https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/tra ... ad-closure

Similar to a move it made in Singapore, British Airways axed its entire Hong Kong crew on Wednesday ahead of the closure of its local base next month, replaced by London-based crew. 85 flight attendants were immediately dismissed to prevent strikes

Interesting to note how this is going to impact the carrier's HKG-LHR route

Zoedyn wrote:

Interesting to note how this is going to impact the carrier's HKG-LHR route

It won't affect much, even the article says it may only mean less native language speaking crew on board.

Sorry to hear it though, it's never nice when people lose their jobs. Hopefully those crew will be snapped up by other airlines since they have the experience.

Update – 26th September 2018:

In a leaked memo from BA’s Area Manager for its ‘Worldwide Fleet’, the airline confirms it is to close the Hong Kong base due to non-specified “commercial reasons” which made it “unviable for us to continue to operate the base”.

The airline said in the memo that the terminations would be made with immediate effect. It’s understood that Hong Kong-based cabin crew who were on rotation in London will deadhead back to Hong Kong.

“Please can you kindly return to British Airways immediately all items belonging to British Airways and your British Airways ID card” the memo bluntly continued. Those affected will receive just 7-days worth of pay in severance.

https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2018 ... t-cutting/

Big thank you ha!!

scotron11 wrote:

Update – 26th September 2018:

In a leaked memo from BA’s Area Manager for its ‘Worldwide Fleet’, the airline confirms it is to close the Hong Kong base due to non-specified “commercial reasons” which made it “unviable for us to continue to operate the base”.

The airline said in the memo that the terminations would be made with immediate effect. It’s understood that Hong Kong-based cabin crew who were on rotation in London will deadhead back to Hong Kong.

“Please can you kindly return to British Airways immediately all items belonging to British Airways and your British Airways ID card” the memo bluntly continued. Those affected will receive just 7-days worth of pay in severance.

https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2018 ... t-cutting/

Big thank you ha!!

7 days severance? Wow.

I am absolutely devastated by this news. Such a wonderful team dedicated to the company and to be so callously thrown aside overnight. Literally crew in the air as the announcement made unaware it was their last day in a job with families and mortgages to support!

And no they were not “low paid Asian workforce” staff as one ignorant poster posted!

A truly sad day and shameful of a once great company. All so they can cheapen the cost base to their own greed.

7 days severance.... wow. That's bad even by most US corporate job standards.

tonystan wrote:

I am absolutely devastated by this news. Such a wonderful team dedicated to the company and to be so callously thrown aside overnight. Literally crew in the air as the announcement made unaware it was their last day in a job with families and mortgages to support!

And no they were not “low paid Asian workforce” staff as one ignorant poster posted!

A truly sad day and shameful of a once great company. All so they can cheapen the cost base to their own greed.

I would assume that it is all in compliance with relevant Hong Kong law? If so don't blame the airline if local employment law allows it.

So I guess any HKG based crew rostered on BA 31 and BA 27 tonight will be on the flights...but as sacked employees not working crew!

I imagine this is a fairly senior domicile?

scotron11 wrote:

In a leaked memo from BA’s Area Manager for its ‘Worldwide Fleet’, the airline confirms it is to close the Hong Kong base due to non-specified “commercial reasons” which made it “unviable for us to continue to operate the base”.

The airline said in the memo that the terminations would be made with immediate effect. It’s understood that Hong Kong-based cabin crew who were on rotation in London will deadhead back to Hong Kong.

“Please can you kindly return to British Airways immediately all items belonging to British Airways and your British Airways ID card” the memo bluntly continued. Those affected will receive just 7-days worth of pay in severance.

I'm pretty shocked they are only providing 7 days severance pay. That is pretty mean... in two of the three redundancies I've had in Ireland, I've received 8 weeks pay per year of service, and the other provided a month's pay tax free as my severance. 7 days is awful.

Also, they certainly did it "with immediate effect" considering some crew were in London and now will deadhead back. Wow.

I can see why it will save them money though - if they are Worldwide crew, they will be on contracts earning far more than the current average wage for cabin crew. Right business decision, but if the above is true, pretty poor implementation.

Flaps wrote:

tonystan wrote:

I am absolutely devastated by this news. Such a wonderful team dedicated to the company and to be so callously thrown aside overnight. Literally crew in the air as the announcement made unaware it was their last day in a job with families and mortgages to support!

And no they were not “low paid Asian workforce” staff as one ignorant poster posted!

A truly sad day and shameful of a once great company. All so they can cheapen the cost base to their own greed.

I would assume that it is all in compliance with relevant Hong Kong law? If so don't blame the airline if local employment law allows it.

Oh well that makes it all ok then. London made a morally reprehensible decision based on the law of another land! Grand so!

What an attitude to have!

ClassicLover wrote:

scotron11 wrote:

In a leaked memo from BA’s Area Manager for its ‘Worldwide Fleet’, the airline confirms it is to close the Hong Kong base due to non-specified “commercial reasons” which made it “unviable for us to continue to operate the base”.

The airline said in the memo that the terminations would be made with immediate effect. It’s understood that Hong Kong-based cabin crew who were on rotation in London will deadhead back to Hong Kong.

“Please can you kindly return to British Airways immediately all items belonging to British Airways and your British Airways ID card” the memo bluntly continued. Those affected will receive just 7-days worth of pay in severance.

I'm pretty shocked they are only providing 7 days severance pay. That is pretty mean... in two of the three redundancies I've had in Ireland, I've received 8 weeks pay per year of service, and the other provided a month's pay tax free as my severance. 7 days is awful.

Also, they certainly did it "with immediate effect" considering some crew were in London and now will deadhead back. Wow.

I can see why it will save them money though - if they are Worldwide crew, they will be on contracts earning far more than the current average wage for cabin crew. Right business decision, but if the above is true, pretty poor implementation.

Well no, these flights continue to be crewed by Worldwide fleet crew and now instead of a handful of HKG based crew they are now being crewed 100% ex LHR so paying a lot more for hotel rooms and other associated costs downroute. No doubt this route will eventually turn to MF but it has already proved that they are not as cost effective on a number of long range services.

This seems like it could have been executed with a little more compassion. Pretty shocking.

scotron11 wrote:

Update – 26th September 2018:

In a leaked memo from BA’s Area Manager for its ‘Worldwide Fleet’, the airline confirms it is to close the Hong Kong base due to non-specified “commercial reasons” which made it “unviable for us to continue to operate the base”.

The airline said in the memo that the terminations would be made with immediate effect. It’s understood that Hong Kong-based cabin crew who were on rotation in London will deadhead back to Hong Kong.

“Please can you kindly return to British Airways immediately all items belonging to British Airways and your British Airways ID card” the memo bluntly continued. Those affected will receive just 7-days worth of pay in severance.

https://www.paddleyourownkanoo.com/2018 ... t-cutting/

Big thank you ha!!

It hurts me to read this. It’s just revolting, selfish corporate neoliberalism at its peak. The way Walsh, Cruz & their motley crew treat their loyal, experienced and hardworking staff makes the stomach churn. Nothing but pawns in the chase for higher yield, profits and bigger bank balances for board members.

“...unviable for us to continue to operate the base...”

This inherently facetious statement is proof that BA and by extension IAG are clearly among the biggest liars in the business. HKG is known as a high yield and highly profitable route so it’s inconceivable that the crew base is unviable. Cutting it will likely mean less diversity, choice and East Asian language speakers, thus impacting passenger experience.

Further, the summary 7-day dismissal of these loyal staff is yet more proof that management simply don’t care about them. Greed is good is the mantra, yet a.netters still defend BA’s obsessive and destructive cost cuts. History tells us there’s no way this will end well.

Just to add I feel their pain. I really do. I’d add that maybe it’s time aviation enthusiasts on a.net were more supportive of workers. Because far too many on here seem to see profit as the only metric of success.

Perhaps its pressure from the PRC government or the ability to fire the domiciled crew there due to weak local labor/labour laws in PRC/HK that mean little or no compensation. Ditching LHR based crew may be near impossible or very expensive.

Absolutely speechless......karma will come back and bite them in the a**. Not now, but some time down the road. It happened many times before.

Zoedyn wrote:

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/transport/article/2165833/british-airways-axes-entire-hong-kong-crew-ahead-closure

Similar to a move it made in Singapore, British Airways axed its entire Hong Kong crew on Wednesday ahead of the closure of its local base next month, replaced by London-based crew. 85 flight attendants were immediately dismissed to prevent strikes

Interesting to note how this is going to impact the carrier's HKG-LHR route

United closed their Intra Asian cabin Crew base Years ago and they were Unhappy, But the US Based Flight attendants did Pretty Well with the interpretors we Put on Board and Many Crews Became Multi Lingual as Many Flight attendants spoke Multiple Dialects of Chinese and Mandarin. (I have NO idea what the difference is)
I'm almost sure it was to prevent Strike Breaking at the airline. And to be Rid of their Pay Scale which could very well have been above the British Pay scale owing to the expence of living in Hong Kong. Which is NOT an inexpensive City to even VISIT!

Running a crew base can be expensive. It means management and other support admin staff. Office space, equipment, taxes etc.

It is probaby cheaper for BA to simply use UK crews to cover versus maintaining such a small local base and its overhead.

This is sad and frustrating - a lot of the staff morale comes from the way a company treats its staff and I can't imagine this will go down well with crew based elsewhere - yes companies have to make difficult commercial decisions but looking at how abrupt all this is, the decision doesn't seem to have been a particularly difficult one.

Hong Kong may not have good labour laws but that doesn't mean there are some moral issues to consider here - you most certainly can blame the airline for how it has treated these staff when they act in such a way - irrespective of what the law allows.

Either they are preparing to move this route over to Mixed Fleet and as such need to close down the HKG crew base where staff are likely on Worldwide Fleet terms - or they are going to reduce down to one flight a day.

There is also a sizable Cantonese speaking minority in London so maybe they are hoping to recruit Cantonese speaking staff into their Mixed Fleet base at LHR to compensate? Anyway its all speculation.

Its not like putting crews in hotels in London and perdiems are cheap either.

Could be indeed the economics no longer favored a HKG crew domicile.

ltbewr wrote:

Perhaps its pressure from the PRC government or the ability to fire the domiciled crew there due to weak local labor/labour laws in PRC/HK that mean little or no compensation. Ditching LHR based crew may be near impossible or very expensive.

BA has been closing some of its foreign-nationals bases over the past 12 months; this has nothing to do with pressures from China. AFAIK, 4 foreign domiciles have been closed thus far: EZE, GRU, SIN & HKG. I believe a new one was opened in mainland China (PEK? PVG?). Costs seem to be behind this move.

ClassicLover wrote:

Zoedyn wrote:

Interesting to note how this is going to impact the carrier's HKG-LHR route

It won't affect much, even the article says it may only mean less native language speaking crew on board.

Sorry to hear it though, it's never nice when people lose their jobs. Hopefully those crew will be snapped up by other airlines since they have the experience.

unless you are the one losing your employment. kind of like cancer - not a big deal unless you are the one who has it.

If the economics of running the base are not favorable, I can't necessarily blame BA for shutting it down.

However, providing zero notice and only a week's severance seems almost punitive. Regardless of what local labor laws allow, it's shameful to behaving in such a manner.

mercure1 wrote:

Its not like putting crews in hotels in London and perdiems are cheap either.

Could be indeed the economics no longer favored a HKG crew domicile.

If that were the case (and unless anyone here works for BA, we can't be sure), then I'm going to take a guess that the economics of the domicile were not so awful that they necessitated immediate termination with a measly seven-day severance package. If it really was down to economics, it could have been handled much more compassionately. That said, the value that the Hong Kong based crews bring to the airline in terms of language proficiency is probably immeasurable. Quite a few British students I've met struggle with French as a second language, never mind Mandarin - so good luck finding British workers to replace them. Clue: British students/graduates who are proficient in Mandarin aren't going to be seeking employment as BA cabin crew. Let's see if this decision has any effect on the booking habits of Hong-Kong based, non-English speakers.

While I agree that this was rather harshly executed, sometimes it may be better to do these kind of things rather swiftly. Imagine all the ongoing (union) talk, negative press and bad morale if BA had announced this a few months beforehand.

strfyr51 wrote:

Multiple Dialects of Chinese and Mandarin. (I have NO idea what the difference is)

Very many of the dialects are mutually incomprehensible to each other in their phonology, vocabulary and syntax..
Some do share a little semblance to various degrees but they are in the minority.
About the only thread that hold the (major) diverse dialects and Mandarin aka Putonghua aka Beijing dialect together is the written form.

Wow! One week only is really mean! Someone in BA deserves a full month sitting on the toilette.

Zoedyn wrote:

Similar to a move it made in Singapore, British Airways axed its entire Hong Kong crew on Wednesday ahead of the closure of its local base next month, replaced by London-based crew. 85 flight attendants were immediately dismissed to prevent strikes

Is this number correct? 85 flight attentandt for 2 daily flights which means 4 rotation? I can get to 60 but 85 seems a lot. Can someone, please, help explain the number?

neutrino wrote:

strfyr51 wrote:

Multiple Dialects of Chinese and Mandarin. (I have NO idea what the difference is)

Very many of the dialects are mutually incomprehensible to each other in their phonology, vocabulary and syntax..
Some do share a little semblance to various degrees but they are in the minority.
About the only thread that hold the (major) diverse dialects and Mandarin aka Putonghua aka Beijing dialect together is the written form.

Yes, one cannot expect a Mandarin speaker to come in and cover the Cantonese speaking base.

DGVT wrote:

While I agree that this was rather harshly executed, sometimes it may be better to do these kind of things rather swiftly. Imagine all the ongoing (union) talk, negative press and bad morale if BA had announced this a few months beforehand.

This is understandable but not the stinky joke of the 7-day severance pay. It is inhumane.
Those decision makers deserve to eat turd for at least 7 days.

DGVT wrote:

While I agree that this was rather harshly executed, sometimes it may be better to do these kind of things rather swiftly. Imagine all the ongoing (union) talk, negative press and bad morale if BA had announced this a few months beforehand.

BA, as a global company, has to comply with the local laws of the countries where it operates. You can be assured that BA is well lawyer-ed up and has taken this step, as sad as it is for those involved, in compliance with local HK labor laws, including notice, severances, etc.

When BA closed its EZE base they gave the appropriate notice and severance packages required by Argentinian labor law (30 days and one month's salary per year worked severance pay).

DGVT wrote:

While I agree that this was rather harshly executed, sometimes it may be better to do these kind of things rather swiftly. Imagine all the ongoing (union) talk, negative press and bad morale if BA had announced this a few months beforehand.

I agree with swift. I disagree with 7 days severance, in particular for crew in London. How many will show up to their flight and learn then? How many will be flying back in uniform as that is the clothes they packed?

This could have been done better. This will have morale implications for a decade.

Lightsaber

kiowa wrote:

ClassicLover wrote:

Zoedyn wrote:

Interesting to note how this is going to impact the carrier's HKG-LHR route

It won't affect much, even the article says it may only mean less native language speaking crew on board.

Sorry to hear it though, it's never nice when people lose their jobs. Hopefully those crew will be snapped up by other airlines since they have the experience.

unless you are the one losing your employment. kind of like cancer - not a big deal unless you are the one who has it.

My "it won't affect much" was in response to the "how this is going to impact the carrier's HKG-LHR route" that I quoted. Nothing to do with the employees losing their jobs.

TheLion wrote:

This inherently facetious statement is proof that BA and by extension IAG are clearly among the biggest liars in the business. HKG is known as a high yield and highly profitable route so it’s inconceivable that the crew base is unviable. Cutting it will likely mean less diversity, choice and East Asian language speakers, thus impacting passenger experience.

The article quoted specifically states that the HKG route is not doing well due to strong competition from Cathay Pacific with their 5 daily flights.

Just because a route is known for having a strong business base and connects two wealthy areas does not necessarily mean it is going to be highly profitable.

Well, basically, all BA is doing is:
1. "Business is business", humane or not. (No, I think it's total BS and big business had been getting away with this for too long)
2. Cut a bunch of high cost foreign bases b/c they can't fired the local ones. Especially HK base with weak union, a joke of a labour law (Too bad there are way too many drones/slaves wanna-be in HK to do anything about that), and also high cost with fairly high seniority.
3. Continue to have crappy product, bad service, with the only advantage is the amount of LHR slots that they have.
4. Of course they don't do well against CX. BA is not cheap and as much as you got all these HKers who think "CX service suck", your typical Brits will definitely tell you otherwise.

Oh well, Willie Welsh, the Irish version of Doug Parker. Cut, cut, and more cut, while pocketing more and more money for themselves.

Flaps wrote:

tonystan wrote:

I am absolutely devastated by this news. Such a wonderful team dedicated to the company and to be so callously thrown aside overnight. Literally crew in the air as the announcement made unaware it was their last day in a job with families and mortgages to support!

And no they were not “low paid Asian workforce” staff as one ignorant poster posted!

A truly sad day and shameful of a once great company. All so they can cheapen the cost base to their own greed.

I would assume that it is all in compliance with relevant Hong Kong law? If so don't blame the airline if local employment law allows it.

No, it's fair to expect an employer to be decent to their people, even if the law doesn't require it. "This is the minimum" doesn't mean "do this."

7 days seems cruel/unfair. Even if you somehow had a job lined up it often takes a week of paperwork/prep time for an employer to even let you start. Unless its a minimum wage earning job that seems like a totally unrealistic severance, as no one can find a replacement job that fast.

The news say if employees didn't sign a letter that say they agree with such agreement in the next few days, BA could use their Provident Fund to pay for their severance payment instead?

United still has bases as NRT and HKG, BKK and SIN were non AFA affiliated like CDG and Taipei

United still has bases as NRT and HKG, BKK and SIN were non AFA affiliated like CDG and Taipei

HKG base knew they had it coming but not like this, shame on you BA

LAXintl wrote:

Running a crew base can be expensive. It means management and other support admin staff. Office space, equipment, taxes etc.

It is probaby cheaper for BA to simply use UK crews to cover versus maintaining such a small local base and its overhead.

Even after firing al these employees, it does not mean BA will cease to have a legal entity in HK. And all the costs associated.
In fact, they claim to have multiple branches all over the world (and I pressume with no local based management support employees)

Overseas branches
The Group flies to a number of destinations around the world. In addition to the overseas branches established in many of these
countries, there are also branches in countries to which BA does not fly. A full list of destinations can be found on the website
http://www.ba.com.

The "BA office" in HK could just be the airport sales office or the lawyer's address holding the rights for BA ltd Hong Kong branch.

Here in the states if there’s going to be a significant reduction in force usually there are state mandated advance warnings.

I don’t know what the threshold is re: number of employees/ economic impact on the region is. I’d imagine the EU/UK has something similar.

But a horrible way to treat your employees. I’d say F U and not return anything. They can and will deactivate any security access.

I’m surprised not more protection in their contract. You’d think if they wanted this to be immediate they’d “buy out” any required advance notice.

Edit: I read the letter in this thread and it does seem they will get a payout within 7 days based on their contract in lieu of notice.

Any idea how much they’re entitled too?

MYT332 wrote:

Based on this photo of I presume one of the real letter of termination, it seems that it's not that BA is paying just 7 days of severance, but paying the severance (of an amount that is not listed, and probably will vary between different people) within 7 days of termination.

Nothing BA could do anymore can surprise. They are simply a glorified low cost carrier.

The decision to close the base is not surprising, especially after the SIN base is close where they have more flights (2 London flights plus the Sydney flight daily and I would suppose they need a longer layover in SYD using UK crew).

But what is surprising here is the way they are treating the crew. The wording of that letter is rude and giving this to crew who have serving the airline for so many years is just cruel (the longest serving crew has been flying 30+ years). That, and taking them off from flying immediately and deadhead those in London back to HKG as if they have make major mistakes is just not something you would expect an established organization do in such circumstances.

I wish all the affected crew the best.

adamblang wrote:

Flaps wrote:

tonystan wrote:

I am absolutely devastated by this news. Such a wonderful team dedicated to the company and to be so callously thrown aside overnight. Literally crew in the air as the announcement made unaware it was their last day in a job with families and mortgages to support!

And no they were not “low paid Asian workforce” staff as one ignorant poster posted!

A truly sad day and shameful of a once great company. All so they can cheapen the cost base to their own greed.

I would assume that it is all in compliance with relevant Hong Kong law? If so don't blame the airline if local employment law allows it.

No, it's fair to expect an employer to be decent to their people, even if the law doesn't require it. "This is the minimum" doesn't mean "do this."

That's exactly it. It absolutely is BA's fault. Just because the law allows you to be a jerk, doesn't mean you should be. Assuming this complies with relevant HK law, BA could have, and should have, gone above and beyond 7 days.

kimimm19 wrote:

Nothing BA could do anymore can surprise. They are simply a glorified low cost carrier.

^^^^^^ This sums the airline up.

In spite of the news, BA still has the gall to request that the FAs “kindly” return articles to BA. So much for this promotional video from a year or two ago...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o-p2vBZbSF8

TheLion wrote:

Cutting it will likely mean less diversity, choice and East Asian language speakers, thus impacting passenger experience.

I hope the customers react the way they should and give their business to other airlines.

However in the end it seems the customers end up deciding to just put up with an inferior experience, accelerating the race to the bottom.