My friend confirmed the salary, she also worked with several of the Chinese FA's on interport recently, but said that they only have got safety training, not any service training.

Apologies...
 

LOL... there are definitely hottie 40+ FA's... I wasn't alluding that only the young ones can be considered hotties :D

Oh, I've been hot, and I've been young...............

Sadly, never at the same time!

I could'nt agree more. But sadly the transpacific FAs are not likely to be the ones replaced. They have the most seniority and get to pick these routes. I often fly through NRT and these FAs always make a very long flight even worse. Even though there is two cabin crews on these flights and they get to alternate they seem to resent having to serve you. I feel like I am flying on a different airline when I board the flight from NRT to BKK which usually has an all asian crew.
Dave
PS I too will be flying to BKK in NOV.

How much are you betting?
Dave

It seems that NW could fix a range of problems:

1. It only makes sense to hire foreign nationals to be based at the foreign stations to fly the flights out of there, especially those that go AWAY from the USA rather than towards it.

2. I think NW and other legacy carriers would do a lot better to put more vertical structure into the staff functions on the plane. Have three or four levels of FA's on a plane, segregated by pay and duties. The current structure is too flat, and means that the seniority game has everyone hanging onto these "prestige" flights because of the perks of the route or schedule or whatever.

If there were 5 "junior FA" positions on a wide-body transpacific flight at a fraction of senior FA pay, then you would have staff moving thorugh their careers signing up to work these flights, and the most senior people would go elsewhere.

We are left in the US with the least experienced people flying the smallest & oldest planes--the ones with the inherently larger safety risks. The data I have seen is that the safest commercial flying segment is always the transocean one.

What we need is labor flexibility, something that NW can at last think of having.

Simple answer. Unlike you, who is located on the west coast, we don't have the choices of airlines to fly. Singapore airlines, Cathy Pacific, Eva, Thai Airways, Japan Airlines, and many others don't fly into most midwest or southeast airports. (As for Korean Airlines, I would rather take a boat as fly them). No one wants to change airlines enroute because of the higher chance of missed flights and/or lost bags. And, " as good as any other airline" could mean the other US air carriers are just as bad on the transpacific flights.
Dave

He didn't? I must have been hallucinating.

You have to read the posts in order for things to make sense. My original statement was in response to psychtobe's overreaction to DanKelly's post #63. While the post suggests his age and maturity are both perhaps low (no offense, DanKelly), it was neither derogatory nor offensive. It was never my intention to defend any other statements he made.

I don't really have anything else on topic to say on this thread anymore... I find that most NW FAs provide excellent service. But I think it would behoove NW to: 1) substitute foreign FAs for international flights, 2) eliminate most FAs currently servicing the international routes, and 3) force the FAs into a reward system based on performance instead of years of service.

No offense taken... I guess after 20 year of posting on the internet, I should remember that people won't allways get my sense of humor... such as the "fresh young babes". But no matter what you post, if people don't agree, and are too intimidated by your logic to confront you with facts, they'll generally resort to criticizing your punctuation, sentence structure, and choice of words, perhaps do some misquoting to boot... (while as you pointed out, not making any positive contribution to the topic at hand)... which is what happened in this case. I've found over the years to ignore them.

Totally right on. It looks like they'll end up axing the Marios and rotating the Warios back stateside... Too bad.

I'm done on this thread also.

Dan K

Wonderfully put! :D I look forward to taking more friends to Asia to see what great service can be - in flight (CX, TG, etc.) and on the ground (the rather different scale of an Asian 4 or 5* hotel vs. American - never had a hotel experience in the U.S. come close to the Peninsula in BKK).

Dan, an ellipsis at the end of a sentence should be done with four periods....

An ellipsis consists of three periods.

I wonder, reading this thread, if the airline has any idea how much revenue they have cost themselves by failing to address human factors.

But we're not human beings.... hence, no human factor.

We are just an expendable number.


I'm just anxiously awaiting my parole on 10/30/05!

Greg F.
DTW-Reserve

Four periods are used at the end of a sentence: From the Columbia Guide to Standard American English