Giantlonglegs

Perhaps "we" as passengers need to remember that cabin staff are people as well, doing their best to be the face of BA on the frontline in dealing with passengers.

Maybe if you have gripes with your flight, if you feel strongly, you contact BA's customer service afterwards, if you have a sensible gripe.

I've flown BA a few times, short and long haul, I've never had an issue with any of the staff.

I've flown different airlines, and have never had any issues with the cabin crew. I'm not trying to make excuses for individual cabin members, but like anyone else they can have their "off days" where they are still trying to be happy, smiley, and professional, the best they can.

The airline staff of a 747/ 777 etc deal with numerous knows how many passengers each flight, per week. Like anything else some passengers can be a right royal pain in the derrier compared to other more well behaved happy sensible passengers.

The "thank you announcement" for the staff may be a corporate policy, that even the staff may cringe at themselves. No matter whichever airline you fly, the cabin staff have umpteen things to look after, as mention a few times before, safety etc.

Being a former British serviceman, there was times of stress in my former work, and it's so true for airline staff, they deserve medals.

So the cockpit crew thanking the cabin staff is a nice touch. Who knows what certain difficult passengers, or unique situations ( not warranteed in letting the passengers know of) that the cabin crew have had to deal with on your flight or a preceeding flight.

Just be sensible and nice, and remember behind the corporate airline uniform is a person who chose to be an air steward/ess, and is doing his or her best.

If you want to see the other side of the coin try watching ( on another website )Rhod Gilbert's Work Experience Season 8 Episode 3 on the BBC. Rhod trying to be a BA steward is very insightful, from the cabin crew perspective.

Badenoch

Not really. Reasonably well-adjusted people are not thrown into a fits of pique over something as trivial as an in-flight announcement thanking the cabin crew.

zebranz

[/QUOTE]

2 slams (BA and crew) make a difference? Staff are paid to do work (sometimes hard). Let's thank the passengers by giving reasonable service which is a bit on the short side most of the time.

adrianlondon

They thank passengers for choosing and flying BA, despite the fact some might not have made that choice themselves, so why not thank the crew who may or may not have had a bad day.

I'm more irritated by the "We will soon start our descent and will turn the seatbelt signs on in 20 minutes. Please go to the bathroom now if necessary" announcement followed 5 minutes later with the signs coming on and "10 minutes to landing".

HIDDY

They must have an easy life compared to me.

subject2load

snaxmuppet

The contents of these announcements don't bother me but what does is that on l/h I am relaxing listening to some soft music at a sensible volume when all of a sudden my music stops and I am shouted at high volume with some announcement. On one occasion it actually hurt my ears!

binman

South London Bon Viveur

orbitmic

Except that from a psychological point of view, I expect this particular announcement to achieve exactly the opposite of what you rightly say is needed. Typically, perceptions of self-praise tend to make others more likely to under-estimate the qualities of the person or group from which they emanate. In other words, if you (as an individual or group) say that you work hard, others are likely to perceive you as working less hard than if you say nothing.

So sure, underline crew awards and achievements, place them centre-stage by giving them a face, a voice in the online magazine (it used to be more the case before with pilot interviews etc), give more value to those who receive golden tickets, organise an employee of the month competition based on passengers' feedback etc, all those things may well achieve what you say in terms of humanising and valuing employees in the eyes of customers but saying "you've worked hard, well done" in public won't, not because passengers are mean or bitter but just because of fairly basic and well known psychological effects on human perception.

And whilst the announcement is precisely not based on a company policy (in fact, some crew members have suggested that this is even discouraged upthread), it would be paradoxical if it were: BA treat their employees in general and cabin crew in particular very poorly. Employment relations are chronically tense, there have been multiple threats of strikes especially for some fleet (notably Mixed Fleet and LGW fleet) due to ever worsening package, work conditions, pensions situation and more. So if BA does want to improve the feeling of their cabin crew - and I'd very much support them doing that - I suggest that rather than embracing announcements of this type, they start by treating them with respect, offering them a decent pay for their work and genuine incentives to perform better and elicit customer satisfaction, long term safety in their employment and a sense of being heard and considered by their company leaders rather than just their CSM/CSD. That, I'm sure, would boost the crews morale radically.

navylad

orbitmic

I would whole-heartedly agree with all of the above! ^

Badenoch

They don't have an easier life than you. They are going through life on the razor's edge of anxiety and in a constant state of turmoil about the tiniest, most insignificant thing.

Misco60

The bit where they say "..any contribution, no matter how great or small..." makes absolutely no sense - it should, surely, just be "... no matter how small..." - and I really wish they'd correct the script.

Or, better still, just drop it completely. There are already too many announcements onboard, many of which are empty rituals and invariably delivered in a bored and stumbling monotone.

PAL62V