After two less-than-ideal experience in the last 6 months, I can’t help but support the strike
If you listened to Willie Walsh, you’d think that the BA cabin crew are striking out of greed and self-interest. If you listen to the cabin crew, on the other hand, you’d think they were striking against the progressive erosion of the service offered to First and Club Class customers.
I’ve been lucky enough to have flown BA twice in the last few months – once back from Mumbai, once return to Houston. I say ‘lucky’ firstly because I’m always grateful to travel and see more of the world, secondly because I didn’t pay for these trips myself. I’d be furious if I had.
I’m always grateful to touch down safely at my destination – that goes without saying. But on both trips, the experience – and the standard of the food (in particular) – was unacceptably poor. The ‘cuisine’ on the return from Mumbai was completely inedible. Last week, on the flight back from Houston, I again left everything uneaten.
According to employees, the BA product is being destroyed by accountants cutting costs. On the BBC news website, they cite instances of customers in First Class being refused steaks as a result of insufficient being brought aboard in an attempt to save more money. The ‘quality versus cost-cutting’ refrain has become so familiar in British business that it’s all-too-easy to forget what it actually means. In both my flights with BA, I found out.
I wrote to BA after my Mumbai trip (which probably cost my client something like £2000), complaining about the standard of the food and service. The response was a load of flannel about doing ‘everything to ensure the highest quality experience…’ that completely failed to acknowledge my experience.
It’s common knowledge that without its business-class and First class passengers BA would fold. Well, fold it will if my experience is anything to go by.
It’s not rocket-science: if you can’t offer the quality of product that will convince the premium customers upon whom your entire business model depends – and BA clearly can’t – then you’re going to go out of business. Unsuprisingly, the only people prepared to face up to that are those with the most to lose: the cabin crew who have to squirm everytime they clear away another pile of uneaten junk masquerading as food in a Club Class or First Class cabin.
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