EXCLUSIVE: the new British Airways cabin crew pay offer revealed – big cuts for legacy crew

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• Karen says:

  15 May15 May 22:33

  I would just like to point out the ‘extra earnings on top from inflight sales’. This is often as low as 8 pence and hardly ever much more than £1 per flight So please don’t think this will top up earnings!!!

• Andrew says:

  15 May15 May 22:46

  For cabin crews, it is easier for them to switch career if they are not happy with the new contract. I feel sorry for the newly qualified pilots, some of which spent 120k of their own money to get basic trainings or the company bill you for them after sacking you. It is harder for them to get a job now. Career is over plus the big debt is 100X worse than having a salary cut while looking for an alternative career.

  • Aston100 says:

    15 May15 May 23:39

    What a load of nonsense.

    • Tim says:

      16 May16 May 07:30

      Would love to know what’s nonsense about his comment?

  • Russ says:

    16 May16 May 00:46

    Thank you Andrew for that comment you must be a pilot yourself I am Cabin Crew of 26 1/2 years and this is going to destroy my life and my family’s life but don’t worry I’m only a trolley dolly so I’m sure I can get another job quite easily stacking shelves at Tesco’s oh what a world

  • Ali says:

    16 May16 May 01:09

    Easy to switch career?!….what planet are you on?!?!

  • Andrew says:

    16 May16 May 14:30

    I have never imagined my sympathy towards newly qualified pilots would spike some interesting comments.

    First, why people here compare BA with Tesco? I have worked in supermarkets, they care more about their staffs than other places I have worked in. There are also some decently paid jobs such as managers, opticians and pharmacists. Some of my ex-colleagues went on the management ladders or went to university for optometry or pharmacy because they had positive work experience in the shop.

    Second, I work in healthcare. When we graduate from university, no matter what areas we work in, we all need a job to get the necessary trainings for our progression. Speaking about medicine, there are some private medical school charging 170k for the MBChB plus living expenses for 4.5 years. Typical junior doctors only earn about 28-30k. In 2015, there was a strike about the changes in terms and conditions of junior doctors. Most junior doctors I met were so upset about it. It is not just about the take home pay, it is also about feeling being abused by the system. They are overworked and they cannot hand in the notice like any other job because they need the trainings by their employer (NHS) to give them the trainings. I had sympathy towards pilots because they are effectively in the same situation now. They are relying on trainings by their employers to get into the cockpit and gain the hours for the command course. Both junior medics and newly qualified pilots are finding themselves harder to find an alternative career because they all share a keen passion for what they do and had invested a large amount of money and effort to achieve that.

    • CV3V says:

      16 May16 May 16:46

      I thought there was a world wide shortage of pilots? If prepared to be mobile there are still jobs for pilots. Cabin crew however is an usually an over subscribed career which drives down their income.
      Likewise, given your healthcare experience, doctors at all grades can find jobs all over the worldwide, including much better pay than they get in the UK and often with less tax (New Zealand being an example).

      If flip your comments into healthcare, its a bit like saying nurses can change career no problem, but doctors will have a harder time of it. Discuss (10 marks)

      • Andrew says:

        16 May16 May 17:53

        That is an interesting question. I actually have seen more nurses than other healthcare professionals moved into other sectors, such as teaching, clinical trials administrator, medical sales, data analyst, etc. They have developed a more diverse set of skills through training and they are highly sought-after by other sectors.

        However, medics and pilots are highly qualified in a very specific area. How many jobs out there would require the knowledge of prescribing for HER2 +ve breast cancer or speaking to ATC using the NATO phonetic alphabet?

        Cabin crews have developed a good skill sets over the years with BA. Their knowledge of travel industry, first-aid, food and wines are transferable to other sectors outside of BA such as hospitality, travel management, event planning and consultancy. There are jobs out there would value their experience.

  • Stephany says:

    17 May17 May 16:14

    Don’t worry for the “ poor pilots” if there is a problem they will put on a cabin crew uniform, as they did on the past and sell their own collages…

• Claire Gain says:

  15 May15 May 22:53

  This is disgusting to enable a company to behave in this way. They are supposed to be flying as a national flag carrier the government should not let this happen!

  • Vivi says:

    15 May15 May 23:26

    It’s not the first time they do this . They did something similar in 2015 to Gatwick crew but it went unnoticed because it’s a much smaller base and old contracts were not that good compared to Lhr.

  • Aston100 says:

    15 May15 May 23:40

    Newsflash, the UK is not a communist country.

    • Londonsteve says:

      16 May16 May 01:13

      British free market capitalism, which adopts the raptor instincts of the US with the sclerosis of parts of Europe, is failing, everywhere I look. They’re ‘good time friends’, leaving the government to pay the bill after walking out of the restaurant when they realise they’ve already maxed out the Amex. British wages are often ridiculously low, especially compared to the cost of living. A huge tranche of jobs pay barely above minimum wage. Eastern Europe is catching up with the UK not just when adjusted for PPP but often by direct comparison, with the blitz inflicted upon the UK by coronavirus, get ready to be overtaken in the next 5 years.

      • Londonsteve says:

        16 May16 May 12:15

        Interesting that you’ve noticed the same thing going on. I don’t think that the roles in formerly very low salary locations are massively well paid, it’s more that UK wages have fallen far behind the rest of western Europe after 13 years of zero wage growth. Parts of CEE have been experiencing 10% wage growth per annum, for the past 6 years, for example. Often partnered with major property booms due to all the new liquidity sloshing around the market, true, but the price to income ratio has been maintained, unlike the UK where prices have doubled or even tripled in a short space of time, while salaries have gone up by 15%, at best. Life is becoming impossible in a formerly very pleasant country and I’m going to take advantage of these excellent wages and very low living costs by emigrating. Brain drain Britain was already here, but a move to jobs in the east is a new development and just creates more options for people to leave a sinking ship. Just watch the young with nothing to lose head to new lives elsewhere. Before anyone points out the elephant in the room being Brexit, getting a work permit for a graduate in any CEE country keen to the turbocharge their economy takes about 6 hours, young Brits won’t have any problems at all. Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Bucharest and Sofia are becoming multinational hot spots and they pay very well for people with overseas experience and language skills beyond just English. You can enjoy a better standard of living than the UK in all of the above on the wages these multinational firms are paying while also looking forward to owning your own home in due course, in a country set for major capital appreciation in the decades ahead, thus replicating what our parents have done in the UK.

      • Londonsteve says:

        16 May16 May 12:20

        In answer to your question about where BA is going to recruit from once Brexit has bitten and there is a need to live a short distance from LHR, I suspect the volume of unemployed, monolingual and not terribly well educated Britons will be sufficient to fill the slots. It’s either that, a minimum wage job in a warehouse, or universal credit. I’d choose BA too, were I in their shoes. Their job will be to put doors to automatic and cross check, followed by selling sandwiches from a trolley. I’ve no idea how BA are going to address the need to provide good service in the better cabins, I suspect they’ll offer extra training to those keen to do it for the prestige and the more pleasant working environment it offers. Forget about extra money, that won’t be required.

• Bonglim says:

  15 May15 May 22:58

  Am I right in thinking that if they refuse to accept new contract they will be made redundant? That means 2 years pay tax free for the longest serving members of staff.

  I don’t mean to say that makes it okay. My point is that for many that will be the best option out of two dreadful options. If you were planning a retirement this year or next it is excellent, if you were planning for 3-5 years it is not that bad; and working in any other low paid job after redundancy will probably see you better off financially (although you might hate that job).

  I am not exactly an employment lawyer so please correct me if i am wrong.

  • john says:

    15 May15 May 23:15

    Sadly not, its only statutory redundancy that BA are offering which is capped at £16K

  • Stephen says:

    15 May15 May 23:28

    It will be the basic Government compulsory redundancy amount, no matter how long you served and how long you have given BA your loyal service. It is capped at about £16000 and if you are on a part time contract it is pro rater, so if you have done 37 years but then went to a 33% Contract for a year, you will be lucky to get about £5000! Its definitely NOT 2 years tax free….VR would be a much fairer way to thank the loyal staff that have made BA and IAG all those Billions, this is a disgrace!

  • J says:

    15 May15 May 23:32

    Where do you get 2 years pay tax free from? Legal entitlements in the UK are very poor (and significantly less than most other European countries, although decent companies historically paid a lot more than statutory).

    https://www.gov.uk/staff-redundant/redundancy-pay

  • Russ says:

    16 May16 May 00:52

    Okay bongalin l will correct you because you are wrong and yes you will never make an employment lawyer ,they are offering British Airways cabin crew statutory redundancy which means about £500 for every year worked so that’s about 10 grand for somebody who’s worked over 20 years not quite the money you were thinking off 😱

  • Andrew says:

    16 May16 May 07:56

    BA have already said they are only going to pay one week per year redundancy. So unless someone has worked for BA for 104 years, they won’t be getting two years pay for redundancy. And it’s only the first £30k which is tax free in redundancy.

    • Lady London says:

      16 May16 May 11:06

      UK statutory payment for redundancy goes up slightly with age but not worth hanging around working with a $hitty employer for.

      Basically if they left 1 week earlier and worked that week stacking shelves in Tesco they would earn more.

• Nick Ross says:

  15 May15 May 23:18

  BA needs to decide where it wants to play in the market – it can’t operate at a level above budget if it doesn’t pay its staff appropriately. If it tries it will soon come a cropper as people will leave and it will enter a spiral of ever increasing fixed costs.

  BA is good at the 2nd quartile service level, not competing with the Qatars of the world but definitely above average, this is its sweet spot. By introducing these new contracts it will lose the experience and heart of its cabin crew which to be honest is its main selling point, and people like me will swap our 10-20 inter continental flights per year to Qatar, Cathy and Air Canada (or the like!). If BA wants to remove non-mixed fleet, then fine but make your experience staff an offer to be proud of.

• P says:

  15 May15 May 23:21

  Just to clarify, the annual salary for the lower paid Mixed Fleet crew is £16,445 (£1370 per month before being taxed)

  Then you are paid £3.43 per hour.
  This is meant to cover your food and expenses down route – and though it is supposed to cover expenses, the normal tax rate applies.

  Another important point is that not a single hour of flight time is guaranteed – you can drive for 3 hours through the night for an early morning report only to arrive and be told “your flight is cancelled, go home” and that’s it – you lose all the money for that trip. I believe this is what the legacy crew refer to as Zero Hour.

  As this is not guaranteed income – if you go on holiday or your are sick, you get nothing but that basic pay.

  The company demand that you live within 2 hours of the airport, but they do not pay London weighting. Crew can’t afford to live in London and pay £700+ so instead they have to live further away. They often put crew on blocks of standby where they have to be available to report within those two hours – meaning that for many it means days of sitting in service stations nearby just in case. And again, you’re still not earning the hourly rate for this…

  I don’t blame the legacy crews for not wanting to be reduced to that

  • Lady London says:

    16 May16 May 11:12

    Does this also mean crew must pay the costs of running their own car so as to be able to reach early morning start times? That’s a very expensive item in the UK.

    More and more, this looks like everyone – the government so taxpayers you and me, and the employees are subsidising BA in order to work in this ‘glamorous’ job.

  • Lady London says:

    16 May16 May 11:16

    I call that a zero hours contract. That part of it – putting people on standby then not having to pay them anything at all if they dont get called to work – is open to abuse by British Airways.

• J says:

  15 May15 May 23:26

  In normal times BA Mixed Fleet are continuously recruiting – the salary is so low for most people it’s never going to be a career, I’m told it’s not even unheard of for school leavers to treat it like a gap year! The staff turnover on Mixed Fleet is so high – and the inevitable inexperience affects customer service (the worldwide/euro fleets always outperform Mixed Fleet). I’d think such a high staff turnover can’t be cost effective but I suppose it also works for Ryanair… Same management style.

  • Chrisasaurus says:

    17 May17 May 09:04

    In normal times the airline was growing so not unreasonable to be recruiting, above and beyond standard staff turnover which again at scale is significant too even if you just consider retirement at the other end of the cycle.

    Ref Ryanair yes, probably does work for them there will be a sweet spot between recruitment costs and increasing salaries that is the perfect service length for them. It also works for Superdrug where peoples expectations are also more cost-focussed than service

• Ron says:

  15 May15 May 23:31

  Absolutely shocking, the staff who serve us are at the heart of the airline which leads to loyalty which leads to profits; without quality staff you have a weak brand. BA (for a long time and still) does not have a good inflight product, there are many other airlines that are far superior. Market share has forced BA to make inflight changes which is slowly returning it to an airline we may choose.
  For more than the last decade it’s been the staff and service that get people returning. Removing thousands of amazing people who have been dedicated and enhanced the brand, throwing cheap crap like the quality of service BA thinks we deserve, organisations should think of the BA Moto ‘To Fly To Serve’ … are organisations who support BA serving a brand they would associate themselves with and in turn their own employees?

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