[Anonymous]

[EU_Flyer]

I have a theory about cabin crew that isn’t specific to any one airline but certainly comes to mind in light of the present BA strike.

Many cabin crew are delusional about the nature of their professional role.

In my opinion CC exist for 2 reasons. Service and Safety.

Both of these are entirely customer focused areas of responsibility. However, putting aside safety, the service aspect of their jobs is just that…… SERVICE.

I am rather amused by cabin crew who feel that service is a merely incidental aspect of their professional responsibility.

And here is my reason for thinking this. They are delusional.

They have jobs that allow them to fly around the world, stay in premium hotels where they are treated as important guests, get transported in considerable comfort whilst at work (ie they don’t get the train to and from the airport, they get an aircon’d bus) and get paid handsome allowances (far in excess of what they actually need) whilst away. In short, they are looked after very well.

But their delusion lies in the fact that when they get back onto that plane, they are there to serve and for many, I suspect, the psychological change from being the ‘important guest’ to being the ‘providor of service’ is not one that some make very easily.

I fly quite frequently on various airlines in Europe, Australia and the US and there are many wonderful CC out there who make my and my fellow passenger’s flights a delight.

But…..Cabin crew, your role is quite clear; to facilitate the comfortable and safe flight of your passengers. It’s not rocket science. You deserve to be treated with respect for what you do and are, not what you secretly wish you were.

[giramondo]

I only wish to thank AlexUpgrade77 because I am an ex cabin crew and one again in the future and he was able to explain very well what has been and is the attitude of too many cabin crew. Well done!

[MartynSinclair]

Alexupgrade77 – what a wonderful post and so so true.

Please Alex – do continue the theme and write two more posts in the same manner:

1. The role and purpose of William Walsh

2. The role and purpose of Unite/Bassa

Perhaps you hold the key to the solution. I look forward to reading your posts.

Martyn

[openfly]

Well done Alex…so true.

[Cedric_Statherby]

Excellent post Alex. I met this all the time in a previous job, several years ago now, where I was a middle-ranking public sector official in charge of a lot of public money. Service providers would take us out to first-class lunches, offer us fine entertainment and so on.

The problem with being taken out to £100-a-head lunches (it was as I say several years ago now, and I think the Whitehall rules are a lot more strict now than they were then!) is that you get used to it, and when you come to pay with your own money, it is hard to make a £15 meal at the local Indian seem quite the same.

SLS, we called it – Schitzophrenic Lifestyle Syndrome. It’s real, and I think you are right that the cabin crew struggle to avoid it.

[EU_Flyer]

Thanks for the comments.

I’m not a psychologist though…… just a curious observer.

But worth considering.

[TominScotland]

Wonderful post, Alex. Some really interesting thoughts and also from other contributors.

In fairness, though, lets not forget that dillusional long-haul crew are probably a small minority of those working as cabin crew. I don’t think there is time or energy for disllusion when your only smell of foreign parts is a 25 minute turn around on a European low cost airline. Likewise, many international airlines, especially from developing countries, give their crew very limited opportunitiy or money to spend when overseas. Iran Air’s London service, for example, when I used to take it, arrived in Heathrow at 11 and left again at 5, giving the crew a 5 hour rest period on board before the return flight. A recent post on TM (I think) talked about disquiet among Air New Zealand’s Shanghai-based cabin crew on the poor pay and conditions they have to put up with alongside their Kiwi colleagues, making disllusion totally unaffordable!!

Keep up the debate, though, espceially at a time when this thread is particularly relevant if you are unfortunately enough to be booked on BA and cannot access Heathrow via direct domestic connections at all!! Not me, by the way, as all my up-coming Heathrow connections from Scotland are with bmi.

[EU_Flyer]

Thanks for the comments. All very interesting and insightful.

I feel its topical as airline managements globally tackle spiraling staffing costs. I wonder to what extent staff attitudes and perception of their jobs impact how they go about negotiating their remuneration conditions.

Many Cabin Crew do a wonderful job but I wonder to what extent the pay model used by airlines 20 years ago (which is reflected in many still existing contracts) is still valid today with increasing pressure on yields and a significant reduction in the price of airline tickets in real terms over the last 20 years with the intro of Low Cost carriers and their impact on the market.

Is there room for career flight attendants any more?

Why not employ a largely casual workforce that is enthusistic, motivated and un-jaded for junior CC positions whilst advancement to full time supervisor and cabin manager positions give career staff an opportunity to develop. The unmotivated staff will be forced to leave and the flexibility of a casual workforce (as used in the hospitality and retail industries) will significantly reduce staffing costs.

Your thought?

[TominScotland]

“Why not employ a largely casual workforce that is enthusistic, motivated and un-jaded for junior CC positions whilst advancement to full time supervisor and cabin manager positions give career staff an opportunity to develop. The unmotivated staff will be forced to leave and the flexibility of a casual workforce (as used in the hospitality and retail industries) will significantly reduce staffing costs”.

Not a bad suggestion, I guess. To get a taste what of this sort of cabin crew policy means, try flying with a well known Middle Eastern airline with a very casual (in attitude), young, high turnover and multi-national workforce. Or a large European LCA with an increasingly Eastern European cabin team.

[EU_Flyer]

Valid point TomBaum.

I guess that can be addressed at the point of recruitment but I take your point.

The question is… do the present full-time CC on full service western airlines offer something better at the moment?

The attraction of a casual workforce is that you remove a lot of the restrictions that emplying someone full time attracts. Keep them casual and performance manage (or sack) them if they play up. Much easier if they are casual.

I wonder if there really is a a need for full time career flight attendants (excluding managers) in the present day and age. It’s still hugely attractive as a job (and lifestyle) but few CC see it is a long term profession any more.

That said, I am sure, and have seen first hand, many CC who take great pride in their jobs and execute their duties beautifully. Where these people don’t wish to be promoted to Managerial roles I wonder if casualization would disuade these people from staying or indeed from making the same effort they do as permanent employees. Hard to say.

Am keen to see what CC think of this.

[TominScotland]

You’re probably right, Alex and I am sure many airlines are considering this route. Charter airlines have always employed seasonal cabin staff on an April – October basis. I remember, back in the 1980s when I lived in Dublin, that Aer Lingus started to employ seasonal and short-contract staff, working to very different contracts than mainline cabin crew and known as “Yellow Packs” after the line of “value” products put out by a local supermarket.

[whatever6719]

Im really disheartened by the attitude out there. People seem to think that the wholesale casualisation of the work force is a good thing. Sure, it looks great on those end of financial year reports and those bean counters love it when costs get lower and lower. I am a Flight Attendant for a major scheduled western airline and I am seeing on almost a yearly basis, the deterioration of all that we have earned. Sure, there has to be give and take but everyone knows that those at the top are making a killing. Do we really want to live in a world where all of us are simply units of production, or an expendable resource?? You know what, all of us are just that, whether or not we are skilled. We are on a ridiculous race to the bottom with no end in sight. When people like Alexupgrade states something like “keep them casual, performance manage them and then sack them if they play up” makes me sick to the stomach.
I take comfort in that what goes around comes around. I have been around a while to say that sooner or later, “life” catches up with people one way or the other.
Flight Attendants simply want to do their job on the contract they were employed on. It seems more and more now that that contract is worth less than the paper it is written on as conditions get chipped away bit by bit.
I really fear for what we are leaving our kids…. a dog eat dog world where the cheapest wins and there is no employee or even customer loyalty. Im so glad Im closer to the end of my career than at the start.
Alex, you are welcome to the world you and your ilk are creating! But, be careful what you wish for!!!

[EU_Flyer]

Thanks for your input whatever6719. It’s clear that there are many CC who take great pride in their work and indeed do a great job. Indeed I reflected this belief when I wrote:

“That said, I am sure, and have seen first hand, many CC who take great pride in their jobs and execute their duties beautifully. Where these people don’t wish to be promoted to Managerial roles I wonder if casualization would disuade these people from staying or indeed from making the same effort they do as permanent employees. Hard to say”.

So steady on the personal insults mate.

I respect your passionate defence of your profession. But the problem is that the contracts that CC entered into 20 years ago are simply unsustainable (in my opinion) when the environment in which airlines operate has changed so dramatically in that time.

The customer is rarely the enemy, indeed it is our custom that keeps ALL airline employees in jobs. But the methods employed by Unite have done very little to endear your colleagues to the general public and therefore justify my opinion that some CC are simply delusional about the commercial environment they live in.

Whether its the 5 star hotel layovers or the free travel perks, the truth is that ALL airline employees need to be willing to accept change.

[whatever6719]

AlexUpgrade77,
Yes, I am passionate about my profession so I make no apologies about what I write. Please know I did not intend to insult you personally…Im simply expressing how those views make me feel.

I have no problem with change at all. We have adapted and changed in the 21 years I have worked at my airline (not in the UK by the way)
We have introduced various ways of cost savings with the participation of our various unions but unfortunately, no matter what we do, it just never ends (nor unfortunately will it ever end any time soon by the way things are going)

What also frustrates me is that you, AlexUpgrade77 state how much you are delighted by good cabin service when you travel, yet, you would be only to happy to casualise the lot and give them a Mc Job whereby these crew would be earning even less than what they are on now.
I can assure you, the instances of you being “delighted” on board would lessen considerably!!
These casual airline employees of the future you wish to see will not have the same vision shared by staff employed by said company. They will not go that extra mile….why should they!!
The airline I work for employs casual labour as well as full time employees working side by side. The job gets done, but, my word, it could be oh so much better!!
I could go on and on about the merits of an engaged, productive, full time workforce but i think I have made my point.

[Author]

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