[rferguson]

Rich you would be amazed….seriously.

I remember vividly one flight, working in the J galley (when I was at JL european males were NEVER to be seen in the cabin) on a flight from CDG-NRT. One of the poor Japanese girls missed out one of the passengers while delivering the main meals. Japanese passenger comes to galley complaining, yelling. Stewardess who missed him on the floor in tears while the japanese businessman was berating her. Purser comes along. Also gets on floor. Passenger insists the stewardess be ‘punished’ and comes to an agreement with the Purser that the poor girl would receive no break during the flight and would have to take everyones turn at servicing the loos. I kid you not. If I had not been witness to it I wouldn’t have believed it. I left JAL six months later.

What is interesting is that the western passengers seem oblivious to the way that the japanese passengers treat the japanese crew as it is often almost in code. So subtle, or out of view. Plus of course the language issue.

Oh BTW…just to throw a cat amonst the pigeons. You think us legacy crew are well paid at BA? You should have seen what JAL was paying us. Crazy money for what we were doing. But then again they had to in a way, to put up with what we had to put up with.

Anyway….I digress.

[RichHI1]

Rferguson, I am not surprised as I have a considerable exposure to Japanese culture. I think it has started to change in recent years but the expectation of perfection and the issue of losing face is very Japanese. However all cultures have plus points and minus points.

As Commodore Perry did not open up Japan to the western world until 1853 some aspects of social development so seem backwards and to me are redolent of the UK (another island race) of the VIctorian era.

[MJLRGS97]

I’ve searched timetable for Tokyo before, with both destinations coming up. It may be that you searched in the twice a week recess with only BA5 to NRT operating.

[Bucksnet]

A search for Tokyo returns both airports, but a search for NRT or HND only returns that one. However, a search for NYC, JFK or EWR returns all New York airports.

[jumpseatr4]

Just to inform you all that we are now recruiting for cabin crew based out of LHR who speak Japanese as a first or second language. We’re hoping this will attract mainly people of Japanese heritage (which we would assume it would) in order to assist with the service standards onboard these flights.

The fact is that MF is a VERY new fleet and sometimes building the right balance does take time, but I’d like to think we’re getting there now.

[RichHI1]

Jumpseatt4 I presume you refer tk BA and not NH or JL. I think making a positive step to recruit Japanese speakers and to be commended. I would however observe it is a very dangerous assumption that because someone speaks or reads and writes a language that they have a heritage. Japanese is a main commerce language and I know many people who are fluent as foreigners who have no familial Connections to Japan. Would you say recruiting French speakers you would assume a French heritage? In order to recruit staff who know how to behave in a cultural acceptable way in Japan, you need an experienced interviewer and ask Cultural Questions.

[jumpseatr4]

Rich I am indeed referring to BA and I 100% agree with what you are saying. Please don’t take it the wrong way in thinking that we think that ONLY people of Japanese heritage would apply. That would be silly. But we do hope that it will at least attract people of Japanese heritage. Just like we would expect the same to happen should we recruit fo French speakers. This could attract English, African AND people of French heritage and many others.

I therefore would like to think that BA recruiting for this role would attract a good mixture of people. People who speak the language which would assist us in many ways, as well as people of Japanese heritage which would also assist us in ensuring the service we offer to our Japanese guests is authentic.

[VintageKrug]

It’s good to see Mixed Fleet making such a success of a route, and also being supported to deliver the required level of language skills across the airline.

[Tete_de_cuvee]

BA will need to pay a substantial premium to recruit Japanese speakers.

It is a touch reminiscent of the legacy fleet crew who wore badges to denote the additional languages they spoke and paid a premium for each one.

It appears that a higher calibre is now being sought following the debacle of parties, pregnancies, and mishaps.

Clearly it is the management of BA that needs upgrading as they lacked the basic sense to see this was so inevitable.

BA’s nefarious behaviour saw the demise of Laker, the compensation being paid to Sir Freddie being too late to recover his airline.
Then the dirty tricks detailed in Gregory’s Book resulting in more compensation. Then the various cartels resulting in hundreds of millions in fines and compensation. Now the cabin crew 18, I wonder how much compensation/non-disclosure award will be due to 13 non-returners?

… plus ça change

[HonestCrew]

Treating passengers as crash test dummies is not on! Allowing substandard service standards, keeping eyes closed hoping for the best and only making obvious changes when complaints are made are NOT the actions of a premium airline. BA should stop trying to see what they can get away with and give passengers the service they have paid (a lot of money) for! It is not fair to give them Mixed Fleet and not fair on Mixed Fleet crew to once again been thrown on to a premium route without experience and skills expected from Japanese passengers.

The only saving grace for the crew is Japanese passengers very rarely show their displeasure at the time. They do this with the pen and really let rip if they’re not happy!

[LeTigre]

I had a look at Chinese jobs (based in London) with VS recently and the premium over English natives was just 7-8%.

[jumpseatr4]

The legacy fleet is one of many experienced crew members. However in the world we are in now, fresh faces are must definitely required in order for the airline to be with the times.

Look at Virgin. Many young crew members work for the airline and it is now a time where BA need to go with the times. They are called a ‘legacy’ airline for a reason.

[RichHI1]

But LeTigre Chinese premium is nothing like Japanese premium. Like comparing Polish premium with Sweden.

[Hippocampus]

jumpseatr4 – Keep up the good work and ignore those who are trying to beat you down.

[RichHI1]

Sorry what does fresh faces mean? I fly AA a lot 😉 By the way ageism is not a pleasant thing. People should be hired because they are good not because they have a zimmer frame or wear diapers.
The initiative to hire Japanese speakers is a good one and we should not lose sight of that. Hiring Japanese speakers will not be cheap but what BA needs is good staff. As evidence I introduce the US electronics Company, CIrcuit City. They wanted to do better against their competitors so they went to a well known firm of Consultants and were told your staff are too experienced and too expensive, let them all go and hire college kids. Circuit City did this, lost its loyal customer base as they could no longer rely on Circuit City for advice and went into bankruptcy. Best Buy, they kept on getting the basics right. No such thing as a free lunch even if it is Unadon at 39,000 ft.

[Author]

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