British Airways crew suspended for Facebooking

by Annie Scott on

British Airways has suspended 15 cabin crew members for “inappropriate” Facebook comments.

Back in October, a Jetstar flight attendant was disciplined for Facebook-stalking a 15-year-old (Airline apologizes for male flight attendant harassing a 15-year-old). That I understood. Some friends of mine in the law and medical fields have been warned about their Facebook personae; that they should consider themselves “employees of [the company]” first and foremost. I think that’s a little oppressive, but okay, they’re in some pretty high-power jobs where people immediately learn their full names.

But, I’m surprised anyone’s putting a Facebook gag on their cabin crew. I recently flew British Airways — and thoroughly enjoyed my experience — and not only do I have no idea about the full name of any one of the cabin crew, but I would never consider even searching them on Facebook, let alone friending them and reading their walls. If I were a big weirdo and did decide to spend my time that way, I would think the shame should fall on me, not on anything unsavory I might find.

What exactly is “inappropriate”? Does it depend what your definition of is is?

BA Press Officer Euan Fordyce is quoted as saying the airline “will not tolerate intimidation of our staff,” and that there were other, additional reasons for the suspensions. That seems to imply bullying, or some other kind of workplace no-no — but rumors are circulating that complaints about ongoing battles over wages, working conditions and job security are the culprits. Stuff.co.nz reports that “the UK’s Unite union called the move unacceptable.”

Funny; if they hadn’t suspended their crew members, I wouldn’t even know that those battles were going on.

[via stuff.co.nz]

British Airways offering a crash course to retrain pilots as flight attendants

by Scott Carmichael on

Faced with another threat of a flight attendant strike, British Airways is preparing for the worst. The airline asked everyone within the company to voluntarily sign up for a 21 day training program to turn them into temporary flight attendants.

As of right now, only 216 volunteers signed up for the initiative, which falls quite a bit short of the 13,500 flight crew members that will walk out when a strike takes place. Five of the nine retraining courses are designed for pilots – which would turn them into the best paid cabin crew members in the world. The average BA pilot earns a just under $200,000 per year.

Of course, the union behind the flight attendants is not impressed, and they are quick to point out that the 21 day course is much shorter than the normal 3 month training a flight attendant receives, and could be a serious safety issue.

It makes sense for them to say this – as the public perception of the union and this strike is very negative. The same union almost shut down British Airways over the Christmas period last year, but a British court blocked their efforts at the last minute.

A union spokesperson said “Not only does this show contempt for the crew, what message does it send to passengers who have paid to be cared for by a premier airline?”. Personally, I’d rather have a cabin crew with just three weeks of training than be stuck at the airport for a week because a union was unable to reach an agreement on new pay cuts.

The British aviation authority, CAA, has approved the measures and will be monitoring the safety aspects of the training, to ensure that passengers are never at any kind of risk when they fly on a plane with the new temporary crew members.

%Gallery-76818%

%Gallery-65766%

Stress gets to Susan Boyle at Heathrow

by Annie Scott on

With all the regulation shifts, evacuations and the recent terror attempt on Christmas Day, it’s a stressful time to fly.

Stress affects all of us; passengers, airport staff, pilots and yes, even superstars. Perhaps it was stress that got to Britain’s Got Talent prodigy Susan Boyle at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday.

According to HolyMoly, Boyle suffered a complete mental breakdown in the British Airways lounge. She grabbed a mop from a cleaner and began using it as a microphone, then polished other lounge guests’ shoes with it. BA employees reportedly tried to stop her, and she took off running, eventually bursting through the doors of the usually-peaceful lounge screaming “I’ve escaped! I’ve escaped!”

“A BA official had to sit with the singer until she regained composure and boarded the flight to Chicago,” reports HolyMoly, adding that the singer is heading to the US to appear on Oprah. Chelsea Handler mentioned this week on Chelsea Lately that the star is also working on a line of Susan Boyle products like t-shirts and mugs. While the TV circuit and souvenir development are normal celebrity activities, stress may be piling up on Boyle, who has a history of mental illness and has become very famous very fast.

If this were any other celebrity, we’d assume it was drugs — and we’d probably be fed a bogus story about a bad reaction to a sleeping medication. We wonder how the Boyle PR camp will spin this.

BA flights attendants trash good wine in protest

by Katie Hammel on

According to the UK’s Telegraph, the latest casualty of the problems between British Airways’ cabin crews and the company is vintage wine. Those involved in the alcohol abuse were members of the British Airlines Stewards and Stewardesses Association (Bassa), which is part of the union that represents the airline’s 13,000 cabin crew. They say they destroyed the wine as a symbol of “passive resistance” against some of the new practices that British Airways has instituted.

The unhappy employees had planned on striking over the Christmas holiday, but thankfully, the strike was blocked by a judge.

Apparently, the flap all started when BA introduced some new cost cutting measures – which included firing hundreds of employees and freezing pay for current workers. As a result, the “disaffected” workers have stopped any of their own money-saving efforts onboard the airplanes. One worker was quoted in the Telegraph article as saying that “No-one is doing anything to help save costs any more. Whereas we used to keep unfinished bottles of wine in first-class to save money, now they’re routinely poured down the sink.”

Let’s hope the union and British Airways can resolve their issues soon. I hate to see good wine go to waste.%Gallery-76818%

%Gallery-79586%

Passengers left without luggage because of airlines refusal to pay overtime

by Scott Carmichael on

Oh how the mighty have fallen. A decade ago, British Airways referred to itself as “the world’s favorite airline”. Now, they are quickly becoming the world’s worst.

After their planned strike was canceled, it became obvious that staff morale was at an all time low – something that became painfully obvious last Friday night at London Heathrow. A flight arriving from Prague got into the airport over an hour late, mainly due to the bad London weather.

Sadly, the baggage handling team at terminal 5 reached the end of their work day, and nobody at British Airways was willing to authorize overtime pay. End result — luggage stays on the plane, and the staff all go home.

Passengers had to wait for hours till the morning crew arrived at the airport. Some of these customers had been stuck at the airport for almost 6 hours. Of course, British Airways blamed everything on the bad weather, and apologized for the situation. Sadly, this is the same airline that once left 100’s of bags out in the rain, so they have a pretty nasty history in dealing with luggage.

%Gallery-64688%