Aer Lingus Service

devnull

Locker10a wrote: »

Sorry but as crew I have to respond to this. Depending on the airline (most airlines nowadays in Europe anyway) that " curtain time" is infact your only opportunity for a break, the only time to eat and drink something. So sorry if the humans, employed as crew on your flights were trying to get break away from their duties for 10 mins or so.

On a long haul flight I totally understand this and even on a longish short haul flight, but this happened on a flight which was little over 1.5 hours and essentially was the crew neglecting their duties, I outline the exact case below and in my former post, they were discussing union business and the crew leader was telling the junior member off for working too hard saying they are not paid well enough to be at the passengers beck and call.

I've in the past had pax who pressed the call bell 3/4 time for second helpings of drinks, despite being told we are on a break and could come back and serve him after 10 mins, some people's behaviour is despicable on flights, thankfully the majority still have decency and manners.

Thank you for presuming that I was at fault and I was being rude when actually I wasn't, but it's great for you to straight away assume I was, customer always wrong is the attitude of so many people in AL which spoils it for the people who do actually care which are many of the newer staff who do a first class job and cannot do enough to help their passengers, despite the fact that the older members are trying to coach that out of them.

The crew made an announcements to say if anyone else wants drinks or snacks to ring the bell as in 15 minutes the bar would be closing So that is what I did. They ignored me for 15 minutes and since I was coughing a lot and I was aware soon we would be preparing for landing I had to make the effort to get up and seek them out because of the fact that they asked people to ring the bells then ignored them.

I was then told in 5 minutes they would serve me but then the excuse was it's too late because the bar is now closed as they were preparing for landing and that safety and well-being of their passengers is the number one priority. There is plenty of time for them to have a break, yet they couldn't spend ONE minute for one crew member to get a glass of water for a passenger who was coughing? That speaks volumes.

I am on flights regularly with Easyjet and Ryanair as well and even on their short flights of 1hr 30 mins or so they manage to sell a lot more things and do a lot more sales pitches yet they still have 15 minutes in the flight where they can talk without any kind of interruption from passengers, but they don't ignore their passengers because their training tells them that if a passengers requests something and is called they will be there to help them.

Also we are often told if we need anything to use the call bell, how do crew, behind the curtain, not being able to see the cabin, know what is happening in the cabin if even when someone rings the call bell they don't even look? It could be someone looking for food but it could be someone looking for Oxygen as well. The cabin is the responsibility of the crew leader and the crew is to look after the cabin throughtout the flight, not go off duty all at once. I have no problem with crews resting but the cabin should not be left with no crew.

Seeing as we're going down this road, the pilots have a harder job than the cabin crew, is it fair that they are working for several hours together without a single break? Shouldn't they be allowed to take a break together? Why should the cabin crew be able to totally break from their duties all at not but the pilots, whose job is far more effected by tiredness than crew, not be allowed this? It's a fallacy for a company who is not customer focused since the staff will always come first.

If you don't like that crews don't always answer call bells promptly then perhaps take up with the airlines their policy of crew having their breaks inflight and not on the ground.
If we knew we would get a guaranteed break, free from all duties and have the chance to eat and drink on the ground then the curtain would not be relied on so much for breaks

Well many other airlines manage it, the only ones who seem to have this issue are the long established ones where unions have a high involvement. As far as I am aware AL staff do get paid breaks as per their terms and conditions before, after and in between flights. I find it quite amusing that a flight that takes 90 minutes AL staff believe cannot be safely worked without "curtain time" essentially they're saying that 40 minutes work requires a 10 minute brea and the last 40 minutes which is completely crazy.

How do you think my boss would react when I told him in my 9 hour shift I wanted a 10 minute break every hour?

Tenger

Im going to interject here,hopefully in a calm manner.
On any airline the cabin staff should be there to answer callbells. Thats why the callbells are there for. Especially if an announcement about "call if you need anything" has been made.

More importantly the callbell is there to allow crew to be called to assist a pax in need of help....someone choking or a person fainted for example

devnull

Tenger wrote: »

On any airline the cabin staff should be there to answer callbells. Thats why the callbells are there for. Especially if an announcement about "call if you need anything" has been made. More importantly the callbell is there to allow crew to be called to assist a pax in need of help....someone choking or a person fainted for example.

That was pretty much the point I was trying to make. The whole idea of having call bells there is so that the staff don't have to keep checking on people and the passengers don't need to get up and come up to the crew. Instead they allow crew only have to come when they are needed and passengers to have an easy way to contact staff without going up to them.

MoeJay

In relation to the level of service all I can relate (as everyone else can) is my own experience.

I've travelled with 6 different airlines around Europe this year and to be honest the level of service across them is about the same. No great variation in the level of service at all; not one of them stood out well above the others. And not any of them were particularly worse than the other. This is the reality of air travel in Europe these days (and it is not much different in the USA from my experience this year either.)

I've seen comments about providing complimentary this and that; checked baggage etc etc. The reality of the market is that all this can be provided but at a cost and nowadays short haul in Europe is an exceptionally price sensitive market and consumers are now used (conditioned?) to expect rock bottom fares and if you are perceived to be more expensive with no good reason, people will vote with their feet.

It does not take much research into the ancillary revenue numbers across different carriers to see the huge value that this has. The actual act of flying you from A to B is almost secondary to the ability of the airline to generate revenue from the passenger in almost every other aspect of the journey. This is why there will continue to be a "big sell" on board as the accountants love this type of revenue. I could go on...

This does not mean that there will not be good/bad customer experiences - it happens. But to suggest (as the OP did) that Aer Lingus is somehow significantly worse than whatever else is out there is not accurate.

Commotion Ocean

Why don't Aer Lingus offer a first class service for TA flights instead of the mediocre "premium class" that they have.

Would it be profitable for them to operate one flight a day entirely in business class for long-haul? EIDW-LAX for example.

JCX BXC

dfeo wrote: »

Why don't Aer Lingus offer a first class service for TA flights instead of the mediocre "premium class" that they have.

Would it be profitable for them to operate one flight a day entirely in business class for long-haul? EIDW-LAX for example.

Not a hope, they do a flight to JFK fully business class from LCY airport on a small A318 in the centre of london and even that struggles.

Commotion Ocean

Carnacalla wrote: »

Not a hope, they do a flight to JFK fully business class from LCY airport on a small A318 in the centre of london and even that struggles.

Are you sure it's an A318?

It's 5700 km from London to NY and range of a A318 is only about that.

JCX BXC

dfeo wrote: »

Are you sure it's an A318?

It's 5700 km from London to NY and range of a A318 is only about that.

Fully sure, modified A318, and at 33 seats its going to be nowhere near a full load.

Must stop at Shannon on the way over, due to runway constraints, goes direct on the return.

lfc200

Carnacalla wrote: »

Not a hope, they do a flight to JFK fully business class from LCY airport on a small A318 in the centre of london and even that struggles.

And the second flight per day from LCY is being cancelled from the end of this month.

Simon Gruber Says

That was BA's Concorde "replacement". Wasn't really the same.

Tenger

The all J Class A318 from LCY-JFK is BA.

The idea of EI operating all J Class to the US West Coast (or anywhere else really) is laughable. Waste of an airframe when you can fill the front of an A330. EI are a mid market airline, not a premium airline operating between 2 of the top financial/political cities in the World. Even Air France had issues with yield on their Concorde service from Paris to NY back in the day.



Im not sure where the comment above regarding 'mediocre' comes from. Ive read a few online reviews that praise the EI J Class of the last few years.
Now it has modern flatbeds, wifi, revamped meals, arrivals lounge with showers in Dublin. (Just need to sort out their FFP)
A work mate travelled Sao Paolo to Heathrow in March with BA in J Class and he rated them as worse than EI. He said food was pre-plated and cabin presence was minimal.
Another one travels to the East coast US (booked J Class by his employer) every 2-3 months. He rates EI as the best ex DUB, with AA as the worse. He does however freely admit that the generous wine top ups sway him!

Like restaurants, bars and hotels; airline service can vary greatly. Its depends on what you are looking for, what you expect, what you pay for for, who serves you, what you order, how busy/disrupted the situation is, the time of day/year. Its extremely difficult to make objective black/white comparisons across the industry.

BabysCoffee

Locker10a wrote: »

Sorry but as crew I have to respond to this. Depending on the airline (most airlines nowadays in Europe anyway) that " curtain time" is infact your only opportunity for a break, the only time to eat and drink something. So sorry if the humans, employed as crew on your flights were trying to get break away from their duties for 10 mins or so.
I've in the past had pax who pressed the call bell 3/4 time for second helpings of drinks, despite being told we are on a break and could come back and serve him after 10 mins, some people's behaviour is despicable on flights, thankfully the majority still have decency and manners.
If you don't like that crews don't always answer call bells promptly then perhaps take up with the airlines their policy of crew having their breaks inflight and not on the ground.
If we knew we would get a guaranteed break, free from all duties and have the chance to eat and drink on the ground then the curtain would not be relied on so much for breaks

Do all crew take their break behind the curtain at the one time?

Would it not be better to stagger breaks? This would mean there would only be one person on break at one time and the rest of the crew is available to serve customers in the cabin. I would have thought this is standard practise?

Mebuntu

The crew made an announcements to say if anyone else wants drinks or snacks to ring the bell as in 15 minutes the bar would be closing So that is what I did. They ignored me for 15 minutes and since I was coughing a lot and I was aware soon we would be preparing for landing I had to make the effort to get up and seek them out because of the fact that they asked people to ring the bells then ignored them.

Depending on the airline (most airlines nowadays in Europe anyway) that " curtain time" is in fact your only opportunity for a break, the only time to eat and drink something. So sorry if the humans, employed as crew on your flights were trying to get break away from their duties for 10 mins or so.

I'm 100% with the passenger on this one. The idea that any Cabin Crew in total would, effectively, abandon their duties to their "Guests" during a flight for any length of time is inexcusable and unacceptable. What transpired on that flight creates the impression that cabin crew, peeved rightly or wrongly by the issues they have with break time, have unilaterally decided to take it out on the very people who pay their wages. I would like to think that this was a one-off with senior crew, still steeped in the old union ways, having undue influence over the younger more enlightened and unchipped-on-shoulder members, but have my doubts.

TheCockpitGuy

dfeo wrote: »

Why don't Aer Lingus offer a first class service for TA flights instead of the mediocre "premium class" that they have.

I have flown twice this year up the front with EI, even with the then 2 week old -FNH and business with EI stands out. Few tweeks like every airline could do with but it is far from mediocre. The hard product door to door is as good as any others in that class.

Take the words 'premium' and 'rouge' and that is a new level of mediocre, starting from walking up the stairs in the outside elements to board a 767.

roundymac

dfeo wrote: »

Why don't Aer Lingus offer a first class service for TA flights instead of the mediocre "premium class" that they have.

My O/H thinks it's a very good service and she'd be the girl to moan if it was'nt.

Pat Dunne

dfeo wrote: »

Why don't Aer Lingus offer a first class service for TA flights instead of the mediocre "premium class" that they have.

I'd be interested to know why you rate it as "mediocre"?

faceman

I've flown both BA and Aer Lingus a few times in Business I've also flown Premium Economy with BA too

The Aer Lingus business model with the new seats is very good. I'd rate the seats/pod (whatever they call business seats) better than the BA offering. Large responsive to screen. Seat massage and a one piece lie flat bed. Some of the business seats offer more privacy than others too.

However the BA in flight business service is better than Aer Lingus. That's not to say Aer Lingus service was poor, it was excellent, but BA had the edge with their choice of premium drinks and food.

Simon Gruber Says

faceman wrote: »

I've flown both BA and Aer Lingus a few times in Business I've also flown Premium Economy with BA too

The Aer Lingus business model with the new seats is very good. I'd rate the seats/pod (whatever they call business seats) better than the BA offering. Large responsive to screen. Seat massage and a one piece lie flat bed. Some of the business seats offer more privacy than others too.

However the BA in flight business service is better than Aer Lingus. That's not to say Aer Lingus service was poor, it was excellent, but BA had the edge with their choice of premium drinks and food.

The "throne" seats on EI are great. I dislike that if you want a window seat on BA, you have to sit backwards, and if flying alone, you're looking directly at a stranger next to you, facing the opposite direction, when the screen has to be down.

elastico

faceman wrote: »

I've flown both BA and Aer Lingus a few times in Business I've also flown Premium Economy with BA too

The Aer Lingus business model with the new seats is very good. I'd rate the seats/pod (whatever they call business seats) better than the BA offering. Large responsive to screen. Seat massage and a one piece lie flat bed. Some of the business seats offer more privacy than others too.

However the BA in flight business service is better than Aer Lingus. That's not to say Aer Lingus service was poor, it was excellent, but BA had the edge with their choice of premium drinks and food.

The condition of the plane makes a big difference. I flew premium economy with BA a while back and the out bound flight had the new seats, big high quality TV screen etc. I thought this is well worth the extra for the upgrade.

On the return flight it was the old seat, crappy screen etc., very disappointing.

jesus_thats_gre

faceman wrote: »

However the BA in flight business service is better than Aer Lingus. That's not to say Aer Lingus service was poor, it was excellent, but BA had the edge with their choice of premium drinks and food.

Would disagree quite strongly with this. BA First maybe but not Business.

roundymac

Got upgraded to business with BA once, very average service.

faceman

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Would disagree quite strongly with this. BA First maybe but not Business.

How was your experience?

Pat Dunne

roundymac wrote: »

Got upgraded to business with BA once, very average service.

Why was that?

Bussywussy

roundymac wrote: »

Got upgraded to business with BA once, very average service.

agreed,plus the dirt between the seat was a bit repulsive and i dont like facing another pax next to you,i know theres a screen but still.

jesus_thats_gre

faceman wrote: »

How was your experience?

Think I have flown BA Business to the US, India, Israel and Egypt close to 20 times at this stage - over the last 5 years. Have flown Aer Lingus Business to the US twice this year - West and East coast.

I found the Aer Lingus experience to be quite a bit better with a recent BA First flight to Mumbai being the only BA experience to trump it. I find the seating, meals and inflight service to be a superior offering and internet access, albeit a bit slow, is the icing on top. Being honest, I am consistently underwhelmed by the BA Business product and it is certainly getting worse every year.

Also have experience flying Emirates Business on a few occasions and would obviously regard that as superior to both. I have found the service on Aer Lingus be a close second in my experience.

faceman

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Think I have flown BA Business to the US, India, Israel and Egypt close to 20 times at this stage - over the last 5 years. Have flown Aer Lingus Business to the US twice this year - West and East coast.

I found the Aer Lingus experience to be quite a bit better with a recent BA First flight to Mumbai being the only BA experience to trump it. I find the seating, meals and inflight service to be a superior offering and internet access, albeit a bit slow, is the icing on top. Being honest, I am consistently underwhelmed by the BA Business product and it is certainly getting worse every year.

Also have experience flying Emirates Business on a few occasions and would obviously regard that as superior to both. I have found the service on Aer Lingus be a close second in my experience.

I do agree about the seats and wifi for sure.

Simon Gruber Says

BA are making a lot of cutbacks to their service recently. They're ending the complimentary food and drink service on their European routes soon and introducing buy on board, like most other carriers have already.

http://www.britishairways.com/en-gb/information/food-and-drink/marks-and-spencer

roundymac

Pat Dunne wrote: »

Why was that?

Crew did'nt seem interested, they even forgot my breakfast, when I asked for the fry, I was asked "oh do you still want it". Not what I was expecting.

Pat Dunne

roundymac wrote: »

Crew did'nt seem interested, they even forgot my breakfast, when I asked for the fry, I was asked "oh do you still want it". Not what I was expecting.

Sounds a bit dismal alright, have you offered feedback to EI?

Tenger

jesus_thats_gre wrote: »

Think I have flown BA Business to the US, India, Israel and Egypt close to 20 times at this stage - over the last 5 years. Have flown Aer Lingus Business to the US twice this year - West and East coast.

I found the Aer Lingus experience to be quite a bit better with a recent BA First flight to Mumbai being the only BA experience to trump it. I find the seating, meals and inflight service to be a superior offering and internet access, albeit a bit slow, is the icing on top. Being honest, I am consistently underwhelmed by the BA Business product and it is certainly getting worse every year.

Also have experience flying Emirates Business on a few occasions and would obviously regard that as superior to both. I have found the service on Aer Lingus be a close second in my experience.

I think this could be indicative of the relative size of the EI widebody fleet vs the BA fleet. EI revamped their J Class cabin relatively quickly, doing so with BA will take a few years.

Perhaps we are seeing a jaded product on BA slowly being replaced, hence the uneven opinions. Whereas the (14 fleet units) EI product is all less than 3 years old (I think?)

Simon Gruber Says wrote: »

BA are making a lot of cutbacks to their service recently. They're ending the complimentary food and drink service on their European routes soon and introducing buy on board, like most other carriers have already.

Well this thread has diverted into debate about J Class on longhaul. The recently announced changes to BA shorthaul will only affect Economy, European J Class will be unaffected for the moment. But in fairness to BA they are entering the BoB market with brand name High St products. The lack of cash being handling will also keep the service flowing (and hide the visual evidence of actually paying for the food)
Wilie Walsh was the CEO who introduced buy on board to Aer Lingus about 12-14 years ago (which was the complaint of the OP from his recent flight with EI) and in his time as CEO as BA and later IAG I would guess that he was planning to move to this for a couple of years now.
I actually read something 18 months ago which hinted at this move, but it didnt register at the time, but as soon as I heard the BA announcement it clicked in my head.