[magnus77]

batraveller2 – August 2012 is when its happening to LAX, I am no celebrity but I have a double whammy, of MF to Boston and on the return from LAX, new 77W or not I am now not looking forward to either after I sampled my first MF this week, it was a cross between Hi DI HI and a charter flight !!!

Doors to manual, I hope your right we have First on the way back from LA and CW going out, I will be interested to see the difference between the two cabins and I hope they become more experienced and provide a premium service and not something out of the bucket and spade brigade to spain!!!

honest crew, I hear what you say and totally agree with you why couldnt they learn from the WW fleet and they progress on there own after sufficient training and on the job learning, it smells of cost cutting, and lack of forward thinking other than saving money maybe the old CEO still has an influence but that’s another story !!

[HonestCrew]

Hippocampus sounds exactly like someone involved directly with the development of Mixed Fleet with a real paranoia of other crew fleets at BA. (???)
He has backed up the fact that our customers have again been used as crash test dummies as they were at Gatwick, happy to risk chaotic service and poor knowledge of the business in order to save money, because that’s all it is, a money saving scheme. It can be tarted up as ‘the next generation of super heroes’ which MF crew are fed but it is just about money.
To suggest other crew fleets want integration for reasons of a power base is laughable. Could it be that we simply don’t want our national airline cheapened into a flying bus company who want a high turnover of staff to save paying annual wage increments and pensions with scarce consideration for providing the service that our customers pay a lot of money for?
Is it wrong to be disappointed that the required experience and qualifications have been lowered so much that people in the recruitment department are being told to accept new recruits who would not even have been offered an interview a few years back?

Again, I am not bashing the crew. It’s the whole idea that a few weeks training will give the confidence, knowledge and people skills to really know the job and give customers and our reputation what they deserve.

Yes, MF do have crew recruited from other airlines, but when you are working with one crew member who is unfamiliar with the locations of service equipment and service flow it disrupts things. MF management are happy with operating with 50% inexperienced crew, so you can imagine the scene.
Also, customers expect you to be able to answer their questions on other things such as transfers, immigration formalities, customs allowances, problems with IFE, how to do this, how to do that, a million things that with a variety of crew experience you can find the answer to.
When new, crew are often reluctant to get involved with urgent medical problems, they don’t understand why the first aid things they have been taught don’t always happen the way it says in the book. Inexperienced people often overreact or worse ‘under react’ in situations of urgency, trust me I have seen it.
I can look back at my own career and remember situations which I could have handled better, much better, but I had experienced colleagues on hand to help out.

Yes, there will be good reports from passengers. Of course there are some good crew there particularly some of the CSM’s (chief pursers) but having spoken to many of them personally even they struggle to follow Hippocampus’s company line of MF will take over the world of BA for the exact reasons I have mentioned. I could give many examples of failings told to me personally by MF CSM’s and former worldwide temporary crew who moved to MF, but I don’t want it to look like I am on some sort of witch hunt. Far from it. Give credit to those who deserve it but highlight the sheer arrogance of certain management who believe they can do something our main competitors in Asia and the MidEast would never dream of.

I could take offence at being described as a “disgrace to the industry” as Hippocampus put it, but as you may see I am both passionate about this topic and confident I am making very valid points criticising the MF project. As FlyingChinaman said if the Asian carriers can see how important it is to give their premium customers experienced and proven crew, how can BA go completely the other way?

To answer Rich’s question, UK airline crew are trained to pretty much the same level of safety, emergency and medical skills, most adapted to the restrictions and specific dangers of being on an aircraft.
But when the chips are down people react differently and from my own experience new crew are often not best to deal with it and actually often do not WANT to deal with the problem in hand. This can be put down to a lack of confidence and/or not having been in that situation before. I myself have been both the ‘stand offish one’ and the ‘let me deal with it’ one. The job is a learning curve. If you are in hospital and are told your anaesthetist, surgeon and other important folk have read the books, fresh from uni practicing on pig organs and ready to operate on you, would it fill you with confidence that everything will go as well as it should?

[HonestCrew]

**Note, I live in Lisbon. Over 100 Mixed Fleet flights under my belt therefore I consider myself well placed to know a thing or two on this topic **

(and I’ve just realised how epic my last post was, sorry about that, call it passion)

[KeaneJohn]

Honestcrew once again your input into the forum has been invaluable again.

I have to say having flown MF on a Club Europe service to and from Prague in the last few weeks I was pleasantly surprised. The crew worked hard and very attentive on the short flight with a cabin at half capacity. The service was sincere and top rate. The only experience that let it down was the check in agent. I was told that the positive feedback would be given to the crew by their managers.. Does this really happen. I hope so as I am sure if must be nice to be told 2-3 weeks after the event you really made an impact to a passengers travel.

Ironically when I used to fly Upper Class with Virgin Atlantic several times a year, I thought the service was shoddy with “Barbie” like crew being put in UC to keep the Business Passengers happy and younger crew at the back.

I think I read that the reason Coca Cola wanted things changed is that the staff were not getting much sleep as the meal service dragged and with the numbers of premium passengers they had BA had to listen.

I guess what people need to remember is the words that the captain says just before take off.. the crew are primarily there for your safety..

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

“I guess what people need to remember is the words that the captain says just before take off.. the crew are primarily there for your safety..”

Fair point, but on the other hand more easy digested on a 1-2 hour flight, with a simple service routine.

I’ve encountered mixed fleet twice, so far, on 1 hour flights. The two CSMs were excellent, although I do understand the comment about ‘Hi-de-hi’ made earlier, as the PAs were very cheerful, not the normal thing one would expect on BA 😉

If you’ve paid for first or business, on long haul, you do expect to receive the comensurate service.

If a crew cannot deliver a meal service in a reasonable time, so that pax can sleep afterward, they aren’t competent, IMHO.

One of the good things about flying Etihad, in business, is that you eat when you want to, not when the crew decide you should. This is a major advantage to the business traveller – often, I’ll sleep for 2-3 hours, then eat, then sleep for another hour, seems to suit me.

[LuganoPirate]

Swiss F crew are all experienced and have worked their way up from short haul Y, to Business, to Long haul Y and up to the front. It can take them 10 years to get there.

Dinner orders are taken before t/o on night flights and if all you want is the starter or a soup, it will be speedily served so you can get to sleep quickly.

Personally I’ve never encountered MF crew on any flight with any airline, but to be honest it’s possible I never even noticed as I’d not heard the term till reading this forum!

[JulianCucumberpatch]

The calibre of Mixed Fleet crew is reflected by the pay and conditions BA are prepared to pay. Currently a Mixed Fleet steward is on remand for making a bomb threat on a flight from HND to LHR.

MF crew only get 3 days specific First Class training and then they are equipped to work in that cabin according to BA management.

Mixed Fleet crew are cynically moved from route to route in order to share the pain and confuse customers. Now it is the turn of LAX, BOS and ORD. I can assure you that the station staff there are well aware of the problems that will be created for them.

[Hippocampus]

HonestCrew, Thank you for your reply

The “disgrace to industry” comment wasn’t directed at you. There have been some contributors on this forum who seem hell bent on trashing Mixed Fleet crew members personally.

For the record I have no involvement in BA or Mixed Fleet. I just want to see BA succeed and recognise the old ways of working couldn’t continue and BA has to be competitive.

Some crew members do resent Mixed Fleet, not because of concerns over service, but because they do not want the internal competition at LHR that Mixed Fleet represents and as Mixed Fleet grows BASSA’s influence at LHR will continue to diminish. If we’re honest Mixed Fleet working practices do highlight some of the considerable inefficiencies on EF/WW that are a hangover from BEA and BOAC. And regarding your comment at LGW, without Single Fleet at Gatwick the base would have been shut down.

The circumstances of Mixed Fleet’s introduction were far from ideal, but I’m afraid it’s not going to go away. BASSA should have had the foresight to accept that new crew joining on radically different terms and conditions was going to happen and couldn’t be stopped and offered a way to ensure they could be integrated. When BA was faced with an absolute resistance to change from BASSA you can hardly blame the company for starting a fresh with a new fleet.

There was no alternative – unless you want BA to carry on the old way of cutting routes and capacity because it can’t compete.

The company is playing the long game in ensuring it is fit to compete and grow in what is a pretty brutal industry so teething problems with Mixed Fleet (I appreciate that’s little consolation for those who’ve experienced them) are a small price to pay for long term competitiveness.

And contrary to what is claimed above, routes are moved between fleets for manpower planning reasons and to ensure variety for all fleets.

[MartynSinclair]

HonestCrew, in an earlier post you used the term “MF Management”.

Are you saying that depending which you are mixed fleet or legacy, would depend on who managed the team/employee from BA’s perspective?

[magnus77]

There is one common denominator here that is leading to this situation. When you have various staff doing essentially the same job whether longhaul or shorthaul or worldwide or mixed fleet but are on vastly different terms and conditions and salaries you will always encounter the resentment from all angles it happens its human nature, Yes I know the staff agreed these when they commmenced employment with BA. I feel BA are very short sighted in this approach bordering naivety if they thought it would go down smoothly with crew and passengers alike.

The crew are at the sharpe end and if MF training is lacking its not the crew’s fault that lies with managers and BA. However BA must realise we the consumer are entitled to receive good service,albeit at a premium,if travelling CW or First, therefore the customer when paying a premium raises there expectations of good service. If they dont receive this for whatever reason they are within there rights to be moody and complain.

BA must recognise this and deal with it more effectively. My company several years ago bought out the staff on old, favourable contracts and everybody are on the same contracts regardless of experience or long service, I will not lie there was teething problems but there was no resentment like there appears to be now.

[HonestCrew]

Yes, there are separate management for Mixed Fleet. They are not connected to other fleets in any way.

We are told routes are moved around for operational reasons but the bottom line is cost. For example, MF started with leisure routes and in Europe this included Budapest and Prague. Now the crew have cut their teeth a little Budapest is moving back to Eurofleet. Is it a coincidence that Budapest is the lowest paying route for Eurofleet crew? Worldwide crew’s lowest paying routes are India. Will MF ever be given these routes? No.

Of course if a company wants to save money they can, but save it in the right places. To remain competitive let those paid to come up with ideas do it but make them realistic and put the customer first. The problem other fleets have stems from a real lack of respect shown by management when Willie Walsh came to BA, not appreciating the years of hard work, experience and commitment crew had put in. Focusing simply on confronting a union and treating all crew as the enemy was a poor choice of tactic and with a different approach could have been handled somuch better.
To be told you are no better than an18 year old straight from school is a kick in the teeth.

MF crew look the business. They are smart, well groomed, enthusiastic and most CSM’s very good. It does feel very ‘charter’ though when announcements are made by a teenage girl and the service goes on forever.
On short flights there isn’t much to go wrong but I have seen countless times a service of a sandwich and free drink go to pot.

The time taken to complete long haul meal services was an issue with a friend of mine returning from Las Vegas and it taking 4 hours to complete in Economy!

What bugs me as well is personally overhearing customers asking the crew simple questions to do with transferring or arrival procedures and the crew not knowing and often giving the wrong info again and again.

With time the MF crew will fully get the hang of it the service but it will take many years for them to be experienced in medical and safety situations to handle things as they should be.

I can’t see there being any integration whilst Walsh is still involved with BA/IAG. When he does go, should the BA CEO Keith Williams decide to integrate, the effect of moral and the company as a whole will shoot sky high and we can put many of the past issues to bed.

Looking back, things could have been handled better by both BA and BASSA but the past is the past.
Let’s work as one team, different pay but people being content with what they are earning and move the whole of BA and IAG onwards and upwards!

Amen.

[MartynSinclair]

One flight needs two sets of BA management to deploy, instruct, manage etc etc, one combined crew if its legacy and mf – does this extend to two completely different sets of rosta’s as well?

Perhaps this explains why products and services can be so confusing at times.

[HonestCrew]

WW, EF and MF crew each have a different scheduling department. Scheduling is a complicated thing so for a scheduler do deal with more than one fleet is a big ask hence separate departments
If there were MF crew and WW crew operating the same flight for example, as it stands it would involve two different scheduling departments, but with computer technology being as advanced as it is today something must be possible to over come it if the idea were to be considered.

Integration may mean occasionally crew costs for a particular trip may be higher but the boost in moral, productivity and pride in the brand it could produce could be worth the extra cost.

As it stands, as Hippo pointed out, BA’s current stand is “NEVER”, but
something has to change because right now things are not pleasant, there is a lot of friction, MF crew are in the firing line through no fault of their own and passengers are not getting the best they could be.

[RichHI1]

Hippocampus thanks for the reply. I can well understand your desire for BA to be successful. My question was raised because even the best management at times implement things suboptimally and change policies as circumstances change but in your posts I just detected a lack of critique (negative or positive). It must just have been the threads I was looking at I guess.

I have to admit that my main flying the last year and a half has been AA so I am out of the loop on he Mixed FLeet / Legacy Crew situation. As you may know American corporations use a process called seniority so you invaribalythe most experienced crews on the premier flights. I must say my BA flying LHR-LIS which has become a bit of a commute does vary. Some crews are very good and some not so much but with the delays that short haul can suffer, the logistics of BA T3 bussing I think everyone is entitled to an off day. The only time I was aware of any difference was one flight where the CSD was showing interest CE passengers (wasn’t busy) his new Ipad. Pulling up our details and explaining the plans BA had for it. Looked very interesting. Only shame for him was very few pax in CE were ExClub members, mostly AA, QF and CX and of course at present not much of our information was in the system. But I presume he would have been legacy as he said he normally flew 744’s.
As you may know cabin crew on AA can work across the fleet as the US has no restrictions on this. In practice this will involve 2 or 3 types only for most FA’s due to the routes they get and the stations they fly from. Staff from DFW, ORD or other busy stations may rotate through a lot more.

[magnus77]

honest crew,
Will things change if the BA management are happy with the cost cutting exercises, after all if its saving money its working for them.
For us passengers it is an unpleasant experience, I think we have a few more miles left in this one before a satisfactory outcome for all concerned!!
Thanks for the insight as always very informative

[Author]

Posts