Bits: BA losing all US ground staff, United drops three routes, 40% bonus buying Hyatt points

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• Ian says:

  16 Jul16 July 05:36

  Most if not all US states lack anything similar to our TUPE legislation, which isn’t surprising given the general state of worker’s rights over there. Paid sick leave, holidays, and health insurance are luxury benefits provided by only the most generous employers, at least when it comes to low-level front-line jobs such as the BA airport workers.

  It’s commonplace for US-based ground staff of international carriers to be outsourced to companies like Swissport, Menzies, et al. They directly employ a station manager to oversee the contract staff, but the inevitable reduction in wages and benefits impacts the level of talent they can recruit.

  The current staff will probably be able to transfer to the new operator, but they may not want to.

• Andrew says:

  16 Jul16 July 07:18

  Oh goodie. – Capita seem just fabulous at managing things for transport companies…

  https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/16/gwr-customer-service-struggling-train-ticket-refunds

• shd says:

  16 Jul16 July 08:39

  Network-wide, BA service is so consistently inconsistent that most customers won’t notice a difference after outsourcing.

  Perhaps BA should outsource cabin and flight crew, too? Sell the aircraft and lease them back?

  • Nick says:

    16 Jul16 July 09:12

    Most of the newer aircraft are leased anyway, and the older ones that are not are worthless to buyers (or at least, are still worth more to BA than the price they’d get for them).

  • Fenny says:

    16 Jul16 July 09:54

    Do they go “ping”?

  • Lostantipod says:

    16 Jul16 July 10:21

    BA may be consistently inconsistent, but you would think they would at least protect their level of service on their cash-cow TATL routes. After all, it’s not about checking in and tagging my luggage. – what I value when I travel for business is how I am handled when there is a disruption, be that minor or major. Just another sign of the race to the bottom….and managers trying to protect this year’s bonus….

    • shd says:

      16 Jul16 July 19:51

      No idea what level of service you mean.

      My worst-ever BA flight was LHR-JFK. My best-ever BA flight was JFK-LHR, the inbound of the same booking.

• Anna says:

  16 Jul16 July 10:03

  Will there still be any U.K. call centres though (not that I ever manage to get through to them!) First Direct bank has a long standing commitment to maintaining all of its call centres within the U.K. which speaks volumes about how important this actually is to customers. BA should take note (they won’t though).

  • The Original Nick. says:

    16 Jul16 July 10:19

    Amex is fine.

  • Callum says:

    16 Jul16 July 18:32

    I’d argue the exact opposite… The fact virtually no companies make such a commitment shows most customers don’t really care where the call centre is.

    • Anna says:

      16 Jul16 July 19:22

      I disagree. First Direct did a lot of customer consultation and decided to retain UK call centres despite the higher cost, because feedback indicated that this was actually very important.

      • ankomonkey says:

        16 Jul16 July 20:30

        Could this partly be as First Direct don’t have their own branches, so the call centres are a more important facet of their business (although FD customers can do a fair amount in HSBC branches)?

    • Fenny says:

      16 Jul16 July 23:27

      BT’s consistently awful non-UK call centres are the reason none of my family use BT, including my SiL, who used to work for BT!

• Olly says:

  16 Jul16 July 10:28

  Another nail idriven in the coffin by Alex Cruz. I wonder if he is working for a rival airline trying to completely destroy British Airways.

• Tom Murray says:

  16 Jul16 July 10:56

  We were in NY in December 2015 and on standby at JFK. Finally got on but ‘no food’ in J as it was an ‘eat in the lounge’ red-eye. The BA check in girl phoned a friend to get us in so we could grab a decent snack before boarding. Unusual, and on thanking her discretely she said it was her last day as a BA employee there – along with many others as from the new year most of BA check in was being handled by a US agent. The writing was on the wall then?

  • Tom Murray says:

    16 Jul16 July 14:05

    p.s. You wouldn’t want to be on standby in the US now. I can’t see that an agency employee will tip you the wink that the flight’s looking ok or that there may be the chance of a jump seat. Even T5’s ‘automated standby’ system gives you a BA employee at check in and at the gate. Will US contract employees really care about Exec Club members either? Yes they’ll be trained to but they won’t have that ‘same company’ identity. We’ll all still fly BA though…..

• Warkman says:

  16 Jul16 July 11:58

  Yet another blow to those in the midlands wanting to get to the USA.
  Flights constantly more expensive than even Heathrow, so choice becomes indirect or 2~3 hours driving after a TATL flight.
  BHX needs to decide if it’s just a Indian continent flyer or wants to be bigger .

  • Catalan says:

    16 Jul16 July 12:22

    Maybe because BHX has discovered more people fly to the Indian sub continent from the Midlands than do trans-Atlantic? Supply and demand.

    • ian says:

      16 Jul16 July 18:35

      Even as someone who lives in Birmingham I go out of my way, literally, to avoid United’s old 757-200 on the route to NYC. It’s a truly horrible experience.

• Nick says:

  16 Jul16 July 12:54

  “British Airways to make remaining US ground staff redundant”

  As any frequent flyer knows too well, when you have contracted out staff replacing company staff at airports you lose yet another ‘direct’ customer connection level. There is little, if any, such connection then, until you cross the threshold onto the plane.

  BA should play “Down down deeper and down” on their U.S. flights now, as boarding takes place. With apologies to Status Quo!

  • Callum says:

    16 Jul16 July 18:40

    You do lose it, but whether that matters or not depends purely on how the staff are contracted.

    My experiences with contract staff on other airlines has only been positive. They had the same powers, cared the same (the number of low wage employees who love their company and so will go above and beyond can’t possibly be as high as many on here think!) and were actually more convenient given they were floating around doing flights for multiple airlines whereas normally in the outstation (1 or 2 flights a day), dedicated airline staff would only be around during the flight preparation window.

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