Airline Boycott / No Fly List

[Paul Rice]

Shall we produce a league table of which airlines and operators that have treated their staff badly through the COVID crisis. Perhaps listing the ones that are using the down turn as an excuse to reduce terms and conditions or to intimidate crew into working when sick due to fear of redundancy.

Then on a more positive note produce a list of airlines and operators that have shown real leadership and courage and done everything they can to look after their crews.

Using these league tables come the upturn crew can be guided as to were to focus their main effort at finding work and importantly which are the worst employers that are best avoided. Identified as an employers of absolutely the last resort.

Applying league tables of how well crew are treated or not passengers and business can be guided as to which operators are going to have the edge when it comes to safety. I want to know where crew are being treated poorly because that will be an indicator as to were safety standards start to slip.

So lets start the bidding process for identifying the top 50 best employers in the aviation industry and then identify the horrible 50 worst gigs.

[wiggy]

Having a reputation for less than sparkling treatment of both staff and passengers hasn't done one or two LoCos any harm.

Point most of the general public in the direction of a £10 ticket and ideals go out of the window.

[Riskybis]

TUI has got to be one of the best in the UK to work for (if not Europe)
BA the constant suspense for all if it’s staff is just horrendous
Virgin have really changed beyond recognition, loyalty out the window and now just basically a bottom feeder
Not really sure on the other airlines

[PilotLZ]

Eurocockpit.be has a dedicated page for this - "The Hall of Shame". There are a couple of well-known brands lambasted on there. However, they are just a tiny fraction of the overall number of employers who showed no sympathy for their crews.

On a positive note, the opposite is also true. Some of the best examples out there aren't widely known in the industry. Often they are small, family-like companies with just a handful of employees who know each other very well and have excellent relationships among themselves and with the management.

Unfortunately, thinking that the attitude of any company to its employees will have a major influence on consumer choice is a bit wishful. And this isn't specific to aviation only. Do people care all too much about those who produce the clothes they buy and how much they get paid? What about the workers in the farms producing what will become your well done steak tonight, does anyone think about their wellbeing when buying meat? And what about the bus driver taking people to work? How many of them think about his work-life balance when travelling on the bus? The same goes for airline crews. As long as the flight is cheap and convenient, most wouldn't even think about who will be in charge of it. If the on-board service is also good and the timetable is strictly followed, the airline is good enough for 99,9% of the travelling public, no matter how it treats its crews.

[Time Traveller]

TUI might be top of the list, but there seems to be a disconnect between the insulation of crews from the sweeping pay cuts and redundancies affecting everyone else, and the particular destruction of their core market by yet another clumsy and unpredictable quarantine by the UK government, instead of more logical arrival test and tracing. How long can that disconnect last?

[Whitemonk Returns]

https://www.pprune.org/terms-endearment/631976-master-list.html

It already exists...

[infrequentflyer789]

... yet another clumsy and unpredictable quarantine by the UK government, instead of more logical arrival test and tracing.

Incubation is up to 7 days before symptoms, infectious 1-2 days before that. PCR swab test has very high false negative rate if used too early, even testing at 8 days after exposure has 20% false negative rate. For one week trips (mean exposure time around 4 days before arrival in uk) you will miss well over half of holiday-acquired cases, even if you test everyone. A one week quarantine (if -ve) with test at one week will catch maybe over 80%, and may be a logical compromise, but test-on-arrival is far less logical than quarantine.

See e.g. https://www.itnonline.com/content/covid-19-genetic-pcr-tests-give-false-negative-results-if-used-too-early for the testing science.

[Fostex]

Arrival testing is pointless, quarantines will not be obeyed by a certain cohort, however the quarantine being present will discourage many from flying and that will have the greatest effect on inter-country spread of the virus.

[Time Traveller]

As is so sadly lacking in so much of the approach to controlling and living with covid, this is a lack of pragmatic systemic policy. Of course, a fully observed two week whole household quarantine, direct to home, no going out, etc is going to be most effective at control, infact why not permanently lock away the entire population and to hell with the economy, and all the degradation and loss of YOUNG lives that brings? Whether the quarantine is 14, 10 or 7 days, most people can't extend their time off work (and life in general) for this long.

the reality is that observance of the quarantine is going to be very low, maybe less than 50%, which makes the test and trace equally effective, even if one assumes the (rather pessimistic) reliability % in the post above. Even if it is slightly less effective, it's a mitigation measure against spread, amongst all the others (masks, distancing etc, that everyone now does). Testing also has the advantage, that it doesn't destroy the airline industry, and provides confidence in booking. Austria uses it. The other far more sensible approach currently not used, is to only quarantine flights from high infection areas.

[rotorwills]

Paul Rice. The problem with trying to establish a list of airlines to determine which is acting best for crew today in order to present them as attractive as future attractive employers is basically flawed. The airlines today who may appear to be best for today are probably the ones that may not survive. It's a dog eat dog world and that apples to airlines today even more so. Is anyone's job safe today, don't think so. I mean look what has just happened in Germany with the vote of Ryan Air not to accept new contracts last week, yesterday I believe they have accepted the terms, bases staying open. There is not one airline that can carry on operating in the same manner as before COVID . Changes are inevitable. Jobs and T&C's are vulnerable to world conditions.

Paul your proposal does not attract me to add to a list of airlines. Just sad we are in such a state of uncertainty and have sympathy for all affected in our industry.

[Three Lions]

All things considered, and there are many. There have been two versions of strategy displayed by airlines looking to navigate round the whole myriad of challenges thrown up by the pandemic,

i) those who have managed a process - generally with everyone having a say and going with the majority to avoid any compulsory redundancy (these had good turnout and extremely high majority votes up in the high 90%) salary cuts based on the next 12-18 months trading (which should stabilise somewhat with relation to COVID once a reliable vaccine is introduced possibly as early as the turn of the year)

ii) those who staff had little involvement in the process going forward and generally saw compulsory redundancies/lay offs.

There will be a reset the industry will recover and once recruitment starts again the evidence and behaviours displayed by the various airline management teams/individuals should be part of and self respecting capable balanced Pilot research when prioritising which airlines to set out for.

There’s seniority, there’s meritocracy and apparently there’s even something called mateocracy - for those coming here in the future and researching as part of an airline priority list - choose wisely spring and summer 2020 they showed their Various true characters when the chips were down.

good luck to all

[PilotLZ]

There will be a reset the industry will recover and once recruitment starts again the evidence and behaviours displayed by the various airline management teams/individuals should be part of and self respecting capable balanced Pilot research when prioritising which airlines to set out for.
Golden words. As much as the travelling public doesn't care about how an airline treats its crews, for the crews this is a good chance to see the true faces of some employers and hence draw some conclusions about who is well worth working for in the future.