Yesitsme

The customer service level will be the same, regardless of how little we are paid. However, earning �30 in allowances for a 13 hour duty (which a lot of the crew will do) is not inspiring. At least with BoB, we can bump up the allowances with commission.

Having said that, no amount of money is going to make the day less tiring.

Bearface

Poor crew Back in the days when I was on Eurofleet I occasionally did ATH or IST there and back and it's a very long day out. Combined with long-haul it just sounds awful.

Don't know how easyJet and charter crew do just constant long day there and backs.

BA6501

Crew are going to do LGW-SSH-LGW in one day and LGW-BDA the next? Not even a day off in between?! So much for a 'reward'!

cornishsimon

Could we have this in perspective ?

How many day off prior to SSH, how many off in BDA and then how many off when back in London


cs

Yesitsme

Guaranteed one day off before the SSH. Night stop in BDA (approx 20 hours). Two days off after the BDA.

Skipcool3

So ..... Day off. Report Gatwick about 8am for a 9.10 am flight to SSH. Back at Gatwick at 8pm (if on time) Off duty. On duty around 14.00 for 15.10 flight to BDA
Night stop. Return to Gatwick arriving 06.00 next day.
Yesitsme you say then get two days off.... Is that a minimum of 48 hrs?

Gaza

So a week would look like this:-

Day 1: Off
Day 2: LGW-SSH-LGW - Call it 13 hour day (11 hours flying, 1 on the ground and 1 for reporting)
Day 3: LGW-BDA - 8.5 hour day (7h 20m flight)
Day 4 & 5: BDA-LGW - 7.5 hour day (6h 30m flight)
Day 6 & 7: Off? Or does the remainder of Day 5 count as one of the days off?

If the above is correct then it equates to 29 working hours in 7 days. I'd agree that 13 hours on Day 2 will be tough but I would imagine that in the 11 hours flying there will be downtime.

A P Yu

I guess there's a reason they call it work.

Don't forget that as well as allowances they get a basic salary as well.

I have no doubt it will be hard work for the BA crew. They really don't have a suitable product for the route. Passengers will soon realise this and the route will quickly be culled so I think it's a case of grin and bear it for a short time.

ukgooner

What (in your view) is a suitable "product"?

Skimo

You might be shocked to learn that there are travellers beyond the confines of this august forum who don't consider a few hours on a narrow body aircraft akin to being waterboarded. Bit of perspective maybe?

dingobingo

Ironically during the periods I went to SSH a lot for business I was wishing there was a BA flight option because of the better leg room in front ET and the option of a decent CE. Now it's the new A320 the only reason to go BA now is the decent tier points really.

BA have had this route on and off for a few years whereas their route competitors seem to stick at it. Do BA respond to local politics more than other airlines or do they keep trying it, realising it's too much hassle and the crew don't like it, withdraw it, then forget about the whole experience and put it back on again? :-)

Land-of-Miles

It was a great trip for the crew last time around I thought with a minimum of 2 nights stay before coming back on the next scheduled flight. The timing was pretty bad for BA at the last attempt given the whole Egyptian revolution thing. The previous foray was a GB Airways not BA service.

I assume that BA has the first season of flights underwritten by tour ops. Whether the service persists will then depend how many of those tour op options are renewed.

The new visa may make things painful if it applies to the Sinai peninsula.

corporate-wage-slave

Well "politics" (aka "heighten threat of terrorism and civil disorder") was indeed the reason for cutting the service in the first place, not least because tourists probably had better ideas as to where to spend their hard earned holidays. Tourism is still well down on the peak, but at one stage the whole resort was a ghost town. In the past this particular service was the cabin crew's dream - BA got almost giveaway rates from hotels in the area so staff had 5 (?) days by the pool there, at relatively little expense to the airline, so it was pretty much a perk of the job when that rotation came round. Hotel rates even for Joe Public remain low, hence its interest now. �20 to �40 a night gets you a 4 star hotel.

In those days SSH was making as much money from cargo as from passengers, which predicated long turnarounds. If IAG Cargo can get a new deal from there (market garden products was one aspect) then I guess it gives hope of at least a night stop there.

ukgooner

Nothing to do with politics.

BA first flew thus route under GB franchise. When GB went to Easy only a few routes were adopted by mainline as there weren't enough planes nor slots to replicate the lot. Only the most obvious (AGP / FAO) survived. Not sure the 737 could manage it anyway?

They did try to reinstate using a 777 but the crazy schedules (arriving SSH at 4am) wasn't competitive. Harder to fill too particularly at that time. The market also didn't need �1,500 J class either. But bear in mind Easy have maintained the GB schedule throughout (also Hurghada, another GB route). So there was clearly some demand, even in the softest times.

So back to present day: new set of aircraft, less emphasis on business capitals at LGW and more interest in leisure routes. There is clearly demand for SSH (easy are up to 3x daily from London) - so they will give it another go.

Yesitsme

Day 1: LGW-SSH-LGW - 13 hour duty
Day 2: LGW-BDA
Day 3/4: BDA-LGW - total duty for the BDA is 17 hrs 40 mins (I checked)
Day 5/6: days off.

By your reckoning, it's 29 hours in 7 days. The way it works in my head is 30 hour 40 mins in 4 days.
Anyways, all we're "entitled" to as far as breaks are concerned on the SSH is 20mins, which can be two lots of 10mins. If working at the front, one would have to go to the back galley to get some privacy, due to the lack of bulkhead at the front. I've said it before, but I really don't want to eat my meal whilst being watched by X amount of customers.