I support the B.A. crew. Do you?

At the risk of angering all our customers and most of my colleges I felt I had to stand up for the brave crews of B.A. who have been taking a bashing not only in the national media but on our blogs and forums as well. By now we all know the B.A. crew are striking and how much it has disrupted all our travel plans, but how many of you can put your hands on your hearts and say why?




B.A. cabin crew who make up about 13,500 of the total B.A. staff are the ones who are striking. The ballot taken for strike action had a turnout of about 80% with 92% in favour of strike action. Clearly something’s upsetting the crew for this level of support, but what? B.A. recently reduced the number of crew on a long haul flight form 15 to 14 by forcing the cabin service directors, who were there to oversee the staff and maintain customer service levels, to serve food and drinks instead.

B.A. say that the average take home pay for a cabin service director, on a long haul flight, is £56,325.00 making them some of the highest paid in the industry. The truth of the matter however is that very few cabin service directors earn this quoted wage, only the longest serving members of staff do. Just to compare this, the longest serving members of staff at B.A. tend to have worked there twice as long as their peers at Virgin Airways. The average total pay for BA main crew including allowances is similar to Virgin, about £22,000 (£12,000 to £14,000 basic plus £6,000 to £8,000 in allowances). B.A. cabin crew are trained firefighters, first-aiders who can administer certain drugs, have knowledge of aircraft systems and can and do deal with disputes onboard.
B.A. wants to implement a new fleet of cheaper staff. But cheaper means less experienced, less trained and less motivated. If any existing members of staff want a promotion they have to accept the new contracts as opposed to their existing ones with lower wages and less benefits. Who amongst us would be happy with that situation in their own workplace?
Is almost seems that B.A. have lost sight of what made them great in the first place, excellent, high class service and instead are just trying to drive down costs. For instance a first-class passenger who has paid £3,000 for his flight is refused a steak because only six were loaded for 14 customers. They advertise fine wines in first class, but sometimes only one bottle of claret is provided for 14 passengers. Many times there are shortages of amenities such as wash bags, plates, cutlery and duvets, which is just not good enough for the money the customer pays. Crew report these shortages but nothing is done. It is this that has led to the growing dissatisfaction amongst the crew. When customers moan about the falling levels of service it isn’t to the corporate bean counters at head office, it’s to the hard working crew on the front lines who are just as appalled at the falling standards as the public are. Nobody wants to strike, but if management wont listen to their concerns. Continue to insist on pay cuts and reductions in benefits the question remains, what would you do?