ediYank

well, ive made my decision. I cant live my life at the whim of some 1970's Union mentality. I have just booked my EDI to IAD Christmas flight on Air France, business class. Cant risk being done in by these numpties tantrums.
I am sure many others have done or will do the same. Well done Unions.

BAAZ

That's interesting. A bit misleading, though, trying to compare average ticket price between economy-class-short-haul-only airlines and airlines that offer premium classes and long haul.

The fact that crew costs only contribute 3% towards the LCCs' cost advantage, significantly outweighed by many of the other factors, is also interesting.

(PS Put me down as one who believes attractiveness of cabin crew is significant . Adds a smile to my journey. Not enough to convince me to book AF though )

Jenbel

The staff per passenger is really telling.

But if I do domestic on BA, I am served by the same amount of BA/Aviance staff as I am if I do domestic on EZ. There may be one additional BA person at the gate, but that's it - and not always, as EZ may also have two at the gate.

Where on earth are all the BA staff then? (at a guess, I'd say London... )

Jumbodriver

Not accurate though, I make it over 1000 pax per staff member.

Not comparing like with like either. The Locos dont have their own engineers, station staff, loaders, telephone staff, corporate sales, tug drivers, maintenance organisations, product dept, lounges, FF program etc etc. You also need many more crew/pax to operate long haul. A 747 will need a minimum of 34 crew members to carry 674 pax over 24 hrs (not even accounting for rest periods), a RYR 737 will need approx 12 and could easily carry 1500 pax in a day.

stut

Well, if you assume 33m passengers per year, and 3000 staff at Waterside, that's one manager/admin per 11k passengers. Compare that with the Ryanair total...

Yes and no. It's still comparing two airline businesses as a whole - from a bottom line point of view, you don't really care where the costs come from. I'd say its quite striking that even despite the huge differences in ratio, the staff cost is a small proportion of the LCC's advantage.

ag51

Isn't that exactly what the current VS television advert is trying to do?

ian001

This is common knowledge. A full list of the changes is on Pprune.

Jenbel

Thanks for the correction

Of the things you list LCC carriers having, I can point out that EZ have the following:
engineers
station staff (and I'd point out that BA doesn't have station staff at a number of destinations - all of the non-London UK stations for example - at least the EZ staff at EDI are actually EZ employees (or if they aren't, do a better job of hiding it than the Aviance staff who work for BA))
product dept - although probably much, much smaller than at BA - how many ways can you subtly insert orange into a cabin scheme?!
telephone staff - EZ does still have a telephone booking alternative to the web

It's a fair point between the difference between multiple short-haul rotations and long-haul rotations and how that could quickly rack up large differences in number of pax handled per crew member. Which is a relief because I'd hate to think the only way to explain the 5000 pax per staff member difference was the lounges and BAEC!

BAHumbug

Fair enough (about the PPrune thread).

But I still stick by my '4 posts' comment...

Cap'n Benj

Not really, well not in my eyes anyway, its trying to sell difference, glamour, innovation etc.

Virgin definitely used to sell their service on the CC, it was more based around nice, young, friendly and helpful etc as opposed to flat out sexy. Unfortunately the reality these days at least is very different (in my limited Y experiences anyway (and a few tales from friends))

The only airline I can remember blatantly suggesting 'Our Stewardesses are well fit' is, surprisingly, SQ. From what I have noticed anyway, I guess everyone's perceptions are different though.

Going back to the Original Post though, BA have definitely never sold themselves as having more attractive staff than other airlines, so his point was rediculous

747-444

"Singapore Girl - you are a great way to fly" or however their slogan goes.

Let's be realistic here. There are airlines with far superior cabin service compared to BA (disregarding looks for a moment). Especially in the premium cabins.

Singapore, Malaysia, Qatar, Cathay all have far superior cabin crew and in many cases a far superior product. BA like to think they are the life and soul of the party when in reality there are competitors offering a much better service.

Having said that I realise that BA's biggest competitors are the US carriers WHO SUCK.

Many of the people on this thread have this incredibly biased opinion of BA - oh British airline, must be classy then when in reality many airlines have far surpassed BA in terms of service.

Sure BA drop a cabin crew member and they can do it in Y where the fares are the cheapest.

I feel that BA gets more credit than it deserves. I have flown it before and will fly it again but I am under no illusion of this flase sense of grandeur that so many people are.

I do appreciate that living in England is costly and the BA crew need to be paid in accordance with the cost of living but the way in which their union operates stinks.

I say leave the current lot on their wage and any new recruits go onto a much much lower wage. It is simple - if you don't like entering BA being paid a low wage then work some where else.

Look at Continental who pioneered the Chapter 11 filing for airlines, to smash the unions and high costs. If BA, can or do, go that route then bye bye and perks the current crew have.

Waterhorse

What's not to stick by - it is a matter of record that I have only posted 4 - now 5 times. Not sure why that is important. But keep on questioning my statements of fact and you just look silly. Question, by all means my opinions, they are after all only opinions.

HighLife

This is your opinion, but appreciation of cabin service style is very subjective. I have flown J and F on Qatar, EK, Swiss, CX and SQ and still happily go back to BA in in those cabins. Why? Because I find the BA style less intrusive, less obsequious, less formal and therefore... more to my taste.

Every now and then a BA crew disappoints... but I've had off crews on Skytrax '5 Star' carriers too.

As for making comments about the looks of BA cabin crew... well, I won't stoop to your level.

tristan727

It's hard to appreciate common sense sometimes, when a gun is being held to your head.

Jenbel

Yes, but do you realise that living in 'England' (sic) means you have to operate under an entirely different set of laws? Because it doesn't look like you do:

They can't so they won't. They are, as you pointed out based in the UK. Chapter 11 is a US bankruptcy system which doesn't, to my knowledge, have an equivalent over here. European workers have much stronger employment rights than US workers.