BA Long Past Its Sell By Date

There is an interesting article in the Times about the decline in BA's customer service, and the frustration of the staff who work for BA.

As far as I can see, the fundamental problem is that there is no defined career progression for cabin staff.

Fly another airline, eg Virgin, and you will see that the staff are relatively young, after several years they are promoted to more "admin" type roles.

BA, on the other hand, are more often than not crewed by staff who have spent up to 20 years or more flying.

All very well wrt experience. However, after a few years of flying the novelty and enthusiasm soon wears off.

I have spoken to many staff on long haul flights, they are brassed off (to put it mildly) with how the company treats them; this frustration ends up being taken out on the customers, albeit unintentionally.

BTW, as per the article, I too have experienced broken seats (in first class!).

BA is a company that is long past its sell by date.

You're Fired

My commiserations to the two senior managers of BA, Gareth Kirkwood, director of operations at BA, and David Noyes, head of customer relations, who were fired yesterday by BA.

Their crime?

Seemingly they are being blamed for the T5 fiasco.

This is somewhat ironic given that Willie Walsh publicly said that he took full responsibility for the worst corporate pr, customer relations and logistics disaster in living memory.

What is particularly disturbing is that both men had each spent over 20 years in BA. Long service does not in itself mean that someone is particularly skilled at their job. However, it indicates that they should at least be reasonably competent at the internal politics.

Given this, is it really the case that they could have been solely responsible for this cock up of gargantuan proportions?

Surely other members of the board had some "mild interest" in the plans for the opening of T5?

Wouldn't Walsh, and the other members of the board, have gone through the plans with them?

Does BA, by sacking these two men, mean to imply that they formulated the T5 plans alone, off their own bat without any form of discussion or scrutiny from the board?

What an unusual way to run a company!

The other interesting point to emerge from the sacking is that their two roles will be merged into one "Chief Operating Officer". Customer Relations and Operations are normally two entirely separate functions in large organisations, is this combining of roles entirely wise?

Whilst the new incumbent is head hunted, Willie Walsh will take on the role.

Does this mean that everything is now fine at T5?

The reaction from the insurance companies would indicate not, they are refusing to insure baggage passing through T5.

BA are staring into the abyss, one more foul up and others will go.

"Normal" Service II

I see that "normal" service at Heathrow Terminal 5 in fact means further lost baggage and cancelled flights.

Will this terminal ever work as we were told it would?

Willie Walsh has said "Blame me"; fair enough, but as yet he refuses to resign.

Given that the problems are persisting and that the fault for this lies full square at the feet of BA, which tried to save money by not training enough baggage operatives, why has Walsh not been forced to resign?

Jim McAuslan, general secretary of the British Airline Pilots’ Association (Balpa), is quoted in The Times:

"Banks, institutional investors and analysts need to wake up to the fact that there is something very wrong right at the heart of this company that is making our great brand a laughing stock . . . we want confidence in our leadership, not arrogance."

Balpa will urge top shareholders this week to force a change in management, in the wake of the Terminal Five fiasco.

Were that to succeed, we can be sure that Walsh et al will receive some very handsome payoffs.

Storm Clouds Ahead

Personnel Today reports that British Airways' (BA) new human resources director, Tony McCarthy, has been warned that he will face "long-term problems" if he cannot find a solution to the dispute over the airline's plans for a subsidiary, Open Skies, in mainland Europe.

The British Air Line Pilots Association (Balpa) are to ballot of its members this week, on whether to hold strikes over the plan.

The pilots do not like the BA proposal to have a separate pool of pilots for Open Skies.

A Balpa spokesman told Personnel Today:

"We very much hope we can get an agreement on this, but if we cannot then it is going to be a long-term problem for the company - in particular for its HR team."

The informal conversations that I held with various members of staff, on the long haul flights I took between London/Beijing this year (eg see letter sent to Willie Walsh), indicate that there is a very high degree of dissatisfaction amongst the staff with BA.

There are storm clouds ahead.

It will be in the interests of everyone (staff, customers and BA) that BA find a way to fly around them.

BAA Strike

BAA is making one final attempt to reason with the dinosaurs in UNITE (the union that is pressing ahead with plans to shut down Britain's major airports on the 7th of January).

However, BA still refuse to acknowledge the possibility of any such strike on its website.

Why?

Update on the BAA strike sourced from AHN

The British Airports Authority is scrambling to avert strikes at some of Britain's busiest airports and is set to hold talks with airport unions on Monday.

Discussions with the Unite and the Public and Commercial Services unions will be held at an undisclosed venue, in a bid to convince the workers to call off the strikes set for seven days in January.

The mass action will kick off on Jan. 7.

The protest action against proposed changes in the salary pension scheme of new workers is seen adversely affecting operations of BAA's seven U.K. airports, including Edinburgh, Gatwick and Heathrow.

Notably, even firefighters and security staff will join the strike which is also slated on Jan. 8, 14, 15, 17, 18 and 19. The airports cannot operate without these personnel. Aberdeen, Glasgow, Southampton and Stansted airports will also join the protests.

If it pushes through, some 1.3 million passengers will be affected, BAA said.

The parties tried but failed to reach a compromise last week.

The unions insisted on the reversal of the pension scheme amendments but BAA refused to give in. Ferrovial, the Spanish owner of BAA, wants to close the company's final-salary pension scheme to new entrants.

Brendan Gold, Unite national aviation officer, said the workers delayed the strike until after the Christmas holiday but are determined to push through with the actions if BAA fails to give in to their demands.

The first day of strike, Jan. 7, will also see a new baggage rule taking effect.

Passengers may carry two pieces of carry-on baggage provided they are at an airport with a new type of three-dimensional scanner.

With workers on strike, confusion is expected to mar airport operations.

BAA Strike Update

The dinosaurs in UNITE are still determined to have their strike, if the report in the Guardian is anything to go by (see below).

The odd thing is, BA still seems to be in a state of denial about this strike. Go to their website and look at the news page.

There is no mention of the strike there.

Do they not know about the strike?

Gaurdian Article

BAA has asked trade unions to resurrect discussions in the hope of averting proposed strikes that would ground more than 1.3 million airline passengers next month.

It is understood that Britain's largest airport operator hopes to resume talks on New Year's Eve after negotiations broke up without agreement on Thursday. However, BAA is thought to be refusing to meet the key trade union demand of reopening its final salary pension scheme to new entrants. Instead, the group is willing to offer guarantees over the pension rights of current employees, which the Unite and PCS unions believe are under threat.

Four days of strikes are due to take place on January 7, January 14, January 17 and January 18, affecting the travel plans of at least 1.3 million airline customers.

Unite represents 5,800 BAA employees including airport fire service and security staff. Airplanes are prohibited from using airports that have no functioning fire service. As a consequence BAA's seven UK airports, including Stansted and Gatwick, would be shut down during the strikes.

A BAA spokesman said:

"We will continue to do all we can to resolve the dispute. We want to engage in further discussions with Unite."

A Unite spokesman said the union wanted further talks, but reopening the pension scheme to newcomers remained the "main issue of concern", still leaving both sides at loggerheads.

Equality

On BA all customers are treated as equal, except some are more equal than others if this report in the Daily Mail is anything to go by:

British Airways was accused last night of giving preferential treatment to celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay after allowing his son to fly with him on a New Year family holiday to Thailand on an invalid passport.

A businessman, whose passport also breached international aviation rules, was barred from the same flight.

As the multi-millionaire star of TV shows Kitchen Nightmares And The F Word checked in at Heathrow with his wife Tana and their four children on Thursday night, staff noticed his eight-year-old son Jack's passport was 18 days over the six-month expiry date rule for international travel.

They told Ramsay that the boy could be denied entry by Thai immigration officials when the family landed at Bangkok.

But Ramsay, who had booked six £6,000 first-class returns, said he would risk it and boarded the flight with Tana, Jack and the boy's sisters Megan, Holly and Matilda.

However, the furious business executive, whose passport was also due to expire in less than six months, was not allowed to board.

Asking not to be named, he said last night:

"There's one rule for Gordon Ramsay and another for everyone else."

The passenger, from West London, had been visiting his wife's relatives in America and the couple were planning to spend New Year in Thailand.

He eventually cleared his passport with Thai authorities and flew out on Friday night on another BA flight.

He said:

"Technically, they were right, but it seemed harsh, as I had been cleared to fly from Boston into London.

I heard BA staff saying Gordon Ramsay's son had just got on the plane and his passport had less than six months before it expired – which put him in the same position as me.

I took the matter up with the customer services manager.

He said he had been on the plane to check the passport of Gordon Ramsay's son and that, in fact, it was in order.

I can't believe he lied to me. I will be writing a letter of complaint to BA."

British Airways said:

"Because Jack was part of a family of six about to go on holiday, the decision was taken to allow him to travel.

The risk that he would be denied entry to Thailand was fully explained to his parents, who said they would accept the risk.

This was a very difficult decision and we accept that another customer, who was denied boarding on the same flight, might regard it as unfair.

However, we remind customers that it is their responsibility to ensure they have the correct passport and visas before travelling."

A spokesman for Ramsay refused to comment.

The Return From Beijing

As with my flight to Beijing on British Airways, my return flight to London had a number of shortcomings that the executive team at BA need to address:

• The opening news video shown on channel 1, on the ancient inflight "entertainment" system, had no sound. I was advised that this was a fault with the tape, and that nothing could be done about it.



• The picture quality on all channels was not that good/clear.



• Again, no chutney with the curry. Come on guys, at least you can get this right!



• The sandwich selection was hardly inspiring; cheese and tomato, or ham. Both of these were offered on somewhat dry white bread, that had been buttered only on one side.

The BA executive team need to take a leaf out of the late Lord King's book, and start to travel in all classes of their fleet of planes in order to meet their customers. Lord King did this, when BA was recognised as a leading world brand, it is high time that the current executive of BA did the same.

The value of BA lies in:

-Its routes
-The quality of its on board infrastructure
-The quality of its staff

The latter two qualities are being seriously neglected by the executive team at British Airways, resulting in severe damage to the brand value of the company and an increase in customer dissatisfaction.

It is time that the executive team at BA addressed these issues, in order to reverse the damage that it has inflicted on its brand value and customer loyalty.

The Flight to Beijing

I took my flight from London to Beijing today, regrettably many of the issues that I had raised before with Britsh Airways had not been addressed:

• The "passenger infrastructure" on the plane was worn and dated. Seat 2F near to my seat needed two crew members to physically perform a mid air repair, in order for the head rest section to work.



• The menu offered soup, yet none was actually available. Why? Seemingly the soup was never delivered to the plane, as it could not get through security in time! This is more than a little odd, as the plane was 30 minutes late for boarding.



• Again, despite telling BA before about this, there was no chutney onboard for the curry. I made do with marmalade.



• The cabin temperature was too cold.



• The crew were helpful and courteous. However, those that I spoke to confessed that they were fed up with having to apologise to customers for the failures of the company to meet the expectations of the customers.



• I understand that the much lauded "roll out" of the new cabins and in flight entertainment systems has hit a snag. Seemingly there is one British Airways plane crossing the Atlantic that has an in flight entertainment system that does not work. That must make an "amusing" six hours for the hapless customers onboard that particular flight!



• The inflight entertainment system was good 15 years ago, but now looks dated and well past its prime. The roll out of the new system needs to be completed with haste.

BA need to understand that the customers, and indeed the staff, are fed up with the ongoing quality issues.

London Beijing March 2007

Text of a letter sent to Willie Walsh CEO of BA on 17 March 2007

"Dear Mr Walsh,

I would like to provide you with a few observations about my recent “first class” return trip (London-Beijing) on BA (8th March-12th March):

· The standard of the Heathrow lounge was not what I would expect for first class; it does not compare favourably wrt the facilities, or indeed size, of lounges offered by other airlines eg Virgin.

· There were only two Internet workstations in the London and Beijing lounge. In the Beijing lounge, one of the Internet workstations was out of order.

· The theory of the London lounge, as best as I can make out, is that customers sit down and are served by BA staff. Unfortunately, those customers who did not sit in the immediate vicinity of the bar were not able to attract the attention of staff for service, as there weren’t any staff in the non-bar area. I had to go to the bar to find anyone willing to serve me.

· The entertainment system on both flights did not work that well. The outgoing flight could not show the safety video, as the system had a malfunction. The quality of the picture on both flights was poor, and on some of the channels (outgoing and inbound) the video didn’t work at all.

· The remote control in the armrest on my outgoing flight was stuck, and had to be extracted by the cabin crew with a butter knife. Very high tech!

· In trying to manually extend the footrest on my seat, I managed to impale and cut my finger on a sharp piece of metal that was protruding from underneath the edge of the footrest.

· One member of staff, who was so ashamed by the quality, told me with head bowed in shame that the system was “out of the ark”. I would concur, as other airlines, such as Singapore and Virgin, used to have the same systems back in the early/mid nineties; they have long since upgraded them. I was advised that that the systems will be upgraded, but was also told that this same message has been repeated for quite some time. Having paid £6K for my ticket, hearing of future plans is of little interest to me.

· On both flights a curry was served, yet no chutneys were available. I improvised with marmalade. BA makes great efforts to tell me in the menu that the recipes are designed by world-class chefs. That being the case, why did I have to resort to using marmalade?

· The quality of the staff on both flights, and their customer care/attention, was good. They were all embarrassed by the poor state of the technology and equipment on board.

BA’s last remaining asset that has not been tarnished by strikes, security delays, delays in general and out of date entertainment systems, would appear to be its staff. However, if they are embarrased and ashamed of their company I wonder how long you will retain their loyalty?

Reputations are hard to earn, but easy to lose.

In brief, I do not think that the “first class” description equates to the price I paid, or the competition that BA faces. I will be travelling on a more regular basis to Beijing over the coming months/years, but will be (subject to schedules) looking to other airlines to get me there and back.

In my view, there are a number of issues that you need to address if BA is to retain the much tested “loyalty” of their customers, whether they travel economy, business or first.

I would be interested to hear you views on the above, and what steps BA will be taking in the short term to address these issues.

Thank you for your time.

Yours sincerely,

Ken Frost"