“I’m not First trained”
 

I was just on a flight in F. The pleasant young cabin crew member proactively told me that they had not been First trained. They did a great job so no complaints.

But what does it say about BA - deploying staff not trained in F on one of its premium heavy, status heavy routes? I suspect this was a route where many, like me, had paid cash to be in the F cabin.

Did you get any more context? It could have been that he was brought in from standby for example. Better that than being a crew member down.

Yes, but why would you tell your customers that?

I imagine to set expectations in case they make some sort of error. They are not First trained, so they don't know what they might be missing, whereas a regular customer would. I think the honesty should be appreciated, rather than service delivery not meeting expectations without an explanation.

If it was a standby crew situation, all good, as it happens, but if it was some other reason, BA need to get their act together.

As getting me my pre-take off, drink just told me. Was embarrassed that wouldn’t know what to do, I think. I had to show to take out screen for safety briefing, for example - it was already playing with screens stowed.

BA should be rostering crew who are FIRST trained on flights operating with a FIRST cabin. The IFM should be making the necessary requests to the DOM's ahead of the flight requesting a FIRST trained crew member be brought in from Standby to operate if they're crew down in that cabin. The reality is there's probaby not enough FIRST trained crew out there at the moment to do this and they'll have been told to make do with the crew available. Short of closing out F all together due to lack of product trained crew, then this is the next best thing I suppose.

The crew member concerned was likely overwhelmed with serving such a prestigious bunch of punters with likely high expectations over service and felt it may mitigate any shortcomings if they were open and honest about the situation.

BA really should never have put them in that position in the first place.

I don't believe that a customer in the first class cabin (on any airline) should have to have their expectations set at the beginning of the flight.

This is certainly not the impression that BA's marketing materials give, which is that FIRST, with its "exceptional, elegant service", is "the finest way to travel".

Exactly - but what does vex me somewhat is that someone comes along and says in all honesty what in effect - I have not done the training necessary for this cabin so please bear with me - and there's criticism over that. It is far better to put aboard the best available than to close the cabin and downgrade everyone to Flub. We do not know which route it was but if he did a great job then good for him, even though he must have been nervous, We have read about some who have been absolute donkeys from all accounts. I hope that apart from sharing this with us the OP has commended him to BA as well as asking them why this happened in the first place.

There are more than enough First trained crew, probably too many and it’s BAs roster and management shortfalls at play here.
If I had noticed that there wasn’t enough First trained crew I would have highlighted this but could just be told that there isn’t any suitable crew available.
If in the preflight briefing I had to ask a non trained crewmember to volunteer I would have given them the most support I could offer, I don’t however think the customer should be made aware in advance of any service issues.

Well I guess it is better than the pilot coming out to say he isn’t trained on an airbus 350 or whatever aircraft being utilised I think that would really worry me!

I want to stress that the crew member was extremely well meaning. Explained that they were due to be F trained but pandemic happened. Then, during pandemic was forced to work F anyway. Since then, prefers to work short haul so hasn’t wanted to be trained in F.

Separately, they had looked to book a personal flight for their partner on this route and had seen how much the price for F was - and was concerned that they would not deliver to the standard therefore expected for that price.

However well meaning though, there was a clear lack of knowledge of F procedures. Not a problem for me, but it is a bit concerning that BA cannot deliver the right staff to execute its value proposition.

In retail, a manager sending staff out who aren’t checkout trained or knowing the product wouldn’t be long for that world. And nor would the business that allows that to happen. It’s a lack of basic operational standards and management , which is a pretty consistent theme with BA over the years, see priority boarding or lack of.

My take is the situation is nuanced. On a recent flight where the F cabin was full but the Club cabin was not, a club member assisted in the F cabin after the main meal service. They were not F trained but had excellent service skills. It was a good use of the available resources and I appreciated it.

I think for me personally if the CC said they weren’t trained in F as long as they were willing and tried their best - and didn’t mind if you pointed out they had missed something, I would be happy. I am far more unhappy about the CC in F with attitude (thankfully rare on my flights) who just do not want to do the job.

For my regular drink (not always alcoholic!) requests I’d hope no extra training is required, and if it means I get it quicker all the better :)

One of the things I like about travelling BA is that the crew are typically genuine and not automatons - but I only do F redemptions rather than revenue bookings so…