So I’m on a Flybe plane back from Belfast t’other day and the woman sitting next to me is dressed in British Airways (BA) uniform. You know when you fly, the crew always rightly say that primarily they are there for your safety – so please listen to the safety briefing. I always do, and I observe that a lot of folk don’t. I guess they don’t want to be reminded of how they just might survive an air crash, weird huh?
Anyhoo – the briefing starts and the BA woman just keeps reading her Heat (ouch!) magazine, the whole way through. Afterwards I asked her whether or not her choosing to ignore the briefing would a) encourage fellow passengers to pay attention or b) encourage fellow passengers to follow suit and keep reading their magazines. She was clearly too busy thinking about which snacks to order and which duty free gift she was gonna buy me and declined to answer.
I’ve long felt that BA has an arrogant swagger about it, and this little tale left me wondering: what goes on inside a company (in this case, BA) that leaves employees feeling so disengaged that they openly display a total lack of care for both their brand, and their industry. Whatever it is – it certainly leaves me feeling less confident about them. How about you?
