BA Cabin Crew - keep doing what you're doing!
May 5, 2018, 9:24 am
#18
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Argentina
Posts: 40,210
All I want is to be served the food and drink I've paid for. I don't expect to be fussed over or entertained by them. If they wish to chat with me I will gladly chat back but I don't get the hump if they don't. Not an easy job nowadays with higher passenger loads.
May 5, 2018, 10:03 am
#19
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: north of heathrow
Posts: 1,108
^
May 5, 2018, 10:11 am
#20
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: 30 miles from London
Programs: BAEC Gold, MUCCI, Elite Fan of MO, ALL Accor Live Gold
Posts: 1,482
F deserves the best and most experienced crew surely, and that is what you are flygirl68 having experienced you and your colleague’s (can’t remember her name not that I would mention it on here) best BA F service a couple of years ago.
May 5, 2018, 10:30 am
#21
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Lake Oswego, Oregon or Costa Alegre take your pick
Programs: AS MVPG,
Posts: 1,066
Big thanks to the CW crew who looked after me on our last LHR-SEA trip. I was badly injured in AMS but given an ok for flight letter. The CW crew made a nearly unbearable trip as pain free as possible. We did reward their kindness with a big nearly full box of Mrs Sees chocolates. That in turn kept me "medicated" with kir royals. Thanks crew.
May 5, 2018, 12:46 pm
#22
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Kyiv, Ukraine
Programs: Mucci, BA Gold, TK Elite, HHonors Lifetime Diamond
Posts: 7,691
I cannot agree more that BA cabin crew are usually very good. Some believe that since BA switched to BOB cabin crew have been unengaging and what not but my experience has not changed. In fact, a golden ticket is on the way to a member of cabin crew on my recent KBP-LHR flight in ET. I had a connection to two AA flights after that (a Transatlantic in Premium Economy and a Transcontinental in Economy) and was rudely reminded that AA cabin crew are there for their own entertainment.
Last edited by Andriyko; May 5, 2018 at 11:43 pm
May 5, 2018, 1:29 pm
#23
Join Date: Sep 2014
Location: Nashville,TN
Programs: AA Gold Elite
Posts: 601
I have only flown on BA twice and both were international flights both to/from the US and also in Africa. My mileage is quite limited, I get that. I have done a few domestic UK short BA flights which were not memorable but were not bad or ghastly.
I flew the JFK to LHR flight the night of Brexit and despite the understandable angst amongst them and many passengers it did not adversely impact service and to this day I still recall the remarkable Scottish female flight attendant who was on my side of the aircraft in F. I will not say her name due to privacy issues. But that was in 2016 and is noteworthy.
I just completed the inaugural LHR to BNA flight, and again the cabin crew,captian and FO were the best.
I usually only fly in Business or First on International flights(usually on award miles) but there is just something really exceptional about the BA crew onboard. I have found them genuine,engaging,attentive and professional and not at all obsequious or fawning like other carriers from Asia and the Middle East. I have always felt extremely confident that if there was any problem that the BA crews would know what to do in a flash. Crew on some of the other carriers? Who knows.
I flew the JFK to LHR flight the night of Brexit and despite the understandable angst amongst them and many passengers it did not adversely impact service and to this day I still recall the remarkable Scottish female flight attendant who was on my side of the aircraft in F. I will not say her name due to privacy issues. But that was in 2016 and is noteworthy.
I just completed the inaugural LHR to BNA flight, and again the cabin crew,captian and FO were the best.
I usually only fly in Business or First on International flights(usually on award miles) but there is just something really exceptional about the BA crew onboard. I have found them genuine,engaging,attentive and professional and not at all obsequious or fawning like other carriers from Asia and the Middle East. I have always felt extremely confident that if there was any problem that the BA crews would know what to do in a flash. Crew on some of the other carriers? Who knows.
May 5, 2018, 4:32 pm
#24
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: BOS
Programs: BA Silver, Mucci
Posts: 5,289
May 5, 2018, 5:27 pm
#25
Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 4,771
BA crew are very consistent and probably the only reason I keep coming back, I generally know I'm going to get friendly reliable service. I would however take exception at the 99.9% comment, I'd say it's more like 90%.
May 5, 2018, 5:53 pm
#26
Join Date: Dec 2015
Location: London - SW4
Programs: BA Gold
Posts: 320
I've had a few not-so-great experiences, but looking back I do believe I was a bit harsh *because* BA crew are generally fantastic. Not the best service I've ever had (that was QF JFK-LAX in J), but consistently fantastic and what I look for i.e. a combination of friendliness, professionalism, and charm. Probably why I fly BA and will pay more to do so (on a uni student budget!).
May 6, 2018, 5:56 am
#27
FlyerTalk Evangelist, Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Somewhere between 0 and 13,000 metres high
Programs: AF/KL Life Plat, BA GGL+GfL, ALL Plat, Hilton Diam, Marriott Gold, blablablah, etc
Posts: 30,520
I'm always mildly puzzled by those regular "BA crew are the best, the friendliest, and the most competent" threads as well as by the also regular "BA crew are the worst, incompetent and surly" threads.
I fly lots and lots of flights every year, with BA being the airline I use most (it has been for a few years) but a number of other that I also fly regularly. I have had some absolutely fantastic crew with BA.... as I have with many other airlines, I have had horrid crews with BA... as I have with many other airlines, and I have had a majority of good crew with BA as with my most other airlines.
Most cabin crew around the world - regardless of country and airline - are doing the job that they do by choice and often passion. It is harder than it looks, and passengers are often (I would guess increasingly often) ungrateful and entitled about it. The airline world is (rightly) security-centric and as a result, cabin crew around the world are typically very competent, well-trained initially, and well-retrained regularly. It is not as though BA had different recruitment criteria from any of their main competitors, the idea that BA manages to get better people and/or motivate them more by paying them better than competitors would be laughable, and the notion that it is about some diffuse recruitment strategy or training is negated by the fact that those threads (both positive and negative) occur randomly with regards to WW, EF, and MF crew, all of which have been subjected to very different recruitment, initial training, and package.
In other words, as a comparison of "quality" or "reliability" whether good or bad, the argument simply does not make sense logically, and it suggests to me that those threads are really about other things, and notably the person who writes more than the crew that they are talking about:
1) Identity and habit: it seems that often the "they are so great" comments come from people who are BA regulars and/or even at times people who've thought of BA with some affection ever since they were kids. We all develop habits, almost identities, and in a way, it is great that we develop habits and attachments and can often derive comfort from them. I think that there is a lot of it at stake here.
2) Status: again, you get a lot more of the "BA crew are great" from people with high BAEC status and more complaints from people who have high status with others. Consciously or subconsciously, there is no doubt that crew try harder to give us good service based on how we 'rate' on the airline scale of importance. Often this is not conscious, and even when it is, it is usually discreet, so I don't think we always identify the fact that crew are actually better with us (say a GGL with BA or a Plat Ultimate with AF or a HON with LH, etc) than with others until we speak to others with no status, but let's say that the whole idea of ipad on planes has been a great success for most airlines.
3) Homophily and cultural norms: one of the main reason people state for liking with BA crew is that you get "just the right amount of professionalism and banter" and the main reason you hear to dislike them is that they are 'indifferent and surly". Those are nothing more than cultural attributes and in the first case, for instance, you might as well just write that often without realising it (or even being persuaded of the opposite) the person (usually British) really feels more positive interacting with British people than with foreigners, and in the second case, that the person (usually non-British from a small number of predictable country) is not particularly delighted by the "British way" even if they think that they are based on their own image of what Britishness is/should be (high tea and Agatha Christie novels seems like a regular yardstick here!
). We act and function within sets of cultural norms and psychologists have long known that in effect, this systematically influences our judgement of others in very significant ways. Of course, this is all the more important that many crew members themselves will likely be homophilic like the rest of us, so that their own attitude also subtly varies if we are "one of them" as opposed to conveying different cultural norms in our behaviour. In a funny way, on a number of foreign airlines (AF, AZ, etc) people attribute those differences to language without noticing that it is actually a much broader thing than that (in fact, a Quebecois or a German will not have the same experience of AF and LX crew as a French/German speaking Swiss, and he same with US/UK).
4) Targetting: one of the frequent points made by many of those who love BA crews (not all though) is that they find ME3 crew robotic or lacking personality and/or US crew less subtle or aggressive. Beyond the issue of cultural norms mentioned above, it seems to me that this is an issue to do with (mis-) targeting. With ME3 crew, there is no homophily hypothesis possible because they come from everywhere, but I think that their demeanour and guidelines are based on what they and their airline consider to be the core target of the airline. If you are a 25 year old young woman, try telling off a 75 year old Qatar sheikh just for fun and we'll see what happens. Crew can't change their behaviour completely with every passenger (though they do a bit of adaptation intuitively) so if we are not part of that core target, in a way, there is often a mismatch between the crew attitude and what would work with me specifically.
5) Noticeability: the last thing I'd mention, which is also the only one which has nothing to do with the person who writes is that I am still convinced that in a way, one of the reason one notices good and bad BA crew more than good and bad crew in - say, JL F is that because of a generally weaker/more average product, crew really make a much bigger difference on BA. In fact, some of the excellent crew I remember best are the ones I've had on U2 and the best crew I've had in Y on a number of airlines, because with a mediocre and less noticeable product, the crew attitude makes much of the difference. By contrast, quite frankly, if you sit in AF P or JL J, you just don't have much need to even think about the crew.
It's not just that I don't recognise the claim that BA crew are the best/the worst (despite, once again, having had some of my best and worst crews on AF and BA because they have been the two airlines I've flown with most in my life, which increases the chances of encountering positive and negative outliers) but that there is, as far as I can see, no logical explanation under which either would hold true. That's why I think that those comments are really much about something else, much of it being a mirror effect.
I fly lots and lots of flights every year, with BA being the airline I use most (it has been for a few years) but a number of other that I also fly regularly. I have had some absolutely fantastic crew with BA.... as I have with many other airlines, I have had horrid crews with BA... as I have with many other airlines, and I have had a majority of good crew with BA as with my most other airlines.
Most cabin crew around the world - regardless of country and airline - are doing the job that they do by choice and often passion. It is harder than it looks, and passengers are often (I would guess increasingly often) ungrateful and entitled about it. The airline world is (rightly) security-centric and as a result, cabin crew around the world are typically very competent, well-trained initially, and well-retrained regularly. It is not as though BA had different recruitment criteria from any of their main competitors, the idea that BA manages to get better people and/or motivate them more by paying them better than competitors would be laughable, and the notion that it is about some diffuse recruitment strategy or training is negated by the fact that those threads (both positive and negative) occur randomly with regards to WW, EF, and MF crew, all of which have been subjected to very different recruitment, initial training, and package.
In other words, as a comparison of "quality" or "reliability" whether good or bad, the argument simply does not make sense logically, and it suggests to me that those threads are really about other things, and notably the person who writes more than the crew that they are talking about:
1) Identity and habit: it seems that often the "they are so great" comments come from people who are BA regulars and/or even at times people who've thought of BA with some affection ever since they were kids. We all develop habits, almost identities, and in a way, it is great that we develop habits and attachments and can often derive comfort from them. I think that there is a lot of it at stake here.
2) Status: again, you get a lot more of the "BA crew are great" from people with high BAEC status and more complaints from people who have high status with others. Consciously or subconsciously, there is no doubt that crew try harder to give us good service based on how we 'rate' on the airline scale of importance. Often this is not conscious, and even when it is, it is usually discreet, so I don't think we always identify the fact that crew are actually better with us (say a GGL with BA or a Plat Ultimate with AF or a HON with LH, etc) than with others until we speak to others with no status, but let's say that the whole idea of ipad on planes has been a great success for most airlines.
3) Homophily and cultural norms: one of the main reason people state for liking with BA crew is that you get "just the right amount of professionalism and banter" and the main reason you hear to dislike them is that they are 'indifferent and surly". Those are nothing more than cultural attributes and in the first case, for instance, you might as well just write that often without realising it (or even being persuaded of the opposite) the person (usually British) really feels more positive interacting with British people than with foreigners, and in the second case, that the person (usually non-British from a small number of predictable country) is not particularly delighted by the "British way" even if they think that they are based on their own image of what Britishness is/should be (high tea and Agatha Christie novels seems like a regular yardstick here!
). We act and function within sets of cultural norms and psychologists have long known that in effect, this systematically influences our judgement of others in very significant ways. Of course, this is all the more important that many crew members themselves will likely be homophilic like the rest of us, so that their own attitude also subtly varies if we are "one of them" as opposed to conveying different cultural norms in our behaviour. In a funny way, on a number of foreign airlines (AF, AZ, etc) people attribute those differences to language without noticing that it is actually a much broader thing than that (in fact, a Quebecois or a German will not have the same experience of AF and LX crew as a French/German speaking Swiss, and he same with US/UK). 4) Targetting: one of the frequent points made by many of those who love BA crews (not all though) is that they find ME3 crew robotic or lacking personality and/or US crew less subtle or aggressive. Beyond the issue of cultural norms mentioned above, it seems to me that this is an issue to do with (mis-) targeting. With ME3 crew, there is no homophily hypothesis possible because they come from everywhere, but I think that their demeanour and guidelines are based on what they and their airline consider to be the core target of the airline. If you are a 25 year old young woman, try telling off a 75 year old Qatar sheikh just for fun and we'll see what happens. Crew can't change their behaviour completely with every passenger (though they do a bit of adaptation intuitively) so if we are not part of that core target, in a way, there is often a mismatch between the crew attitude and what would work with me specifically.
5) Noticeability: the last thing I'd mention, which is also the only one which has nothing to do with the person who writes is that I am still convinced that in a way, one of the reason one notices good and bad BA crew more than good and bad crew in - say, JL F is that because of a generally weaker/more average product, crew really make a much bigger difference on BA. In fact, some of the excellent crew I remember best are the ones I've had on U2 and the best crew I've had in Y on a number of airlines, because with a mediocre and less noticeable product, the crew attitude makes much of the difference. By contrast, quite frankly, if you sit in AF P or JL J, you just don't have much need to even think about the crew.
It's not just that I don't recognise the claim that BA crew are the best/the worst (despite, once again, having had some of my best and worst crews on AF and BA because they have been the two airlines I've flown with most in my life, which increases the chances of encountering positive and negative outliers) but that there is, as far as I can see, no logical explanation under which either would hold true. That's why I think that those comments are really much about something else, much of it being a mirror effect.
May 7, 2018, 6:25 am
#28
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Bel Air, MD
Programs: BA Executive Club
Posts: 10
Why I rarely comment
Once again, I come to a topic where the previous correspondents have said exactly what I wanted to say, only better. I will simply add that the cabin crew serving the upper deck of our recent 747 flight from LHR to PHL were top notch, as is usually the case on BA.
May 7, 2018, 6:30 am
#29
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
Join Date: Feb 2010
Programs: BA Lifetime Gold; Flying Blue Life Platinum; LH Sen.; Hilton Diamond; Kemal Kebabs Prized Customer
Posts: 63,794
Yes, I recognise what you are saying, if someone have put a nice lucid version of what you intended to say then one may be tempted to just Like the post (or not) and leave it at that. But believe me, cabin crew do read threads like this and you know how it goes sometimes - bad flight, delays, difficult passenger(s) - they get home,get a mug of tea (or whatever) flip to FT and they get a small reminder why we appreciate the cabin crew and what they do to keep us safe and comfortable. Thank you for posting.