Can I help you

Fantastic post, I 100% agree with everything you say.

AirbusA350

Whilst I know everyone strongly believes that MF are just filled with young, trashy people who have no clue of “classiness” or the other perception seems to be the other end of the spectrum of spoilt young brats who live off bank mummy daddy from home and hence naturally their service is also remarkably bad...it is really quite insulting to hear. It’s as if they’re automatically branded as not being capable of delivering customer service just because they’re not experienced or just because they don’t have those “years under the belt” nor the financial prowess that other fleets possess which automatically degrades their classiness too...Whilst you might not be meaning it in this way, believe me there are many comments, even on here, that insinuate this and it’s quite sickening and only highlights social indignity of perceptions and a modern day “class war”.

A huge majority of BA flyers, which believe it or not aren’t made of FT, HfP, TLFL, OMAAT readers. Us lot are actually a more of a minority. Even amongst some of the frequent flyer community, some don’t even know about the three fleet structure and report the same consistently inconsistent service that BA, along with most Western “legacy” carriers like AF/LH/KL, provide which often ranges from excellent to poor from all three fleets and even on here in general there’s a general consensus that all three fleets are equally as good and bad as each other.

Contrary to popular belief there are actually quite a handful of older cabin crew on MF (eg. My partner’s line managing CSM is in his 50s) and they’re not a rarity. Likewise there are many who are well educated graduates doing it for an “experience” for a couple of years whilst also there are quite a handful who have been there since the inception of MF and are still, happily, flying. Many MF crew members have children, mortgages and similar commitments that legacy crew have too, believe it or not despite the popular perception. And whilst the more “senior” generation might roll their eyes at this - the younger generations have also had it tough all their lives and have had to encounter 3 major financial crashes (one currently ongoing and continuing to plummet) in their lifetime, severely inflated house prices and ever eroding “market pay” across the board in many professions not just BA and have not had it as easy as the babies born before the 80s, blame whoever one wants for that but it’s not the younger generations’ fault. In fact BA’s new proposed cabin crew pay still gives it a higher take home than a junior nurse, lab technicians, physiotherapists and many graduate schemes out there including BA’s own graduate scheme which has a salary of £28.5K per annum. I’m not at all endorsing that this is how it should be, but blame the overall socio-economic and political frameworks that are plaguing our society that have caused this to be the norm.

Whilst you do make a lot of fair points surrounding BA’s handling of industrial relations, it is simply not right to be singling out MF in a manner you have done or pegging them less than other fleets. They’re not automatically inferior and equally should not be allowed to be thrown under the bus, something which has always happened to protect other fleets and something even the Union seem to be wanting to do even now, again! Read my post above about how MFU have been sending advice for their members to question BA about why LIFO isn’t being used!

The end all and do all of this is that across the board it should be as fair as possible. It’ll be difficult to make everyone happy, BA are definitely in a less financially comfortable position than a few months ago which is a fact. True BA might be overstating it and the Union completely downplaying it, but there is truth in between.

Misco60

I've been on FT or about five years, fly frequently (and mainly BA) and have only the vaguest awareness (because it is mentioned here so often) that there are different fleets. I don't know which is which, or who flies where, or which are supposed to be the "good" and the "bad" fleets. As a mere passenger, it doesn't interest or concern me.

When I encounter off-duty cabin crew making nuisances of themselves in the Club Europe cabin, or exceptional crew that go out of their way to make my journey an enjoyable one, I don't think "they're MF" or "they're WW": they're just BA.

Agent69

In the current economic climate most would consider themselves lucky to get anything above CR. The fact that many at BA consider an offer above CR as not good enough is further evidence of the sense of entitlement that exists within the ranks.

Agent69

I recall several people saying CC should be paid the market rate, I don't remember anyone saying they should get minimum wage. Can you point to the posts in question?

jonas123

Without going into the personal aspect of it, I do agree - BA are evidently burning a lot of cash, it's irrelevant that they had a lot of cash at the beginning of the year when they're burning through £20m a day. Look at it another way, BA have taken £300m from the government as a loan - would the taxpayer think the best use of that money is to ensure the survival of the company, reduce the number of redundancies, or pay significant VR payments. Every decision BA takes has an impact on another part of the business - they don't just have a magic money tree to tap into.

Littlegirl

I think the reason some crew and other BA employees get very defensive on here is because unfortunately some posters talk about the issue as if they don’t realise we are real people, with jobs that we loved, with families and mortgages.

I sometimes wonder how old some posters are, sometimes I wonder if they are retired and out of step with wages nowadays and other times I wonder if they are just students and immature.

DYKWIA

Well, I'm 53 and I've just been made redundant for the first time in my life. I didn't expect, and didn't receive, anything about the statutory redundancy payment. After 13 years at my company, that was just short of £10k.

In the words of Norman Tebbit, I'm now getting on my bike and looking for work, This may involve paying for myself to be retrained, as my role was pretty niche - and there is no work around.

What I haven't done is post on an anonymous forum looking for sympathy, and then throw insults around at anybody who doesn't agree with me.

Ancient Observer

Just a couple of facts.

The most an employer has to pay as Statutory redundancy pay is UKP16,140. No matter what the salary.

The UK minimum wage is UKP8.72 per worked hour. Or, for a 40 worked hour week, UKP348.80p. Times 52 weeks, UKP18,137.

As many on minimum wage remind us, they do not get any extra payments. They do not have pay for traveling time, and often have unpaid hours in the middle of a shift.

I am not saying this is high pay!!! But, we must not confuse Minimum pay with the current BA offer.

BA have got themselves in to this mess. They should continue to seek to negotiate their way out of it. I do not think that anyone on here suggests that BA should pay any staff the minimum wage.

Littlegirl

So what makes you feel it is ok to post on here about other people being made redundant.

I wonder how you would feel if there was a thread full of people critiquing your value to your company when they know neither you or anything about your circumstances.

Im not suggesting that people shouldn't discuss what is happening at BA and I have been more than willing to give accurate info to help debate. What I find really odd is when people start to get personal about the value of any crew be they older ones or younger ones.

BOH

Because a) we live in a free country, b) this is an IBB about all things British Airways, c) this is a highly topical subject at the moment and d) differing opinions are (usually) allowed?

Can I help you

If QANTAS can afford to pay £87,000 to a crew member who has served 27 years what can BA afford?

jonas123

I really don't think looking at an airline the other side of the world is really helpful for you, it will just make you more jealous and upset. You could argue that BA had £3bn and 40,000 employees at the beginning of the year, so it could just pay everyone £75000 and call it quits.

I know it's hard because your predecessors probably got very got VR packages over the years. But that is very unlikely to happen this time, it's not the same situation. I just hope you can avoid these things getting too buried in your mind.

1Aturnleft

Qantas have a LHR crew base which they are in the process of closing due to lack of international flying.
Therefore extremely relevant to UK employment. More so than you'd appreciate if you just skimmed the word Qantas and made assumptions it was about something on the other side of the world.

BA has always been about a poor opening offer for negotiations with the relevant unions and a general acceptance that it'll agree on somewhere north of that figure but getting away with paying as little as it possibly can.

JFX1764

Oh, hadn't seen any news on that.