flyjay123 wrote:

eta unknown wrote:

The same reason NZ used to have one: LON hotel costs, arguably the most costly and difficult to negotiate in the world. The crew per diem expenses are also high for LON.

BA has a few India crew bases, they have to hotel those crews in Lon..... so how does your logic work here compared to cheaper hotels in India UK based crews?

BA usually only have 2/3 International/Overseas Cabin Crew on any flight to/from London, whilst CX/QF flights were partially or completely crewed from London.

Often airlines can find it difficult to affordably source accommodation in London that meets the union’s and company’s minimum standards. Sometimes foreign crew bases, like with BA, are established as it’s cheaper for the airline to pay allowances in their home base rather than the destination, or there may be language/cultural benefits.

findingnema wrote:

flyjay123 wrote:

eta unknown wrote:

The same reason NZ used to have one: LON hotel costs, arguably the most costly and difficult to negotiate in the world. The crew per diem expenses are also high for LON.

BA has a few India crew bases, they have to hotel those crews in Lon..... so how does your logic work here compared to cheaper hotels in India UK based crews?

BA usually only have 2/3 International/Overseas Cabin Crew on any flight to/from London, whilst CX/QF flights were partially or completely crewed from London.

Often airlines can find it difficult to affordably source accommodation in London that meets the union’s and company’s minimum standards. Sometimes foreign crew bases, like with BA, are established as it’s cheaper for the airline to pay allowances in their home base rather than the destination, or there may be language/cultural benefits.

At BA, we primarily have overseas crew bases at destinations where language and cultural differences mean employing locally based crews increases level of service offered. The knowledge of these crews is highly regarded by LHR crews and they play an invaluable part in the team onboard. As a rule of thumb there are generally 2-3 overseas crew on flights.

There are currently bases in MEX, BAH, CAI, HND, PVG, PEK DEL, BOM and MAA and they operate flights into LHR (LGW do not have services with overseas crew). There used to be bases in more destinations in South America and Asia, but these have sadly closed over the years.

MEX crews fly solely from their home bases to LHR, same for CAI and HND. Crews based in BAH operate BAH, as well as Saudi services so may do a trip like BAH-LHR-RUH-LHR-BAH. India crews operate from their home bases, a new base in HYD was announced pre-pandemic to better serve the cultural differences of the region, though this new base is currently on hold.

The Indian bases are the only ones with a slightly different uniform for female crews.

International or Overseas cabin crew as they are referred too, are on a variety of contracts, they are not union busters and work to mutually agreed roster agreements. The bases have team leaders or senior crew members (though none are SCCM qualified and are never in charge of the cabin). Many of the ICC/OCC crew have been with us for a very long time and are genuinely a fantastic bunch of people.

Currently the Chinese and Japanese bases are not flying due no commercial services to those destinations.

It is worth noting they operate to UK FTLs and carry out all safety training in our training facility at LHR.

What makes London area hotels difficult to the degree that many airlines will staff a London base?

dcajet wrote:

ContinentalEWR wrote:

dcajet wrote:

.

And why would AA stop flying to London? Probably the most profitable (in normal times) international station, up there with GRU & EZE. AA will never give up London flying.

The US union is doing what it is supposed to do: protect US jobs. If AA were to open a London base, it would have to staff it with foreign nationals and those trips would be lost for good for the US F/As. And yes, United has a London base, but it should be said that UA grandfathered that base when it acquired the London routes from Pan Am back in 1991. I doubt very much that UA would have opened it on their own. Further to my point, UA has closed all its Asia bases recently (HKG, NRT & SIN). In a context where they were letting go US based F/As it is very hard to justify these foreign nationals' bases. After all, both AA and UA are US based corporations and their first priority should be to employ Americans first, whenever practical or feasible.

AA has a crew base in EZE as well, and I think still do in BOG and SCL. I believe the rules prevent those crews from working US domestic flights.

And they can only operate flights to MIA (no JFK, DFW or LAX). That is how they are "fenced in"; US domestic sectors are also out of the question. EZE is the largest base, and there is one in LIM as well, in addition to BOG and SCL, all legacies from the Braniff International days, first grandfathered by Eastern and then AA. The EZE ones, they operate one of the daily MIA-EZE-MIA rotations and once in MIA they usually operate some of the shorter rotations to Central and South America and the Caribbean before heading back down to EZE.

Do they operate the MVD-MIA routes as well? MVD recently returned before Christmas on a non daily frequency.

I was on the inaugural QF LHR to PER. All London based crew. For the girl working in my section, it was her first ever trip to Australia.

Regarding Japanese crew on foreign airlines flying to Japan, even Iran Air, who flew IKA PEK NRT twice a week until about 2012, had something like six Japanese cabin crew in the ranks so there was always two on every flight. Interesting additional cost to serving Japan that doesn’t apply to serving many other countries. Maybe Japanese rules insist on a couple of Japanese speaking crew on every flight, or maybe just out of necessity, given that the Japanese simply do not speak other languages, even English.

dcajet wrote:

WA707atMSP wrote:

John Nance's book about Braniff's decline, Splash of Colors, says when Braniff tried to sell their South American routes to PA, PA did not want to assume Braniff's bases in South America. Nance goes on to say that many of the Braniff flight attendants based in South American were the daughters of influential government employees and business executives in the countries where they were based, and the countries served by Braniff voiced opposition to Pan Am taking over the routes partly because these women would lose their jobs.

Eastern agreed to assume Braniff's South American bases, which made the South American countries served by Braniff more agreeable to an Eastern takeover of Braniff's routes.

With all due respect, and as far as the EZE base goes, that could not be further away from reality. Just like in the US, local F/As come from all walks of life. There may be a few that come from a privileged background but most are middle class folks that happen to speak perfect English. Yes, true, a good deal of them are from British or Irish Argentinian extraction but that is it. No such thing as captains of industry or drunken generals calling Dallas to complain... Reality is that those bases cost AA a fraction of what it would cost if the US bases did those flights, hence the fences the US unions puts for those F/As. And that is a cost advantage AA has over Delta and United.

It is true that at the time (1982) Pan Am did not wish to take over those bases, which is ironic considering that in 1989 Pan Am opened a GIG base to cover the intra South American flights such as GIG-EZE and EZE-SCL. What Pan Am did for years (well into the late 60s) was to hire foreign nationals as F/As and sponsor them for US permanent residency. That was how the PA crews were so multicultural. Eventually, the US government stop considering Flight Attendants a labor category that could be sponsored for immigration and that was that.

DCA, remember that Braniff shut down 40 years ago, and the flight attendants Nance describes in his book would have been hired in the 1970s. In the 1970s, few flight attendants thought of their job as a career. Many flight attendants viewed their job as an opportunity to see the world for a few years, before they got married and started a family. Although you are correct about the women working in the EZE base today, things would have been much different when EZE was a Braniff base, and I think many of them may have been from a privileged background at that time.

luckyone wrote:

What makes London area hotels difficult to the degree that many airlines will staff a London base?

Have you ever been to London? Any remotely half decent hotel is incredibly expensive.

pbody wrote:

luckyone wrote:

What makes London area hotels difficult to the degree that many airlines will staff a London base?

Have you ever been to London? Any remotely half decent hotel is incredibly expensive.

Yes I have. But London certainly isn't the only very expensive city in the world.

luckyone wrote:

pbody wrote:

luckyone wrote:

What makes London area hotels difficult to the degree that many airlines will staff a London base?

Have you ever been to London? Any remotely half decent hotel is incredibly expensive.

Yes I have. But London certainly isn't the only very expensive city in the world.

It’s a real mixture of cost, facilities, ease of access to LHR and the hotel wanting the business (as airline crews arrive/leave often at times incompatible with other guests). London has always been very competitive for getting sufficient rooms for airline crews, but for some airlines having the infrastructure of a crew base is cheaper and more flexible than trying to arrange accommodation in London.

iadbudd wrote:

dcajet wrote:

ContinentalEWR wrote:

AA has a crew base in EZE as well, and I think still do in BOG and SCL. I believe the rules prevent those crews from working US domestic flights.

And they can only operate flights to MIA (no JFK, DFW or LAX). That is how they are "fenced in"; US domestic sectors are also out of the question. EZE is the largest base, and there is one in LIM as well, in addition to BOG and SCL, all legacies from the Braniff International days, first grandfathered by Eastern and then AA. The EZE ones, they operate one of the daily MIA-EZE-MIA rotations and once in MIA they usually operate some of the shorter rotations to Central and South America and the Caribbean before heading back down to EZE.

Do they operate the MVD-MIA routes as well? MVD recently returned before Christmas on a non daily frequency.

I believe they do - 3x w until March with the 787-8; EZE also operated the MIA-COR up to 2020 when the route was canned. They also used to operate some of the MIA - GRU flights as well, as long as the F/As were language qualified, (Portuguese). Not sure if that is the case any longer.

WA707atMSP wrote:

dcajet wrote:

WA707atMSP wrote:

John Nance's book about Braniff's decline, Splash of Colors, says when Braniff tried to sell their South American routes to PA, PA did not want to assume Braniff's bases in South America. Nance goes on to say that many of the Braniff flight attendants based in South American were the daughters of influential government employees and business executives in the countries where they were based, and the countries served by Braniff voiced opposition to Pan Am taking over the routes partly because these women would lose their jobs.

Eastern agreed to assume Braniff's South American bases, which made the South American countries served by Braniff more agreeable to an Eastern takeover of Braniff's routes.

With all due respect, and as far as the EZE base goes, that could not be further away from reality. Just like in the US, local F/As come from all walks of life. There may be a few that come from a privileged background but most are middle class folks that happen to speak perfect English. Yes, true, a good deal of them are from British or Irish Argentinian extraction but that is it. No such thing as captains of industry or drunken generals calling Dallas to complain... Reality is that those bases cost AA a fraction of what it would cost if the US bases did those flights, hence the fences the US unions puts for those F/As. And that is a cost advantage AA has over Delta and United.

It is true that at the time (1982) Pan Am did not wish to take over those bases, which is ironic considering that in 1989 Pan Am opened a GIG base to cover the intra South American flights such as GIG-EZE and EZE-SCL. What Pan Am did for years (well into the late 60s) was to hire foreign nationals as F/As and sponsor them for US permanent residency. That was how the PA crews were so multicultural. Eventually, the US government stop considering Flight Attendants a labor category that could be sponsored for immigration and that was that.

DCA, remember that Braniff shut down 40 years ago, and the flight attendants Nance describes in his book would have been hired in the 1970s. In the 1970s, few flight attendants thought of their job as a career. Many flight attendants viewed their job as an opportunity to see the world for a few years, before they got married and started a family. Although you are correct about the women working in the EZE base today, things would have been much different when EZE was a Braniff base, and I think many of them may have been from a privileged background at that time.

You may be right. It was a different time for sure. Ladies (and gentlemen) hired in the late 60s and 70s, a few of them still flying with AA. Now, I will say that perhaps you and I think of slightly different things for what we mean by "privilege". Most of these F/As came from solid middle class backgrounds - even in the 70s. For Argentina's upper class/old money, (what I think of privileged) working as a F/A would be a bit "outré" and definitely déclassé. Oh, the humanity,

smi0006 wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Believe the Non-stop LHR-PER was crewed just by LON based cabin crew. Guess the same is now for the DRW flight.
The internals obviously being crewed by Local Aussies .

Sometimes the LHR would also operate LHR-SIN or even all the way to MEL/SYD on the 380s. But they would mix with Aussie based crew too so wasn’t an entire aircraft of LHR crew. Now the base is flying again, not sure they will be retrained on the 380s?

I would also suggest PER-FCO will probably be crew by LHR base, with 24hr layover in PER and FCO due to frequency and lower labour costs. LHR-PER-FCO-pax LHR.

I do vaguely recall they did have to adjust the layover or something as the LHR crew only doing LHR-PER-LHR and such longhaul sectors with such a time chang a was causing fatigue issues… but can’t recall details.

Amazing to think back to the old days of worldwide basings! Always a fan of such cross cultural service. QF used to have bases in AKL, BKK, NRT

If LHR is too expensive to house overnight Australian crews, wouldn't LHR crews would operate all QF flights out of LHR including to SIN? Or are you you saying that QF does send some Aussie crew members to LHR just not on the ultra long haul (PER/DRW)?

Also, presumably back in the DXB hub days of a few years ago, the LHR crew only operated LHR-DXB-LHR legs?

alan3 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Believe the Non-stop LHR-PER was crewed just by LON based cabin crew. Guess the same is now for the DRW flight.
The internals obviously being crewed by Local Aussies .

Sometimes the LHR would also operate LHR-SIN or even all the way to MEL/SYD on the 380s. But they would mix with Aussie based crew too so wasn’t an entire aircraft of LHR crew. Now the base is flying again, not sure they will be retrained on the 380s?

I would also suggest PER-FCO will probably be crew by LHR base, with 24hr layover in PER and FCO due to frequency and lower labour costs. LHR-PER-FCO-pax LHR.

I do vaguely recall they did have to adjust the layover or something as the LHR crew only doing LHR-PER-LHR and such longhaul sectors with such a time chang a was causing fatigue issues… but can’t recall details.

Amazing to think back to the old days of worldwide basings! Always a fan of such cross cultural service. QF used to have bases in AKL, BKK, NRT

If LHR is too expensive to house overnight Australian crews, wouldn't LHR crews would operate all QF flights out of LHR including to SIN? Or are you you saying that QF does send some Aussie crew members to LHR just not on the ultra long haul (PER/DRW)?

Also, presumably back in the DXB hub days of a few years ago, the LHR crew only operated LHR-DXB-LHR legs?

It may depend on the union agreements. At CX, the outport crews couldn’t operate more than 50% of the flights from their base port to HKG. At least 50% had to be with HKG based crews.

alan3 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

TUGMASTER wrote:

Believe the Non-stop LHR-PER was crewed just by LON based cabin crew. Guess the same is now for the DRW flight.
The internals obviously being crewed by Local Aussies .

Sometimes the LHR would also operate LHR-SIN or even all the way to MEL/SYD on the 380s. But they would mix with Aussie based crew too so wasn’t an entire aircraft of LHR crew. Now the base is flying again, not sure they will be retrained on the 380s?

I would also suggest PER-FCO will probably be crew by LHR base, with 24hr layover in PER and FCO due to frequency and lower labour costs. LHR-PER-FCO-pax LHR.

I do vaguely recall they did have to adjust the layover or something as the LHR crew only doing LHR-PER-LHR and such longhaul sectors with such a time chang a was causing fatigue issues… but can’t recall details.

Amazing to think back to the old days of worldwide basings! Always a fan of such cross cultural service. QF used to have bases in AKL, BKK, NRT

If LHR is too expensive to house overnight Australian crews, wouldn't LHR crews would operate all QF flights out of LHR including to SIN? Or are you you saying that QF does send some Aussie crew members to LHR just not on the ultra long haul (PER/DRW)?

Also, presumably back in the DXB hub days of a few years ago, the LHR crew only operated LHR-DXB-LHR legs?

In my experience as a pax, having flown AU-SIN-LHR and back about half a dozen times on the 380 in the 3 years before the pandemic, I always had Aussie crew to and back from Singapore, and then LHR crew between SIN and LHR.

On my last return from London I had a chat to a French crew member based at LHR, who told me he’d only ever been to Australia twice and only on the LHR-PER vv route. Before that only ever flew to SIN (or DXB years ago) and turned around.

A350OZ wrote:

alan3 wrote:

smi0006 wrote:

Sometimes the LHR would also operate LHR-SIN or even all the way to MEL/SYD on the 380s. But they would mix with Aussie based crew too so wasn’t an entire aircraft of LHR crew. Now the base is flying again, not sure they will be retrained on the 380s?

I would also suggest PER-FCO will probably be crew by LHR base, with 24hr layover in PER and FCO due to frequency and lower labour costs. LHR-PER-FCO-pax LHR.

I do vaguely recall they did have to adjust the layover or something as the LHR crew only doing LHR-PER-LHR and such longhaul sectors with such a time chang a was causing fatigue issues… but can’t recall details.

Amazing to think back to the old days of worldwide basings! Always a fan of such cross cultural service. QF used to have bases in AKL, BKK, NRT

If LHR is too expensive to house overnight Australian crews, wouldn't LHR crews would operate all QF flights out of LHR including to SIN? Or are you you saying that QF does send some Aussie crew members to LHR just not on the ultra long haul (PER/DRW)?

Also, presumably back in the DXB hub days of a few years ago, the LHR crew only operated LHR-DXB-LHR legs?

In my experience as a pax, having flown AU-SIN-LHR and back about half a dozen times on the 380 in the 3 years before the pandemic, I always had Aussie crew to and back from Singapore, and then LHR crew between SIN and LHR.

On my last return from London I had a chat to a French crew member based at LHR, who told me he’d only ever been to Australia twice and only on the LHR-PER vv route. Before that only ever flew to SIN (or DXB years ago) and turned around.

There were many instances of crew mixing, even AKL crew mixing or a full AU crew to LHR. Never heard of a full LHR crew making it to AU though, but certainly a few here and there. FRA was always all AU crew, wonder what will happen to FCO. Cross crewing allows for lots of flexibility for training, disruptions, leave, hours, roster etc. I think QF will be red hot on this moving forward, what is most efficient.

Of note also AKL crew were trained on 737, 330, 744 and 380 and would fly across the international or Tasman network - although I think AKL CSMs only worked the 737s? Wonder if the AKL base will be reopened.

dcajet wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

What % of LHR flying is on London based crews with United?

W/O getting into specifics and from before COVID hit, London crews were doing one of the IAD, ORD & SFO flights per day. Those are the routes I used to fly as a pax before COVID. Not sure about EWR or IAH. The London crews are a lovely bunch; many of them are ex-PA; with tons of experience - they've seen it all - and thus provide tip top service on board. Same goes for the LHR UA staff, in particular the concierges, they know how to deal with Global Services members.

I had LHR based crew members on a flight from/to Denver. Not sure if it was mixed or not. The purser was an American living in the Netherlands commuting to LHR. Pretty cool that he had the ability to make that work.

smi0006 wrote:

A350OZ wrote:

alan3 wrote:

If LHR is too expensive to house overnight Australian crews, wouldn't LHR crews would operate all QF flights out of LHR including to SIN? Or are you you saying that QF does send some Aussie crew members to LHR just not on the ultra long haul (PER/DRW)?

Also, presumably back in the DXB hub days of a few years ago, the LHR crew only operated LHR-DXB-LHR legs?

In my experience as a pax, having flown AU-SIN-LHR and back about half a dozen times on the 380 in the 3 years before the pandemic, I always had Aussie crew to and back from Singapore, and then LHR crew between SIN and LHR.

On my last return from London I had a chat to a French crew member based at LHR, who told me he’d only ever been to Australia twice and only on the LHR-PER vv route. Before that only ever flew to SIN (or DXB years ago) and turned around.

There were many instances of crew mixing, even AKL crew mixing or a full AU crew to LHR. Never heard of a full LHR crew making it to AU though, but certainly a few here and there. FRA was always all AU crew, wonder what will happen to FCO. Cross crewing allows for lots of flexibility for training, disruptions, leave, hours, roster etc. I think QF will be red hot on this moving forward, what is most efficient.

Of note also AKL crew were trained on 737, 330, 744 and 380 and would fly across the international or Tasman network - although I think AKL CSMs only worked the 737s? Wonder if the AKL base will be reopened.

Yes remember I had an AKL crew on a MEL-LAX A380 once or twice. I remember because, beside the accent, they actually introduced themselves as AKL-based over the PA.

jbmitt wrote:

dcajet wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

What % of LHR flying is on London based crews with United?

W/O getting into specifics and from before COVID hit, London crews were doing one of the IAD, ORD & SFO flights per day. Those are the routes I used to fly as a pax before COVID. Not sure about EWR or IAH. The London crews are a lovely bunch; many of them are ex-PA; with tons of experience - they've seen it all - and thus provide tip top service on board. Same goes for the LHR UA staff, in particular the concierges, they know how to deal with Global Services members.

I had LHR based crew members on a flight from/to Denver. Not sure if it was mixed or not. The purser was an American living in the Netherlands commuting to LHR. Pretty cool that he had the ability to make that work.

That has been quite common for the London base even back in the Pan Am days. My auntie flew for Pan Am for almost 30 years and one of her best friends was on PA103. She commuted from Bilbao to London and was working on that flight, which was staffed by the LHR base, In addition to Nieves, there were 3 commuters from France, 2 from Germany and 1 from Norway working the flight,

The QF UK base was set up mid 2000s. They tapped into the Aussie "gap year" phenomenon. Generally you'd have young Australians in their early twenties with no family or commitments in Australia, looking for a one or two year adventure. They'd sign up for a few years in the UK. Fly long haul, and on their days off travel through Europe. As they were there for a good time not a long time a high salary wasn't a priority, so the airline could afford lower pay rates. Generally crew would share an apartment, 4 or more to a two bed apartment to keep living costs down, but due to the nature of their jobs rare for everyone to be in the apartment at the same time. After two years of long haul work and travelling Europe was generally enough, and they came back for a more "stable" job in Australia, to be replaced by the next generation of Aussie adventure seekers. And there were also plenty of locally employed crew as well, with many commuting from the EU whilst the UK was still a member.

alan3 wrote:

If LHR is too expensive to house overnight Australian crews, wouldn't LHR crews would operate all QF flights out of LHR including to SIN? Or are you you saying that QF does send some Aussie crew members to LHR just not on the ultra long haul (PER/DRW)?

Also, presumably back in the DXB hub days of a few years ago, the LHR crew only operated LHR-DXB-LHR legs?

I believe the QF crew do operate to all the destinations out of LHR, which is PER, SIN and previously DXB. I also remember some years back that Qantas international crew in Australia negotiated in their contract that they would still be able to operate through to Europe a percentage of the time, despite the LHR crew base. So I believe you will sometimes get LHR based crew on the sector and sometimes Australia based crew.