-a-holic!!). I've been looking after the scheduling of about 130 reservations agents in our call centre. Something I've learnt is that sometimes it's better to take a hit in the short term, but reap the benefits long term. If you're short staffed, offer a bonus to get more people in. Take the financial hit, but by taking the pressure of the other staff working you see a (generally) happier and more motivated workforce, which in turn leads to better service to our clients.

When you're in a customer focused business, having a satisfied, motivated workforce that works together as a cohesive team is not just a nicetie, it's a necessity. I forget what Airline CEO once said it, but it was so true when he said "We're not in the aviation business. We're in the Customer Service business. We just happen to fly airplanes, that's all".

To those people here, some of whom profess to work at other departments in BA, your comments about how anyone could be Cabin Crew (it just takes 5 days of training) - I ask you to ponder this. Some of the very people who have posted to this thread have been customers at BA. They've indicated that because of poor cabin service on their flight to Africa / Insert Destination, they plan to take VS / Insert other carrier on their next trip. It's quite possible that the baggage handlers loaded the bags efficiently. The CSA's checked the pax in smoothly and without hiccup. The pilots got the plane safely, and punctually to its destination. The customer got their FF points thanks to the boffins at Executive Club... But because the Cabin Service was lacking, or more likely the service was there but the manner it was delivered in was lacking, this customer is a lost customer.

If that doesn't reinforce just how important the Cabin Crew team are to an airline, I don't know what does. Again, I reiterate that (with the exception of some superfluous bean counters and managers) everyone in an airline plays a vital role. I'm not for a second saying that Cabin Crew are 'better' or 'superior' to any other work group. Just highlighting the fact that as a workgroup we spend more time with the paying customer than anyone else. Therefore while it's true that no other workgroup has over the years been subjected to more stereotypes and misconceptions (and judging by a lot of the posts on here - still do!), the fact is that this employee group still remains the 'face' of an airline. If the customer likes it, gets that warm and fuzzy feeling inside, chances are they'll recommend us to their friends, family and co-workers, and hopefully honour us with the chance to serve them again.

The research boffins say it cost's 7 times more to recruit a new customer than to look after and keep an existing one. So, maybe if paying a decent (not exorbitant, but decent) wage to the cabin crew means we keep more crew happy, and in turn more customers happy and loyal, maybe it's a wise investment after all.

In regards to the cost of recruiting new staff vs maintaining existing ones - it's an arguement that deserves some thought and examination. Quite aside from the ludicrous notion being bandied around that the qualifications for Cabin Crew are 'none' (so we'll have any old muppet looking after our valued customers to whom we owe our employment), some people seemed to feel it was a fairly straight forward process to just get a bunch of new people in with 5 days training. In actual fact, the training process is a bit more in depth than 5 days, but beyond that it's not unreasonable to look at the cost of interviewing, recruiting, training and outfitting a new hire crew member. By the time you've employed a large team of HR people to scan what must now be in the tens of thousands of resumes, interviewed thousands of applicants, and finally completed the admin process to get several hundred into training: the bill must already be pretty steep. Add on the cost of trainers and training facilities. Add on a couple of grand for uniforms. Yup. It must cost a tidy packet to get joe blow from the street into a fully fledged crew member. So it's reasonable to assume that if we're spending so much money, shouldn't we consider it an 'investment', and shouldn't we be sure to look after that investment with a decent salary, decent T&C, and - if we want to differentiate BA as a superior premium carrier - maybe a little bit more than the other guys out there (Shock Horror!!!). And given these costs, to have people leave in droves might be good news for the HR and training department as it keeps them busy, but it's bad for business in every other way including on the $$.

"We know all this!" you yell. Apparently though, in the heat of one-upmanship and the proverbial pissing contest, the message seems to have been lost on many. :\

[Connex]

YYC F/A -

Quote "At times I laughed. For some reason the whole insinuation that one of the posters (Connex) might actually work at said organisation yet criticise BA's standards and dirty laundry made me chortle."

Me too! - They ought to look at my pprune profile - I do "exactly what it says on the tin".

Quote: "Some of the very people who have posted to this thread have been customers at BA. They've indicated that because of poor cabin service on their flight to Africa / Insert Destination, they plan to take VS / Insert other carrier on their next trip."

Correct - and we have!

Quote: "But because the Cabin Service was lacking, or more likely the service was there but the manner it was delivered in was lacking, this customer is a lost customer."

Correct again - right on the button. This is the crux of the matter - if I personally felt that additional payments were worthwhile (because the service was good) then I wouldn't be so annoyed with it happening. But the service is crap, and the CC attitude more so, therefore, as a shareholder, I don't want to see the money wasted so frivolously. Spend it on something useful - like new CC to replace the deadbeats who are currently letting the side down.

Quote: "If the customer likes it, gets that warm and fuzzy feeling inside, chances are they'll recommend us to their friends, family and co-workers, and hopefully honour us with the chance to serve them again."

And we would! Problem is, many of us have not received the standard of service deserving of such "honour".

Quote: "We know all this!" you yell. Apparently though, in the heat of one-upmanship and the proverbial pissing contest, the message seems to have been lost on many."

The one-upmanship comes only from within the BA ranks. The message (your cabin service is crap, and not worthy of any extra payments at all) has been lost on many of the CC posting here. The views of all the SLFs posting on here have been met either with remarks ranging from mild sarcasm to outright contempt, or have been edited out from the thread by none other than our apparently worthy, and not to mention impartial (!!), SLF/shareholder adversary, ol' Danny "Capt. pprune" Boy himself!

After having my own posts removed, and then seeing this posted by anti-ice,

Quote: “Well said Danny, and let's hope this put's a stop to the many comments and derisory remarks aimed at all your colleagues. . . . the cabin crew.”

and sending Danny a PM, I would at least expect the courtesy of a reply. But then, in this case, perhaps not – I’m only ex-BA SLF after all (not to mention a BA shareholder!) - and I expect you don't want to be seen consorting with the enemy, do you, old son?

Somebody remind me what "CC" is actually an abbreviation of - Complete C:mad: springs to mind.

And, whilst we're at it, just WHAT is the point of an open forum if one "side" is sent off, whilst the other "side" plays just as dirty, and stays on the field?

[YYC F/A]

Hey Connex,

Thanks for taking the time to review my posting in such depth, and to give such a detailed step by step response to my (many) comments.

You make mention of the fact that this should be an 'open' forum.

It's unfortunate that more people don't contribute to it with an 'open' mind. After all, what is the point of trying to put across any reasoned or balanced points or arguements if they are met with responses such as "C/C - an abreviation of Complete Crap" or "the service is crap, and the CC attitude more so, therefore, as a shareholder, I don't want to see the money wasted so frivolously".

There's 'crap' people everywhere, at everywhere carrier, and in every organisation. Throwing money at the problem does not in itself make the problem go away. But a supportive culture (where one's own managers, unlike a few on here, do not resort to lambasting, belittling and undermining an entire work group), a positive work environment, and an internal 'service' minded culture do actually do wonders for improving moral and customer service! While the arguements are hot and heavy about the amount of money crew should get (if any) for working one or two short, the fact is that it in many ways it shows that the management team are working to help promote a positive working environment by sweeting the pill of having to work short staffed by offering a (in this case) cash reward.

But if you're committed to your sweeping generalisations about all Cabin Crew and the crap service apparently being delivered on every flight, then I'm probably just wasting my breath (typing energy) on trying to put forth a reasoned, non-emotional perspective.

After all, as one of the new BA Cabin Crew recruits, in the spirit of all Cabin Crew, I'm probably just speaking crap! :ouch:

Fortunately, I tend to steer away from sweeping generalisations and stereotypes. Thanks for keeping our planes in the air safely, and getting us to where we need to go. I know that not all Air Traffic Controllers are Crap!

Over and out :ok:

[Anti-ice]

FaPoGai - get a life or try & cheer yourself up , or better still, go back to your old job at Dorothy Perkins. :rolleyes:

Nearly Man - You have no idea m8,perhaps when you are (if ever) a man, you'll take a real interest and understand the ways of the world :rolleyes:

[heavy crew]

Six mile good points :ok:

Nearly Man, In life you must learn to realise that just because you can't see something doesn't mean that it does not exist, think of trees and woods and a popular phrase with them both in please.

Etrang I hope you don't pass on the wish to go elsewhere and I genuinely hope that the company can help the crew, like myself, who wish to see BA back at the pinacle of the airline industry as we used to be, achieve our goals.

YYC F/A What can I say welcome to Inflight services.

You actually give me hope, you have a very good grasp of the situation, considering you have been here such a short time.

Obviously we are getting some quality new crew coming to join us online in both sences of the word.

Connex you sadly keep missing the point.

Most of your comments are just derisory and I can't see what you expect to gain from them except curt derogatory statements back, I didn't see the post you had removed but judging by the poor objectiveness of the ones that remain I am sure that Danny was more correct than you will ever know.

The way you put youself over will not however stop me from trying to answer your points however as we need every passinger we can get, yes even you and your freinds, if you have any.

I am pleased that overall you agree with YYC as they do make a great deal of sence but your post is all vitriol the only comment that seemed to be a point was

I don't want to see the money wasted so frivolously. Spend it on something useful - like new CC to replace the deadbeats who are currently letting the side down.

As vitriolic as the whole phrase was I would like to point out that the money you talk about of course is only a one off but the spending it to replace Cabin crew mmmmmm.

Deadbeats letting the side down.mmmmmmm

If you are able to think about this in a rational frame of mind connex I am sure you will come to the same conclusions as I do.

Firstly why does connex feel that BA cabin crew have deadbeats that are letting the side down, if we do surely they were not allways so, if they are here how do we get rid of them.

When I joined BA in the 80's we were the best airline around carriers would close a route if we started to operate on it slowly the situation has changed and the airline now closes routes if other carriers start being to competitive on them.

Has cabin services changed in that time?

Well yes of course and as I have said many times before, the talented and the characters have left as the Terms and conditions and morale have sunk to the all time low we find ourselves in today.

As the real class and talent leaves and the morale sinks, that begins to affect the conduct of the standard run of the mill hostie, who when things are going well is up beat and gives her all, how is she when things are going as badly as they are currently?.

Perhaps she is the type of cabin crew you refer to that should be sacked?

The fact of the matter is that yes she is not the finest cabin crew member that we have as she can't raise her game to overcome any longer but should the company sack her (could it and not get sued) for becoming victim to a state of mind and belief that it is responsible for?

Yes I do feel that the Management are Wholey to blame for taking the morale and joy in cabin services and flushing it down the toilet.

Some of the contributors on this forum also should share some of the guilt especially when constantly bleating about them being overpaid and underworked, which they are not.

The payments were a symptom of the illness that cabin service suffers from, most crew are becoming more and more disgruntled and that causes low morale so more leave so we can't crew the A/C so payments are made so the pilots moan at the crew who feel more dispondant so more leave.

How do we break this downward spiral?

As you don't want to pay crew better and more even pay and return the A/C to only just over one crew member less than virgin please come on guys you tell me your ideas.

[Paterbrat]

YYC/F/A your post was a breath of fresh air, though as every post does, bearing an opinion which it seems not everyone agrees entirely with. Certainly a change in tone though which made it a pleasant change to read. Reason and logic somehow always did seem a better way to go then simply slagging of the opposition no matter how relieving that is.
The acknowledgment of a lack of CRM and corporate togetherness appears to be there, what caused it and how to get aleviate it probably not so easy. Not being BA it is probably both impertinant and ignorant of one to hazard a guess but could the building over the years of completely separated structures and almost little empires within the overall corporate whole play some part in the divorced attitude you all display. It is almost as if you feel you are working for separate companies and almost incidentaly come together just thrown together by accident for a moment in a day.
With regard to the salaries once again without the figures in front of one, there is a danger of skating on thin ice, however could it be said with regard to the industry as a whole the the cabin staff in BA are probably in the top 25th percentile in pay conditions and perks ie the whole shmear. If they are then the pay for the work is not bad.
I have for some years been interested in packages and have been fascinated to see how some companies are able to make up with other conditions in a contract that are more than adequate compensations for simple cash. The point of this simply being if the offer presently made by BA is not competative in the industry as a whole they simply would not get recruits. They do so something must be in the ballpark. It may well not compare with times gone by but a sad fact of life which has been hard for some to grasp that salaries adjust to market conditions and as the warning goes these can go down as well as up.

[heavy crew]

peterbrat.
I have read your post and find that I agree with it pretty much wholeheartedly.

In the top 25th percentile pay wise, I can agree to that roughly.

We are not the best paid but far from the worst so that sounds about fair.

You must feel that we are awful for moaning about our pay and conditions when we are around the top 25th percentile but what we are up against are the ignorant people who still feel that we are paid masively over and above our competitors.

As you quite rightly point out salaries do go up and down with regard to market forces, our has been going down for some time now.

It is frustrating when you see that you are no longer the best paid or have the best conditions yet have pilots constantly trying to tell you that you are overpaid and underworked and have been for years.

That is more of a slap in the face when you have done 200 more flying hours in the previous year than they have.

It appears that this thread has calmed down now and perhaps our pilots are beginning to see the truth of the situation because there is only so many times you can hear some self rightous clown shout, without real knowledge, Well BA would be just fine if you lot were benchmarked.

Hopefully some common sence will prevail and we can look toward the real problems within BA that is the amount of managers like swiss tonni that are producing nothing yet draining the cashflow.

[oh-oh]

Heavy Crew,

That is more of a slap in the face when you have done 200 more flying hours in the previous year than they have.

As well as having "flown" 200 more hours than the pilots, I hear that you probably got more bunk time than them too.

:hmm:


If you were benchmarked wouldn't that prove that you were not overpaid and underworked, so what would be the problem with benchmarking?

:confused:

[HZ123]

Like most BA threads this will run and run. Many good points here but let us not forget that the culture and profile of the passengers have changed, not for the best, reflecting society and its general yobbishness.

Such attitudes make it difficult for crew and ground staff alike, combined with the need to reduce costs, means less service anyway and poorer products to offer.

When this started it was to do with extra allowances whether for crew or LHR ground services staff relating to the T1-T4 switches and staff shortages. What about the rest of the airline staff that get nothing for their imput into this operation. They must reflect that their sickness is off little consequence as is much of what they do.

[Da Dog]

Yeah HZ123 I am very much used to my management telling me that what I do is of little consequence:rolleyes: and I fly the damn plane;)

[heavy crew]

Oh-Oh it seems like most pilots on here, it appears your comments are ill informed.

I am based at LGW WW exactly how many 777's are there at LGW with bunks?

Oh yes none, but I bet the pilots got 100 percent more horizontal rest than I have, due to the fact that as pilots you take a First bed for your rest, I however have a seat at the rear of WT.

Not that I object to you guys Having a first class seat for your horizontal rest, I don't.

I do however object to people like yourself who seem to think I have things so much better than I do.

Lets be honest Every post I have made has been accurate, can't say that about my pilot colleagues, Good job you guys can fly a plane more accurately.:O

Personally I don't have a problem with benchmarking and the company does not wish to either, as it knows the truth of the situation.

it is only pilots like you who have no vision of the real truth that keep annoying us by ranting on and on about us needing to be benchmarked.

Which incidentaly we clearly don't require.

we are not the poorest paid in the industry or the best but we are the most lambasted.

Why.

Well its muppets like you that won't accept what is clearly infront of your face.

Perhaps you just can't see it.

Well to be frank iff you lifted your b@lls out of your eyes you would!!!:ok:

[Human Factor]

From a cabin crew cost point of view, LGW WW aren't the problem (and they're a damn sight more sociable than the LHR mob as well!), it's some of the old contract LHR WW crew who are above the line, and there are fewer of them these days. I feel that if the cabin crew were 'benchmarked', it would mean a redistribution of the wealth (rather like happened to the pilots) with the senior ones having allowances trimmed and the junior ones getting an improved set! The overall cost burden to BA wouldn't change significantly. A decent rostering system would reduce the absenteeism as well. However, BA give the impression of being interested too much on the short term share price than the long term health of the company.

If we can get GTS to do a full day's work for a full day's pay and the rest of the company to use swipe cards instead of treating Fridays as POETS* day, that's when we'll get somewhere and make real savings.

And NO, you can't have any more pension contributions from me until this is done. If BA can afford inefficient work practices from some departments on the ground, it can afford to contribute properly to my pension.

*POETS = Go Home Early, Tomorrow's Saturday.

[oh-oh]

Heavy Crew,

You seem to think that if you are benchmarked your pay will change. Benchmarking is a paper exercise comparing salaries, and whatever else you want to include, with similar companies doing a similar job. It DOESN'T mean you get a pay cut or a pay rise. All it means is that when the "Muppets" rant on about how much you earn and how little you work, you have hard proof as to where you are in the big game.

Well its muppets like you that won't accept what is clearly infront of your face.

So, apart from my balls :ooh:, what is it that is clearly in front of my face?

Oh, and why do you think I'm a pilot and why do you think I'm male?

[L337]

Heavy Crew:

So when the 777 has only two pilots, do they move the 1st class seat into the Flight Deck then?


Lets be honest Every post I have made has been accurate

and modest too. How do you cope with the perfection?

Thank God I am not married to you. You remind me of my ex.

L337

[ThS]

Hey!

Think I have to agree with Heavy crew here..

And say, sometimes you boys/girls in the front should open up your eyes a bit.

btw, WHY do you think we would like to marry any of you????

just a question???

[L337]

Ths

btw, WHY do you think we would like to marry any of you????

eeer who said I or anyone wanted to marry you?

and ditto. Sometimes you boys/girls in the back should open up your eyes a bit.

But then you are all too busy getting the service finished so that you can maximise your time in the bunk. Lets be honest that is a fact.

L337

[ThS]

L337

just so you know...

it's very easy to judge people..

(but these postings from you, really show your attitude against us crew, and it makes me even more glad I'm not first class trained so I have to deal with guys like you).

There's a lot of us, Me included actually like to work, as an ex Shorthaul crew.. we do..

and as it was said before, LGW 777 don't have any bunks.

so the LGW crew can't do bunk rest.. and I much rather work than sleep. (coz I feel s**t if i do)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just to refresh your memory, suffering from part timers L337?

L337

Thank God I am not married to you. You remind me of my ex.

[Well thats Me]

I was going start a new post with this but i think it best tacked along here,forget the whos getting paid what for a moment.>>>>

In this era of "Naming and shaming " i wondered if its only me that reads the jobs section of the Beano for BA?,as a shareholder and employee of this troubled company battling as it is against the low cost carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair its always nice to see an advert for 2 "more" ( didn't see any leave in the departures section ) Senior Managers.The titles for these essential individuals is " Pricing and inventory Managers " .
As the saying goes " Creating BallS*** jobs while all around you are making money - Priceless "

Is it only me???
:sad: :confused: :ugh:

[DarkStar]

L337 - fair comment about CC maximising rest time and minimising service. On my last trip from ORD it was virtually panic stations from the CC snatching up trays and pulling down the blinds!:rolleyes: 'Pax want to get some sleep'....yeah, whether they like it or not!:rolleyes:

Perhaps someone within CC can justify to shareholders exactly why they get 'Destination Payments'??? e.g MIA

:hmm:

As HZ123 said this thread is about justifying extra payments to CC when others get nothing for working one down, so lets hear the justification...please.

I theng yow

[heavy crew]

Human I agree with most of your post, however it would not be possible to achieve the change in old contract LHR crew by benchmarking as the terms and conditions are the same the only difference between old and new is BASIC SALARY.

As such you can't (quite rightly) cut somebodys salary because of a benchmarking exercise where would it end.

What may however help is a pay restructuring exercise like you pilots recently did as this would mean that the variables would be spread more evenly over LGW and LHR EF not as is currently all at LHR WW Bdiv where the majority are old contract.

L337 your point about the two man operation is what?

Yes I accept that when two men operate they don't use a first seat but from gatwick the operation is mostly three so you do use a first seat.

I stated that pilots get 100% more horizontal rest, even if it was the minority of your trips that had a first seat, which it is not, as I never have bunks therefore pilots have 100% more horizontal rest than me.

Again Dark star I am amazed, though not suprised, you have got it wrong again.

Destination payments are and have never been extra payments to cabin crew.

The destination payment came about after the reshuffling of pay to create the new contract in 1997.

As you probably don't know Cabin crew used to get paid overtime after 9 hours, in 1997 this was increased to 12.30 along with MT and london weighting and others this was put partly into basic and partly into other payments, those being Back to back payments and destination payments.

Cabin crew management felt it would improve attendance for back to backs and make low allowance trips more appealing.

As usual you state

Perhaps someone within CC can justify to shareholders exactly why they get 'Destination Payments'??? e.g MIA

As if this was a new payment made to cabin crew but as I have pointed out you are infact incorrect it is just money that cabin crew always earned just redirected.

As for your comment about cabin crew maximising rest well lets be honest here I am sure that the cabin crew started their rest over an hour after the flight crew started their rest.

Basically it appears that you wish to have the pilots live by different rules to cabin crew after all I have never seen cabin crew get upset when the flight crew start their HORIZONTAL REST 45 mins after take off through to 45 mins to go.

Especially when you consider that my break in a noisy WT seat for a much shorter time, your comment might make me a liitle p!ssed off.

Basically Dark star it does look like people in glass houses throwing stones here.

[Paterbrat]

A pretty deep and entrenched attitude very evident between front and rear it would seem. Probably taken years to develope and years to get rid of, and certainly not here, though possibly, some reasonable points intelligibly made might give rise to reflection on what is essentialy a cancer eating away at the company from the inside. It hurts you guys and it probably wouldn't go amiss to ponder that along with all the other disagreements.

[heavy crew]

Can I make a comment to dark star and all the other pilots who seem to think that cabin crew are always in the bunks.

Perhaps we should benchmark against Virgin.

After all I have not seen a bunk at LGW for years and lets not forget that the 767 has no bunks and lots of 777's at LHR don't have bunks it certainly doesn't compare well to Virgin.

After all every A/C in their fleet have bunks.

But still you fools still think that BA cabin crew have it so easy.

Perhaps when you look at us you are thinking about how the pilots are treated?

That would explain how you have it sooo wrong sooo often.

Peter brat wise words again, mostly in truth Cabin crew have a good idea about our collegues in the flight decks T&C's.

We see things like the breaks in first and other things that we would never get, we don't hold it against them and in truth would certainly not want to have tired pilots.

It does however grate, when the people who are treated so much better by the company, look down and spit on us with contempt.

You don't have to read many of these posts to see this and Dark star's comments about cabin crew allways being in bunks taking horizontal rest is just typical of the sort of moronic distain we constantly have to endure.

Basically If cabin crew had things half as good as many of our pilots mistakenly believe we would not be losing as many as we are and the payments that were made recently would never have been necesary.

[L337]

heavy crew:

I despare with your posts. Just some lines you use with regard pilots.


"But still you fools"

"That would explain how you have it sooo wrong sooo often"

"spit on us with contempt"

"moronic distain we constantly have to endure"

"Well its muppets like you"

"Well to be frank iff you lifted your b@lls out of your eyes"

"only so many times you can hear some self rightous clown shout"

"like most pilots on here, it appears your comments are ill informed"

"pilots like you who have no vision of the real truth that keep annoying us"

To quote you again.

"Most of your comments are just derisory and I can't see what you expect to gain from them except curt derogatory statements back"

Look in the mirror heavy crew.

BA has roughly 3500 pilots. 15,000 cabin crew. Of which 20? post on Pprune. Of those 20 how many are windup merchants? How many would say black is white just to cause an argument? Posting abuse about pilots here is no more good than pilots posting abuse about Cabin Crew. If you want to change things, here is not the place to vent your frustration. In my humble opinion. As a pilot. On the 747-400. At LHR.

I will now retreat behind my locked door

L337

[heavy crew]

Where would you suggest?

I must say that I meant every word of those comments to the people they were aimed at.

Do not assume that I am not aware that here is only a small group of windup merchants who post on here as I am.

It is the silent majority who read these posts that I am trying to get through to.

I have noticed over the past couple of years and more so, since the advent of the door, that BA pilots have become more and more critical towards Cabin crew.

I also noticed down route that the same unfounded arguements came out over a beer after a flight.

I wondered why, then, I was told about this site and the balpa site.

Obviously I can't gain access to the balpa site, so I joined this one, yet again I have been accused, as a representitive of cabin crew, of the same things as down route.

Hopefully the silent majority will read this post with now a cabin crew voice to answer the questions and the truth will now become prevelant and hopefully in time replace conjecture and misinformation.

In the next few months I hope to be lambasted less and less till it becomes no more.

I accept that I may have been confrontational with some posters on here, but IMHO it was the only way to get all the untruths out, after all you wouldn't want to upset a reasonable contributor would you?

So to get to the end, I feel that I have clearly demonstrated that

Cabin crew are not underworked

I worked 991 flying hours last year.

Cabin crew are not overpaid.

Easy and Ryan both earn more than we do for comperable hours and we deliver greater levels of cabin service, we certainly don't need to look at Air France ect to find better pay.

Cabin crew are not always in the bunks.

Cabin crew mostly don't have bunks let alone spend all flight in them, especially when compared to our flight crew collegues or Virgin Who have bunks on every A/C.

Cabin crew get extra money to fly to unpopular destinations.

The destination payment like the back 2 back payment was money that was already being paid as MT allowance, london weighting ect it was reallocated during BEP, I am sure we would prefer it in our basic but thats another story.

The company would be OK if we could just get the cabin crew to accept benchmarking.

The top and bottom of the situation is that, as you see above, BA cabin crew is not in any way head and shoulders above everyone.

There would be no benefit to a benchmarking situation except to highlight that some are paid more and some work less than BA cabin crew.

The only thing many pilots want to change is the old contract.

As the terms and conditions for all mainline BA cabin crew is the same, the only thing that is different is the basic salarys, obviously a benchmarking will not enable people to have their salary cut and nor should it.

It should be noted however that Inflight services wage bill gets cheaper per head as each year goes by, something that can't be said for Flight Ops.

That with ryan air effectivly giving their pilots a pay cut this year who knows, when the old benchmarking comes round to you guys again what will the result be then?

I am not here to have a go at our pilot collegues just to defend the cabin crew from the groundless accusations as mentioned above.

[Paterbrat]

The simple courtesy of acknowledging each others neccessity in a joint operation would be a starting point. Pilots cannot look after the pax nor can cabin staff exist without the cockpit crew, just yet that is.
The language that is generaly being used in describing those working in opposite ends of the aircraft also appears hostile and antagonistic. Toning down the rhetoric and obvious derision for each other and substituting simple politeness would be another step forward... a small step true, but a start at least.

[Human Factor]

On the subject of benchmarking against Virgin:

Can I be contracted for 750 flying hours a year please? I did 830ish last year with no overtime.

[Le Pen]

This is so foolish............

Pilots and Cabin Crew at one anothers throats here. :(

Engineers and Cabin Crew having a go at one another HERE (http://www.airmech.co.uk/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?/topic/39/616.html) ...... :{

The bloody Management must be laughing their socks off!!!! :mad:

Our combined efforts would be so much better spent "naming and shaming" some crap managers with a little story to highlight just how awful they are.:yuk:

Come on you lot, keep your eye on the ball and look for the real wasters and oxygen theives.

Love

LP

[Well thats Me]

Le Pen
Well said, after all the airline NEEDS Pilots, Cabin Crew and Engineers,i am now pasting my post from a day or so ago to make my point - If you read this ROD i hope you approved the creation of 2 More Senior Managers - if the managers laugh at us then the Easy or Ryanair managers must laugh at the whole airline.

****************************************
was going start a new post with this but i think it best tacked along here,forget the whos getting paid what for a moment.>>>>

In this era of "Naming and shaming " i wondered if its only me that reads the jobs section of the Beano for BA?,as a shareholder and employee of this troubled company battling as it is against the low cost carriers such as Easyjet and Ryanair its always nice to see an advert for 2 "more" ( didn't see any leave in the departures section ) Senior Managers.The titles for these essential individuals is " Pricing and inventory Managers " .
As the saying goes " Creating BallS*** jobs while all around you are making money - Priceless "

Is it only me???

[sixmilehighclub]

Can anyone enlighten me please?

Are BA not planning to install the OHCRs in the B777s??

I know some of at least one big carrier which started having them put in at the backend of last year.

Six

[openfly]

To Heavy Crew...
I think that it is time to stop your pages of vitreolic comments about your pilots. I think we are all sick to death of your personal lambasting of them on this website. Pprune is meant for general comment. You may have your own vindictive reasons, but you seem to have lost control.
Please remember that pilots are highly skilled and qualified people. You need them to get you back on the ground! Your qualifications for making a cup of tea (begrudgingly) hardly match.
If you hate it so much and have such poor CRM then I suggest you leave.
By the way...how come you get so much time off to put your lengthy posts on here, day after day???

[heavy crew]

Peterbrat yet again a valid post, I honestly don't think that we can or want to do our job without pilots, I shall try to follow your points however.

Human I don't think it is in doubt that BA pilots are efficient this thread is about how inefficient and overpaid the flight crew feel the cabin crew are.

I certainly accept that if you worked for virgin you would be getting overtime payments, I know of pilots who are getting pay deductions from ba due to not reaching CAP yet they would get overtime at Virgin.

If I however worked to the same hours as virgin, 750 hours per year would be part time, I would be doing 75%.

I am not saying that Virgin pilots should work harder I just feel perhaps we should look at how hard BA flight and cabin crew do work.

Le pen You are 100% right.

Hello again openfly, I don't feel I have lost control at all.

I do feel I have made some ground and hoprfully changed a few incorrect assumtions about the unqualified tea makers as you call us.

Where do you get the Idea that I hate my job and that I have Bad CRM, after all if I hated my job why would I spend the time and effort defending the cabin crew corner.

As for CRM you have obviously forgotten what it is about since you have left the flight deck and now fly considerably as a premium passinger.

IMHO when at work, I work hard with the pilots and we create aan excellent team, I was not aware that I have to agree with every comment to have good CRM.

One part of CRM that you have obviously forgotten, whilst having your new career sitting in our premium cabins, is that good resorce management means never taking things at face value and finding out what resorces are onboard.

Therefore you have overlooked the fact that though I give out tea or coffee I may well be better qualified than you think and have hidden qualities you are overlooking, infact I know that is the case.

I also feel, as was pointed out in a previous post, that the pilots I am debateing with here, are the minority but many read their comments and up untill recently, these pilots have been getting only one side of the debate, I am enjoying my time on here leveling the playing field.

Fortunately openfly unlike yourself I have no intentions of leaving BA, I am well regarded by my collegues (even if I do say so myself) both within the flight deck and in the cabin and on the ground.

This is bourne out by my OPS file and the fact I have many yes many awards from my substantial time working as cabin crew.


After all I give even more effort to my role onboard than I do to these forums.

As to your last comment,

By the way...how come you get so much time off to put your lengthy posts on here, day after day???

I agree after all I did over 90 flying hours this month and that includes 4 days leave, but notebook computers can access this site at any time from most locations.

Well, thats me, I do agree with you it is absolutely disgracefull that at a time of cut backs and cash being king we are getting even more managers.

It truly shows that the lunatics are running the asylum.

There are however new managers being appointed within IFS, as if we don't have enough already, to monitor the monitoring of attendance, that at a time when sources within scheduling say that cabin crew sickness is at record low levels.

This whole thread was started by a suit at waterside inflaming the pilot community against the cabin crew community, I suppose if he is succesful then that will open up more jobs for his mates and less for front line people. which of course we all are.:uhoh:

[swiss_tonni]

My, talk about "lighting the blue touch paper and retire", or "turn the engines off and the whining continues".

I originally posted a copy of a letter to CSD's which had been left on an aerobridge at T4. This letter was copied, and handed or faxed to fellow employees at LHR, and worldwide.

It highlighted the way BA was dealing with an apparent "shortage of cabin crew", by paying them hundreds of
pounds per sector.

I did not do it to "inflame the pilot community against the cabin crew community", I just thought you might find it interesting, or at worst worrying.

The vitriol and bitchiness that resulted is very sad.

Yes, I work in Waterside, and as such my uniform is a suit. In my time in BA, both before and since privatisation, I have seen a lot of changes, some for good, some for bad.

It is disappointing that Cabin Services has to pay their crews an extra sum to work one crew member down. This doesnt happen in Reservations, Engineering, Telephone Sales, Finance, Aircraft Despatch, Cabin Services support areas or other departments.

I stated fact.

Facts posted by others were "HKG LHR CSD £ 218.52 Main crew £ 135.41 plus £ 41.18 / hour over 12 hrs 30 for a CSD and £53.17 after 15 hours for this one sector , plus allowances plus basic salary. Destination payment £ 62.66 back to back payment £170.83."

For the crew members concerned about their Diner's bills.....the amount on your bill is as a result of your personal spending down-route. Be it spending at Crate and Barrel, the Truck in NRT, or McDonald's. Whilst on board cabin crew receive both free meals, and allowances for meals. The reasons behind this are historical, but it doesn't happen alsewhere in BA.

One example of statements which I consider to be less than factual are "For the record.. we do not stay in 5 star hotels", and there were numerous others.

Once again, if any of you actually know of any jobs which are "surplus", please let Rod Eddington know. We suits would like BA to survive as much as most contributors to this forum.

toodles

Swiss_Tonni
Scorchio!!!

[YYC F/A]

It is disappointing that Cabin Services has to pay their crews an extra sum to work one crew member down.

Swiss_tonni,

What I find 'disappointing' is the fact that on this thread, it would seem that Cabin Crew just can't seem to do anything right. For instance, on the one hand people lambast BA C/C for a payment for working crew members short. Yet on the other, people call out for 'benchmarking' (which would apparently bring the 'overinflated' 9,000 a year salary down to more realisticly low levels). In actual fact, this 'benchmarking' would show that BA is actually already 'benchmarked' with many major carriers who routinely pay their crew for working short.

United Airlines pays crew members a premium for every crew member short. So if you fly the 747 LHR-SFO with 12 crew instead of 18, they get a substantial allowance. The flip side is that because the 'short crew' are getting paid extra for this, UA expects that the full service still be completed (albeit with allowances for the fact it will take much longer than usual to complete the services). A good friend of mine recently worked AMS-ORD with only 3 crew members working Economy on a 767. One of them was the designated aft galley position, so that left 2 crew members, one for each aisle. Yes, they got short staffing, but I think they would have much rather have not taken the extra $$, and had full crew with a pleasant working environment and good service for the passengers, and not an 8 hour 'stress-a-thon' trying to serve 150+ people with a full trans-atlantic inflight meal, beverage and duty free service.

'Benchmarking' might also show that BA Crews work more hours than many of their full service counterparts at AF, LH, UA, AA, NW, CO etc etc, most of whom work no more than 780-800 'hard' hours a year max. So if you want to compare 'apples to apples' with total compensation, you might want to reduce the total by a percentile mirroring the reduced number of hours worked at other carriers to obtain a more 'true' picture.


While I don't dispute that some of the 20+ year service L/H LHR crew might take home a fairly goodly sum, the reality is that for people like me starting today, the salary is 'reasonable', but certainly not 'generous'. We are told to expect 1000-1200 a month take home (however some of that is to cover the cost of meals etc downroute). I hear that some S/Haul crew can make more than this, but it is not guaranteed. Now I don't know about you, but as a single person in London, with a salary of 9,000, a mortgage broker would laugh in your face if you tried to buy anything other than a garden shed. Even if they factor in your 'allowances' (despite the fact that a large proportion of these is for costs one will incur downroute etc), you are STILL struggling to come up with enough for even a one bedroom flat (god forbid a small house).

Before I am shouted at by all and sundry, am I 'complaining' about my salary. No. I understand what I am getting into, and am prepared to take 'lifestyle' and 'job satisfaction' over high $$. What I am saying is that I certainly don't feel that the crew of today are being overpaid. The higher cost of longer serving crew is a reality, but one cannot (by law) suddenly turn around and pay them 9K a year to 'benchmark' them. Over time though, as more people leave or retire, as new entrants join, BA will continue to see C/C wage costs lower.

Finally, before anyone states that the 'benchmarking' should actually be done between BA and EZY, Ryanair, Air 2000 etc, I would argue that again one has to compare like to like. British Airways is a full service 'world class' carrier. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the level of total compensation be 'benchmarked' with similar carriers (such as LH, AF, UA, AA, CO etc) with the appropriate cost of living/currency adjustments and considerations.

[Carnage Matey!]

I don't think anyone is complaining about the £9000 pa basic. However that doesn't tell the true picture, which is that as a new starter on short haul you'd be having a bad month if you took home less than £1200 with allowances, whilst a three year seniority steward on long haul can take home £2000 per month on a regular basis without overtime. Given the highly favourable taxation on allowances this works out to a very respectable equivalent gross salary. People lambast cabin crew for the 'working one down' payment because of its obscenely disproporionate size. In Virgin crew get £10 each per missing crew member each way. BA crew get £400 each, minimum.

Benchmarking would not include any US carriers, only European competitors. Perhaps it would show that BA crew work many more hours than our European counterparts, but at what cost? I'd like to say nobody knows, but Mike Street's seen the preliminary findings and they weren't pretty. Now, what about the absenteeism.

[YYC F/A]

And on 1200 a month, my points above still stand. While it's certainly not a 'bad' salary, 1200 a month, after factoring in costs incurred downroute (no, I'm not talking about being on the razz everynight, but yes, I do like to eat a hot meal at the end and before the start of my working day)... with all that factored in, I feel that the base salary is a non-issue.

I'd be interested to see stats as to how many crew actually took home GBP400 each way for going one crew member down as you state. The figures posted by other BA crew members don't seem to tally with an extra GBP800 for a roundtrip with 1 crew member short.

And if you're going to benchmark, it seems to defeat the purpose of the excercise if you only choose to 'benchmark' with 'certain' carriers. After all, it is AA and UA as well as VS which BA is so hotly in competition with on those 'golden' LHR - US routes.

In any event, with UA employing more Cabin Crew at LHR than the UK's second largest scheduled carrier (Bmi), I don't feel it inappropriate to compare the T&C in any benchmaking excercise.

My understanding from abseenteeism was that it was a company wide issue, and not limited to Cabin Crew...?

[HZ123]

Are you sure about the UA figure, I was under the impression that the LHR UA CC base has been closed down due to costs. They are not located at Cranebank anymore though you will see signs and an office still in situ.

[etrang]

Heavy crew, you say
"I stated that pilots get 100% more horizontal rest, even if it was the minority of your trips that had a first seat, which it is not, as I never have bunks therefore pilots have 100% more horizontal rest than me."

If you mean that pilots get at least some horizontal rest and you get none, then the pilots get INFINITELY more H rest. Not 100%.
1/0 =!= 100%

[Carnage Matey!]

YYC you can't benchmark against the US carriers because they are not sustainable businesses and some were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy prior to 9/11. Benchmarking against them is the road to bankruptcy. The pilots didn't benchmark against the US carriers or they'd be taking 50 to 100% salary increases, dropping their annual hours by a third and demanding three pilots on all flights across the atlantic. They benchmarked against similar business operating in the same market (didn't see United doing LHR to DUS lately, or American doing LHR to SIN).

If you want to know how many crew took home £400 each sector then I can tell you that at the last count I got 53 flights left LHR one down. That means 53 flights returned to LHR one down so minimum £800 round trip. Assuming an even split between 747s (14 crew) and 777s (11 crew) gives an average of 12.5 crew per trip, times by 53 trips equals 662 crew getting payments, or around £530,000.

Absenteeism is a company wide issue, but some are more equal than others. Company average is 16 days sick per year. Flight crew are on 11.8 days per year. LHR cabin crew are averaging 22 days per year, with 1250 reporting sick in the two weeks over the xmas and new year period, and 700 reporting in sick on a single day. I think the figures show where the problem lies.

[Human Factor]

YYC you can't benchmark against the US carriers because they are not sustainable businesses ...

BA management would have you believe the same about us (funny how the City doesn't seem so concerned), so maybe you should benchmark against them!

[YYC F/A]

HZ - UA does still have their LHR Crew base. The crew room is in T3. They also have (smaller) C/C bases in CDG and FRA.

Carnage Matey - Not to get into a 'tit of tat', but saying that all US Carriers are not sustainable business' is a bit of a sweeping generalisation. CO is quietly confident about it's future quarters being profitable, meanwhile UA (far from being on the brink of bankruptcy prior to 9/11) actually posted highest ever record profits in 2000. UA's business model however was far to dependant on full fare and premium business travellers, and it just took a slight shift (and evaporation) of this market for their cost's (including some of their huge labour costs, especially pilots) to quickly overtake their profits. Without getting off topic, it's pertinent to note that UA has cut wages and benefits of all employee groups and streamlined several areas of the business, so hopefully they are starting to get back on track. But we digress.

Thanks for the figures you have calculated about short crew. My point though is how many crew took home GBP800 for going 1 crew down, as this (high) figure doesn't match what most people (claim) they actually got (much much lower).

Ultimately, there will always be elements of different employee groups contracts that are cause of contention amoung others. Too often though (as I have seen on this thread with some of the blatant anti-Cabin Crew bashing which is neither related to the thread nor constructive in any way), people use a 'one off' or 'isolated' incident / clause in contract / situation, and use it as a base point from which to vent out their apparent anger and frustration against an entire employee group.

If hundreds of crew really did take home 800 pound per trip for going 1 crew short, well if that were the case, I'd probably quietly agree that the amount seems somewhat excessive for the situation. However, this thread seemed to have degenerated into a general 'slagging' match against Cabin Crew, and I certainly didn't (and still don't) agree that crew hired on the new contracts are vastly overpaid for their hours, effort and commitment.

I've worked for a number of carriers. While flying for bmi at LHR, I had the pleasure of working with some of the hardest working and fun crews around. My take home was not dissimilar to EF LHR. However, I had very little life outside of work, as this was on a 5 on 2 off pattern, working 4 sectors most days, 5 sectors others, starting on earlies at beginning of days off, and finishing later at end of 5 days on. So moving over to BA, like the other bmi crew mentioned earlier in the thread, I know that BA's T&C are not bad. Personally though, I think that what BA is offering new hires (certainly for LHR) far from being exorbitant, it is still a wage where one struggles to save, to get a mortgage, to pay the bills. I know I'm sounding like a stuck record here (sorry - the mortgage thing was a sore point personally), but I'm certainly not looking at taking home GBP2000+ a month.

Benchmarking T&C and pay to bmi? Why not? Then you'll face the same problem that bmi has: Huge crew turnover, crisis meetings with management over the out of control recruitment and training costs, crew shortages, and resorting to doing recruitment events in Italy and Spain and drafting in huge numbers of crew from overseas to stopgap the problem.

Or Ryanair, where crew are expected to literally work til they drop, and where the most basic considerations for employees are being eroded (charging crew for Water and Tea and Coffee on the aircraft etc).

While some of BA's most senior ranking Cabin Crew may have had the good fortune to join at a time whereby they now enjoy 'significantly above' the 'average going rate' for C/C, over time as they leave and the new hires increase, I feel BA has got the T&C and total compensation about right. For people like me starting out now, yes, it's slightly better than some of the competition - but this is what attracts the better candidates (hence why all the 'best' crew from bmi were recently cherry-picked by BA and selected out from the hundreds who applied and who were desperate to get out of bmi). It also ensures longer length of service (ultimately lowering the expense of constant recruitment and training).

I'm sorry that so many pilots, engineers and our own 'support , and leadership' people - our management, seem to despise us Cabin Crew, or at the very least resent us for our T&C and $$. All I can say is that I, like many of the crew I know at BA, am someone who (irrespective of who I am flying for) works hard, takes pride in delivering great service to the flying passenger, seldom complains, and seldom takes time off sick ( I think I've taken no more than 7 days of sick from flying in 5 years ). I can only hope that over time, the minority of C/C who 'milk' the system and abuse the sick policies etc finally 'see the light', and that the other employee groups in BA will understand that the actions (and pay) of some do not equate to the same situation and behaviour for us all.

Safe flying and happy landings to everyone! :ok:

[Carnage Matey!]

Yes CO is doing well, but UA and AA were not the picture of financial health that you suggest. Prior to 9/11 the US airlines were engaged in an out of control price war with labour groups in different companies claiming large wage increases simply to leap frog the equivalent salary in another company. The speed at which Uniteds fortunes changed illustrates what a fragile business they had, and today United only exists because of vast subsidies from the ATSB and Capter 11 bankruptcy protection.

On the matter of crew going short, I read back to page one of this thread and re-visited the figures. It would appear I was mistaken and the actual sum for a junior per trip is around £400, not £800 as I previously wrote. I admit I got that wrong, but £400 is still not to be sniffed at it's still costing the company quarter of a million quid.

Nobody is realistically suggesting benchmarking cabin crew to Ryanair, Easy or even bmi. Different companies, different kind of business structure. But whats wrong with benchmarking against AF, LH and KL? The issue is not one of 'what we pay cabin crew' in isolation, its also about productivity. You may find that your pay is less than the benchmark, in which case you may have irrefutable evidence for a pay rise for certain grades. What I am certain is that the cost of crew per productive hour will be far higher. Do other airlines insist on a long break every time they do a turnaround at main base like BA crew? BA EF crew don't get two days off after they've done a short european there-and-back, so why should longhaul crew get one when a 747 gets subbed (thats a particularly important point as the 747 will be doing LIS during Euro 2004). Why should short haul crew have the right to walk off a service and go home if their turnaround time at LHR drops below 90 minutes, or insist on an 18 hr rest break down route if the duty day extends beyond about 13 hrs. How many hours of your duty day to you spend flying, and how many do you spend killing time in CAT or Compass? Its strange practices like these boost the cost of cabin crew beyond what is competitive, in no small part due to the fact that we employ +10% more crew than we need to cover for these unnecessary eventualities.

[heavy crew]

Courage I think you will find that when the PAYMENTS were being made Cabin crew sickness was ay very low levels.

May I also say that I don't agree with your 22 days as that would mean that every crew member would be on sickness monitoring which clearly they are not.

The way to improve Cabin crew attendance is quite simple, give them a transparant, equitable rostering system like the pilots and the attendance will improve dramatically.

Top and bottom if Cabin crew have a poor attendance record the blame for this lies fairly at the doors of mismanagement and unfair inflexible rostering.

the whole system is endemic to low morale and that is one of the many reasons why we are losing crew by the bucket load and that is why we had to have these payments.

OR PERHAPS YOU FEEL THAT CLOSED FIRST CABINS WAS THE CORRECT WAY TO GO?

Lets be honest perhaps instead of bribing the cabin crew close the first cabins on 58 flights, whadda ya think?

If you guys wish to benchmark us against Virgin feel free.

Firstly Virgin pay a higher salary than BA.

Secondly they do slightly less hours that even LGW WW.

Thirdly if we took a BA jet and a Virgin jet to JFK both 747 400 the BA jet would have 15 cabin crew the Virgin jet type 1 is 17 cabin crew and 1 beautician.

Now then if you were to say that the majority of BA cabin crew earn even a little more that Virgin, which I would contest, and we discount the beautician, you will still see the difference.

First lets take into account the fact that due to config I would say that at BA if we had Virgins config, we wouldn't need the galley person as no first.

So I am saying that as BA have 14/17ths of the cabin crew on that flight yet still delivers a product that is comparible.

All that for pay that is comparably the same head for head.

LGW WW cabin crew take home about 1200 per month 1400 per month is achieveable at Virgin.

Now no insult intended but compared to our low cost collegues we deliver a far more sophisticated cabin service , do comparable hours I achieved 991 flying hours last year, yet earn dramatically less than they do.

And you think we would suffer in a benchmarking exercise dream on.

Courage the restrictions you talk about are to protect the cabin crew from flying too many hours.

If the company wants the same flexibility as pilots I am all for that and would welcome it.

There does therefore have to be a restriction on annual maximum working hours your as a pilot is 900 therefore it is considered unsafe for a pilot to work more hours that that.

Fair play.

I WOULD BE VERY WILLING TO WORK TO EXACTLY THE SAME HOURS AND FLEXIBILITY AS OUR FLIGHT CREW COLLEGUES.

Now with the restrictive practices you claim in place I worked as a BA long haul crew member and achieved 991 FLYING hours not duty hours.

I have a freind who's partner works for Virgin and they work pretty hard but last month he worked 90.15 duty hours I did 107.

These are true facts not dreams.

Now to be honest when you are doing more hours than me then I will accept critisism from you.

[sixmilehighclub]

Theres alot of statements being made regarding salaries and flying/duty hours for crew in different airlines. Are these actually consistent figures, and the same every month for each individual? Surely we cant gain a true picture of comparison on who is better off by looking at the earnings of only a handful of crew out of the thousands who are operating.

If you dont like the basic, don't join the airline.
I would love to be earning more than £10k a year basic, after all I have just dropped £15k in salary to join BA. I could have gone to another carrier where my friend is earning around £20k per annum including additional payments, or to one where I was hardly ever on duty. But I chose BA as its an airline I have always been proud of, warts and all.

Comparing old to new contract wageslips is unfair, after all, in any company, aviation or otherwise, you'd expect staff to be paid more if they have been there longer.

Also, to survive in an unstable time for the industry, airlines cannot afford to pay out the same salaries they used to. Naturally this will cause rifts between the different contracts, but you cant cut someones pay after years of service! Airfares are staying low but operating costs are increasing, competition is getting tougher. They have to cut overheads. Look at lo-cost carriers, they cut overheads and most are doing brilliantly.

249 posts in less than 4 weeks?

Swiss_Tonni, you have indeed opened a can of worms, therefore I have no option to put you over my knee.......
lol

:E

[Paterbrat]

Interesting to see the rhetoric level is down and some posts giving a far clearer picture of what is being discussed. Actualy Swiss_Tonni has probably created the possibilty for people to start appreciating problems and conditions faced by others rather than the generalisations that fly around so freely and create more discord than they clear up misunderstanding.