24 February 2010

Travellers back BA in cabin crew dispute

Three quarters of people are behind British Airways in its dispute with cabin crew, according to a consumer poll.

Exactly 75% of respondents said they had no sympathy whatsoever for cabin crew, describing them as "overpaid and underworked".

Only 20% of the 1,087 people asked gave support to the flight attendants, who they endorsed as being "the best in the industry".

The remaining five per cent said they would consider backing the strike but only if their flight was not affected by any disruption it brought about.

The online poll was conducted by Cheapflights UK. It closed two hours before the result of the Unite union strike ballot was announced.

Participants were asked whether they would support BA cabin crew if industrial action was called, choosing from three responses: Yes, No or Maybe.

The results point to overwhelming support for BA in the row over pay and working conditions.

"This survey definitively adds the flying public to the chorus of voices already pleading with cabin crew to see sense and call off the strike," said Cheapflights global brand director Joseph Sikorsky, a former BA head office employee.

"BA cabin crew are far more privileged than their counterparts at airlines such as Virgin Atlantic, Bmi and EasyJet.

"The changes that have been made to their working conditions reflect fundamental restructuring which is vital if the flag carrier is to avoid the fate of so many other airlines that ceased operations during the recession.

"The numbers speak for themselves, and our survey shows that passengers have no illusions about the gravity of BA's predicament.

"Cabin crew will only add to their woes if they press on with this damaging and unjustifiable strike."

by Phil Davies

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Your Comments (1)

Wrong Sample, Wrong Questions

One may wonder whether visitors to CheapFlights (the source of the survey sample) are representative of BA's customer base. It seems unlikely that the sample could have been weighted according to a customer's value to BA, which would be a more accurate measure of the economic impact of customer opinion. Asking 'who you support' in the dispute is also the wrong question. Aviation history has myriad examples of the mutually-assured destruction wrought by labour unrest in an industry where customer-facing staff are a key part of the product itself. The fact that this situation exists at all demonstrates a failure of both company and union membership to simply read history in order to avoid the long trail of mistakes from Lorenzo and Icahn to the PE owners of NWA. Instead they could have followed the examples of Bethune at CO and Swire at CX where they correctly identified the 'enemy' as the competing carriers. So the better question for the survey might be, "who do you think has failed to read history, Walsh or Woodley/Simpson? Which knows the meaning of the term Phyrric Victory?" The really sad part is that Rod Eddington had worked for years to build the level of trust required to embark on that discussion together. In one (former BA black-card holder)'s opinion, Walsh has squandered that relationship equity in record time, besting the previous world record holder Robert Ayling hands down.

By Brad Corrodi, Thursday, February 25, 2010