Mounting complaints about boisterous, champagne-fuelled cabin crew parties and wild behaviour in hotel rooms could force British Airways to scrap lucrative holiday travel routes.
The behaviour has included female flight attendants leaping into pools topless. Britain’s Daily Mail has related stories of wild crew parties in rooms involving nudity, streaking, sexual antics and damage to rooms. Even worse, crewmembers in Cyprus are said to have lured a local donkey into a hotel lift. They were taking it to the fourth floor when hotel security intervened.
The behaviour is found mainly on routes crewed by young recruits – so-called ‘mixed fleet’, according to the paper. Destinations mentioned include those popular with Britons for far-flung, cut-price holidays, like Nairobi, Mauritius and San Diego.
The paper reported a BA source as explaining that mixed fleet crews are ‘basically kids of 18 and 20 years old, in their first jobs on pretty low pay, who think it’s a wonderful life staying in posh hotels’.
As a result, they party.
Reported abuses have included sneaking champagne from aircraft to drink in the crew hotels to save money. As some of the cabin crew are too young to drink in a bar in some countries (the legal drinking age in America is 21) they hold parties in their rooms in places like San Diego and Las Vegas.
An internal memo sent to BA captains recently by management warns: “We continue to receive complaints from our management team at our crew hotel in NBO [Nairobi] regarding the behaviour of some of our crews.
“In the current security environment, the current hotel is the only approved hotel available to us.
“Should they choose to terminate our contract, or elect not to renew it later this year, the route will become financially unviable.”
BA has warned it will sack flight attendants found taking alcoholic drinks off planes without paying.
Comments posted online after the Daily Mail report indicated that many readers don’t regard the situation too seriously. “Let them enjoy – they’re only young once!” commented Dave from Southampton.
Written by : Peter Needham
(Source: eglobaltravelmedia.com.au August 2011)
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