British Airways mixed fleet/worldwide fleet
Jun 22, 2015, 12:57 am
#76
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: London
Programs: BAEC Silver
Posts: 772
On a slight sidenote, it's no longer a requirement for Mixed Fleet to have full names on badges.
Jun 22, 2015, 1:11 am
#77
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Scotland
Programs: BA Silver, Hilton Diamond, BD Blue (RIP)
Posts: 1,981
Jun 22, 2015, 2:00 am
#78
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: UK
Programs: I go wherever the content takes me.
Posts: 5,698
Jun 22, 2015, 7:01 am
#80
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2002
Programs: Mucci des Hommes Magiques et Magnifiques
Posts: 19,092
Which what the other fleets have always had, BA were reminded about this when they set up MF but in their wisdom ignored it.
Jun 22, 2015, 7:04 am
#81
Join Date: Feb 2011
Location: London
Programs: BA Silver, ZSL Silver
Posts: 2,551
Jun 22, 2015, 7:22 am
#82
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: UK
Programs: I go wherever the content takes me.
Posts: 5,698
Jun 22, 2015, 11:49 am
#83
Join Date: Apr 2009
Programs: BA Gold, Hilton Honors Diamond, Mucci de buveur de gin
Posts: 3,060
Overheard at LIS now - "oh you won't see is again. The hats are getting this from next month"
Jun 22, 2015, 12:04 pm
#84
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2002
Programs: Mucci des Hommes Magiques et Magnifiques
Posts: 19,092
MF crew are known as "The Hats" by many crew on the other fleets, I don't think anything bad is meant by it.
Jun 24, 2015, 9:55 am
#85
Join Date: Sep 2011
Programs: BA Silver
Posts: 148
I've found FlyBe crew to be better than MF crew on recent flights...FlyBe have hats too 
I find their crew to be a lot more down to earth, friendly and efficient than some MF crew.
I find their crew to be a lot more down to earth, friendly and efficient than some MF crew.
Jul 7, 2015, 2:22 am
#86
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 49
Incomprehensible/ confusing announcements
That at least 50% of MF crews are not up to the job, consume the more interesting choices of club Europe/club world meals, too uneducated to manage communication with customers ...is less worrying than safety implications. A lot of them are not able to read out announcements intelligebly or will read out the wrong announcement: the captain announces that twenty minutes is left before landing and the crew announcement on a European flight follows with the long-haul announcement that within twenty minutes the washrooms will cease to be available for use as the seatbelt sign will be illuminated. And all those 'we at BA are proud etc about helping children living 'indrerigbly' tough lives...'
Jul 7, 2015, 3:22 am
#87
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 399
How much of the problem is down to the crew themselves or to poor preparation/briefing by the airline?
Two months ago I was on the second ever scheduled LHR-KGS flight, which is a Mixed Fleet route.
Absolutely no problems with the basic service standards, courtesy, or helpfulness.
Two route-specific issues: passenger requests to buy duty-free spirits. As this is an internal EU flight you can't buy these on board, and none had been loaded for that reason. Crew member confused, had to call colleague. Surely MF do lots of intra-EU flying and must know which country they are flying to?
The second issue though is entirely down to BA management. The Greek language announcements were prerecorded, as is normal. But the ones supplied were the announcements for Athens, and go into some detail about connections (I've heard them on the approach to ATH often enough). The SCCM obviously realised what was happening and made a further announcement (in English) that there were no connecting facilities at Kos and passengers had to exit through Passport Control and the Red or Green customs channels. Kos airport has separate baggage reclaims for EU and non-EU flights, so no customs at all for passengers from LHR. But how could the SCCM know this if it was only the second ever flight? He should have been supplied with a briefing about a new airport, and obviously wasn't.
Coming back two weeks later, by when Galley FM had spread the word amongst the crews, no issues whatever.
Two months ago I was on the second ever scheduled LHR-KGS flight, which is a Mixed Fleet route.
Absolutely no problems with the basic service standards, courtesy, or helpfulness.
Two route-specific issues: passenger requests to buy duty-free spirits. As this is an internal EU flight you can't buy these on board, and none had been loaded for that reason. Crew member confused, had to call colleague. Surely MF do lots of intra-EU flying and must know which country they are flying to?
The second issue though is entirely down to BA management. The Greek language announcements were prerecorded, as is normal. But the ones supplied were the announcements for Athens, and go into some detail about connections (I've heard them on the approach to ATH often enough). The SCCM obviously realised what was happening and made a further announcement (in English) that there were no connecting facilities at Kos and passengers had to exit through Passport Control and the Red or Green customs channels. Kos airport has separate baggage reclaims for EU and non-EU flights, so no customs at all for passengers from LHR. But how could the SCCM know this if it was only the second ever flight? He should have been supplied with a briefing about a new airport, and obviously wasn't.
Coming back two weeks later, by when Galley FM had spread the word amongst the crews, no issues whatever.
Jul 7, 2015, 3:41 am
#88
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2002
Programs: Mucci des Hommes Magiques et Magnifiques
Posts: 19,092
Jonathan1974 I have no idea if you are BA staff or a customer, if you have read any of my posts about MF you will know that I am no fan of the existence of the fleet.
If you are BA staff you really are doing more harm then good posting in such a derogatory manner.
We have to accept that MF is here to stay and BA are happy to accept that there will be service failures, I know that we are also not perfect on any of the other fleets.
If you are BA staff you really are doing more harm then good posting in such a derogatory manner.
We have to accept that MF is here to stay and BA are happy to accept that there will be service failures, I know that we are also not perfect on any of the other fleets.
Jul 7, 2015, 3:54 am
#89
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: JER
Programs: BA Gold/OWE, several MUCCI, and assorted Pensions!
Posts: 32,145
We had MF crew both ways to/from IAD recently [A380 in CW] and were well pleased by their performance. All seemed very engaged and proactive. "Tick VG" from my POV on both sectors.
Jul 7, 2015, 4:41 am
#90
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 49
answer to `can i help you'
of course I am not a BA employee; I am a frequent premier class business traveller, in the process of stopping using BA because of some really unpleasant experiences on MF. No, you are not right: none of the three other `fleets' demonstrates the shortcomings of the majority of the MF crew. The people I feel really sorry for are the other 35-40% of MF: the excellent (badly-paid and ill-treated) cabin crew of whom there are of course hundreds, if not thousands of members by now and who have to work alongside people completely unfit for this kind of work.