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

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• 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?

• Claire says:

  15 May15 May 23:34

  Terrible the company should be ashamed doing this to people. I have a friend that works for them who just took unpaid and has done in the past to help them in bad times they feel betrayed as the company has been cutting costs for years and working with its employees is now taking total advantage while Mr Walsh I believe has earnings of over 30 million

• Gavin says:

  16 May16 May 00:57

  Essentially this is branding cabin crew as a job to do for a few years while living at home and not a career. Or a job to do if you marry a pilot.

• jimA says:

  16 May16 May 02:45

  If – and its a huge if – there are crew who live abroad and commute to london for 3or 4 flights per month and they live ion that then they are grossly overpaid

  • HK Ray says:

    16 May16 May 04:38

    There are. I’ve lived in Asia for 10+ years and used to fly Club World back to London every couple of months. I’ve spoken to lots of BA crew who lived in Spain, France and Scotland, but worked out of Heathrow. In fact there was often a scramble when the flight landed for the crew to get off the plane and make the first early flight back home (there was often one or two waiting at the door in order to sprint off as soon as the doors opened!). Team players!

  • NigelthePensioner says:

    16 May16 May 07:10

    There are many – very many indeed. I have chatted with one from Cape Town and another from Melbourne that come to mind straight away. It really isnt unusual.
    Interesting to see even more insight into Walsh’s tiny mind – cabin crew will get bonuses on in flight sales; so is he suggesting that he considers their role is primarily one of sales and bottom line profit and not of passenger safety? The pre departure flight deck script will have to be re-written!

    • Optimus Prime says:

      16 May16 May 10:16

      Wow, people commuting from Australia to Heathrow? That’s a stretch…

      Over at the FT thread there’s a discussion about this commuting and someone said that due to health & safety reasons they’re not allowed to have silly commutes such as above. I guess those people will get to London 2-3 days prior to their working flights?

      • CV3V says:

        16 May16 May 17:10

        I knew someone who was cabin crew for JAL, they commuted from UK to Tokyo to get to their base. They would they fly around the world and back into Tokyo, then commute back to London. It was fairly common. But JAL only gave out fixed term contracts of a few years to foreign staff, ensured a turnover of staff, for some reason.

  • Michael C says:

    16 May16 May 08:01

    As Nigel t.P. says, a LARGE number of both crew and pilots live abroad.
    Sitges has a massive BA community, and queues for the jumpseats on the morning flight to LHR!

    • Rob says:

      16 May16 May 09:24

      If BA lets you commute for free then surely it makes sense to live somewhere pleasant and cheap nowhere near Heathrow.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    16 May16 May 08:36

    They probably are over paid but not because they are willing to take a FREE flight to commute to work.

    Don’t forget while they are working their expenses are pretty low, accommodation paid for and allowance for meals.

    They then have all the downtime to take up other part time employment or a their small business side hustle.

    • John says:

      16 May16 May 09:15

      Commuting flights are most definitely NOT FREE….!!!

      They are PAID for and often doesn’t even guarantee getting on the flight or a seat…!!

      • TGLoyalty says:

        16 May16 May 13:48

        Ok I should have clarified they are very cheap and usually taxes and fees only. Not guaranteed but obviously they’ve made it work otherwise they wouldn’t have kept the job for the past 10+ years.

  • MAD says:

    16 May16 May 08:41

    Yes, terrible that in this day and age of sweatshops and zero hour contracts there are still people out there making a good living wage and not have to work their socks off for it. I am sure there are plenty of Romanians out there that would just be grateful for a job and be happy to work for peanuts and to subsidise their meagre wage with tax payer funded handouts to make ends meet. They would probably be more then happy to sleep in the hold as well during stopovers thus saving BA hotel costs which can then be passed on to shareholders.

    • BlueThroughCrimp says:

      16 May16 May 09:35

      Hear hear. Some of the jealousy in the comments is ridiculous.

  • Bob The Builder says:

    16 May16 May 08:59

    JimA
    You don’t no what your talking about stick to your job of licking stamps & attaching onto envelopes of which I think is showing your true potential……

    Grossly overpaid!

  • Flightsy says:

    16 May16 May 09:24

    How is a cabin crew member commuting to work from abroad any different to the thousands of Financial Services workers who do the exact same thing? My old boss commuted to Canary Wharf from Lisbon and many of my colleagues commute from Scotland, Wales and France. Never once have I heard anyone saying it’s because “they’re grossly overpaid” – it’s a lifestyle choice. Anyone thinking that a cabin crew member living near Heathrow can manage on a salary of £24k and pay their rent / mortgage, other household bills and support a family on that (if they have one) on a long term basis is having a laugh. Shockingly £24k is what a newly qualified nurse is paid – either way you look at it, it’s pretty bad.

  • ChrisBCN says:

    16 May16 May 09:30

    You realise that people live avroad because it is so much cheaper than London? Especially as the commute cost can be negligible. They don’t all live abroad because they are overpaid, but because rent in London is unaffordable and vastly cheaper elsewhere in Europe (and quality of life vs UK too of course…)

• Opus says:

  16 May16 May 03:20

  My opinion is BA shouldn’t change the mixed fleet contracts. In fact that should give them some more to at least build that morale as much as you can whatever may be left of it.

  Now, the sad reality is that in 2020 where in the world is cabin crew job one that gives you all you want? It rarely happens. In the Middle East I think the pay may not be that bad but they literally own their lives and the rules are almost unbearable. Here in Europe or Britain at least, don’t blame BA for the standard crew pay that’s what the industry pays seeing the entrants of LCCs. Dont for one second think BA will ever be prepared to pay above market rate. Does anyone know what virgins pay is? Also I feel sorry for legacy crew honestly. But this is actually life. This industry has been heading this way for a long long time. Does anyone also know the cabin crew rates in Asia and the states? Thanks

  • J says:

    16 May16 May 08:20

    Virgin do not pay especially well either but are said to have more generous benefits. Staff turnover is also much lower – Virgin recruit every couple of years. BA is obviously a much bigger airline but it is still notable that Mixed Fleet, like Ryanair, before the crisis were almost constantly recruiting. It’s also pretty obvious flying BA/Virgin that on board most Virgin crew love their job.

• BOB MORRIS says:

  16 May16 May 06:37

  To quote the group Status Quo ” Down down deeper and down” from the heights of what was once the “Worlds Favorite”. How the mighty are falling!

  Sad refelection on the times we live in. Theres an old adage ” pay peanuts -you get monkeys”.

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