| Table of Contents Being Cabin Crew | The Ugly Truth Part 3 Page 1 – The Head of Cabin Crew Page 2 – Employing a Sociopath Page 3 – The Day Life Changed Page 4 – Shalom Tel Aviv Page 5 – Post Flight Customer Feedback Page 6 – Cue Second Disciplinary Page 7 – Outcome of the Grievance Page 8 – Yee Haw The Last Page! Being Cabin Crew | The Ugly Truth Part 5 |
The Head of Cabin Crew
You will have noticed that I’ve spoken about the Head of Cabin Crew extensively. She handled my appeal regarding the outcome of Bart’s grievance. By the end of this page, you’ll know far more about her.
The Head of Cabin Crew joined the company seventeen years after me in 2007. In 2014, she was promoted to Senior Manager, People and Performance. Due to cutbacks in response to the Covid pandemic, she was made redundant in 2020.
In 2014, my partner, who was also cabin crew with this airline at the time, applied to transfer to a part-time contract. Although anyone could apply, there was no guarantee of success. Unsurprisingly, his application was rejected. Having been advised that he could appeal, I decided to write to the Head of Cabin Crew, who I had never met due to her being relatively new in this position, to explain why a relatively new male crew member was applying for part-time.
The email, which was marked “Private and Confidential”, included very personal and private information. The reason for his application was because after four years of being a carer for my dad, I was struggling to cope, and it was taking its toll on my mental health.
With us both being part-time, it would make managing my dad’s care at home slightly easier. Although I would have preferred not to have shared some of the information that I did, I felt it was important so that she fully understood my situation. In her reply, she explained that she was unable to deal with this matter so had passed it on to someone else to deal with. I had known the person she forwarded my email to fairly well for many years and would have preferred not to have shared such personal information with him.
Within a few days, I received an email to say that he too was unable to deal with my correspondence, so had passed it on again. My email was passed to six different managers, each one of whom replied to say they couldn’t deal with it, so had passed it on to someone else. Due to my length of time in the company, all of these Cabin Crew Managers knew me, and I knew them. They were all cabin crew before moving to the office, and over the years, we had flown together often. I was really angry with such private information, which included very personal details about my health, being shared without my authorization.
At one point, the email was passed back to the Head of Cabin Crew who then passed it to yet another Cabin Crew Manager. Having complained the person she had been passed it to was just a Cabin Crew Manager she told me this person was a “senior” Cabin Crew Manager.
So what she was telling me was that she was more “senior” than the previous four managers who had also seen my email, but not as senior as her or the senior manager she had initially passed my email to.
By now, I’d really had enough and made contact with a manager more senior than the Head of Cabin Crew. I explained what had happened and said I felt it was a breach of confidentiality. I received a swift response, and a meeting between my partner and this manager in a higher position was subsequently arranged. During the meeting, which he attended with a union rep’, he was offered part-time and told it would only be for six months but would then be reviewed.
My partner remained part-time for about a year and then left the company. I don’t know whether the Head of Cabin Crew was ever spoken to about what took place, but looking back to that incident, everything now made far more sense.
The second matter regarding the CEO’s complaint was a minor misdemeanour that could have been dealt with very differently. The fact that the Head of Cabin Crew asked for it to be dealt with as a grievance and, if proven, that I should be given a final written warning was further evidence of this being a witch hunt.
The CEO’s complaint should have been passed immediately to someone else to deal with because her involvement amounts to a conflict of interest. She was already dealing with my appeal against the decision to uphold the grievance submitted by Bart, and was due to meet with me within a couple of weeks.
Being the head of the department, I believe she was the driving force behind the entire investigation. I believe that in 2019 when my name came to her attention, she saw it as a golden opportunity.
The following excerpt comes from a company policy manual:
Quite early in the investigation, I sensed something wasn’t right. In law, the objective of a grievance is to collate balanced evidence from both sides and to be fair and objective. It’s not about proving guilt. The purpose of the investigation is to establish whether there has been a breach of any company policies. It was clear from the start that this investigation was taking a different direction. There was little interest in establishing whether Bart’s allegations were truthful.
The evidence being examined was far from balanced. Every word in my defence was backed up with indisputable evidence, while everything in Bart’s grievance was a lie. The only evidence he could provide to support his allegations came from his fiancée and three or possibly four crew members with whom he colluded.
This ex-police officer was a manipulative liar with a sense of entitlement. He was aggrieved at not having been given the opportunity to work up on our flight as Purser, so had taken a dislike to me before we’d even met or spoken. That’s why he was the only crew member who didn’t introduce himself to me at Cabin Crew Check-In to ask which onboard working position he had been allocated. Addressing two issues with him on our outbound sector regarding the way he delivered the service irritated him further, and a third issue was then addressed with him on the inbound flight. The final nail in the coffin was the performance feedback he received from me after the flight, which was also copied to his manager.
Although witness statements provided by Anna, Ven, Mia and Peter strongly suggested the existence of collusion, the Head of Cabin Crew stated in the outcome of my appeal that she could find no evidence to support that.
All Cabin Crew Managers report to the Head of Cabin Crew. Since writing my story, I’ve learned from two people who worked under her that she’s the driving force behind most, if not all, grievance investigations. Following the publication of the first two chapters of my blog, many colleagues, past and present, made contact with me. Some of the stories I was told regarding how they had been treated over the years by Cabin Crew Management were truly horrific. Maybe I had been naive, but I genuinely had no idea this was going on.
This department had a high turnover of staff, and the job title had been changed countless times. Two ex-employees who I spoke with had been Cabin Crew Managers for several years. One told me the Head of Cabin Crew calls the shots regarding the outcome of disciplinaries, and it’s not in anyone’s interest to go against what she wants. The other, who I had known for many, many years, also had nothing good to say about her. She told me she could “tell me stories that would make my hair stand on end.”
One of these ex-managers said that evidence in a grievance they were investigating was “very flimsy”, yet the Head of Cabin Crew said she wanted it to be upheld and for the crew member to be dismissed. The manager refused, which didn’t go in her favour. Not long afterwards, she was made redundant.
Bart’s entire complaint and Anna’s witness statement focused on character assassination. He attacked every single aspect of my behaviour and personality and painted a picture of someone angry, unprofessional, and a bully. He recounted situations that had taken place and cleverly manipulated them. He knew that if he was to be believed, he had to get other crew members to support his version of events. Touching Ven’s ankle at the First Class bar after the breakfast service was a perfect opportunity for him to invent the story about inappropriate touching.
This all took a great deal of planning which is why it took him four weeks to advise his manager that he wanted to raise a grievance.
This is someone with an impressive memory for detail, which Anna confirmed in her witness statement. This attribute is a prerequisite for being a police officer. Bart remembered everything about our flight in great detail, right down to the words I used and the names of some customers who travelled with us on the flight.
However, his complaint was full of lies and consistencies and much of what he said was not supported by the Cabin Crew who worked alongside us in the First Class cabin on two long sectors.
This next screenshot also comes from the company’s policy manual. I feel it’s important to share this because I believe this witch hunt was sparked by what took place between the Head of Cabin Crew and me in 2014 regarding my partner’s application for part-time.
In September 2018, a couple of months before the flight to Atlanta with Bart, someone I was extremely fond of, who was a Purser with this airline, passed away. My partner and I attended her funeral. Before the start of the service, a group of us, mostly cabin crew, stood in a big circle on the church grounds. Some people I knew, others I didn’t. Everyone was chatting quietly, and when someone new arrived, we all smiled and said hello.
Then suddenly someone arrived who most people seemed to know, but I had no idea who she was. When our eyes met across the circle, I smiled and nodded my head, but instead of returning the gesture, she glared at me for a few seconds with stone-cold eyes. I found it very odd, but didn’t think too much of it.
After the service, I mentioned what had happened to my partner and asked if he knew who she was. He said she was the Head of Cabin Crew. I never gave it a second thought other than thinking she wasn’t very friendly. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder if what happened that day was intentional.
In the outcome of Hayley’s investigation, which took her six weeks to complete, all of Bart’s complaints were upheld, including one that had already been dismissed by Lana following the initial investigation. This relatively new Cabin Crew Manager had no idea what she was doing. The Head of Cabin Crew repeatedly described her as “a very experienced manager”. I was a very experienced Flight Manager, having been in my role for nineteen years, yet it counted for absolutely nothing.
The complaint that had been dismissed was regarding a comment that I made in the Pre-Flight Briefing before our outbound flight to Atlanta. The following extract is from Hayley’s investigation. “SEP questions” refers to the mandatory safety questions that each cabin crew member must be asked individually during every Pre-Flight Briefing.
The following screenshot is my response. It comes from my appeal to the Head of Cabin Crew.
For clarification, early in the Pre-Flight Briefing, it’s mandatory that the Flight Manager read out “at least three” aircraft familiarisation points from a list of seven. These points, which come from the Safety and Emergency Procedures Manual (commonly known as the SEP manual), are supplied by the SEP training department. The Flight Manager must then ask each crew member, individually, a safety-related question which must be answered correctly. These questions also come from the SEP manual and are supplied by the SEP training department. The questions change every three months, however, the aircraft familiarisation points never change.
Before a new set of mandatory SEP questions are issued, the cabin crew are informed which section of the SEP manual they come from. This allows them to familiarise themselves with that section before the questions come into use. It’s also worth noting that every twelve months, the cabin crew must go through at least three days of refresher training, during which they sit comprehensive exams to test their knowledge regarding all Safety and Emergency Procedures. Should they fail, a resit exam must be taken and should that not be passed, they are not permitted to fly. The pass mark is usually 96%.
During my Pre-Flight Briefing for the flight to Atlanta, upon asking the cabin crew the aircraft familiarisation points as questions, only Katrina and Claire responded. Everyone else in the room stared at me blankly. By the third question, I said, “Come on guys, you’ll be up the creek without a paddle if you don’t know the answer to these questions.”
This extract comes from evidence submitted as part of my defence:
Although I had nine questions on my list, I usually asked four depending on the response. My purpose for asking them as questions, as I’ve already explained, was to get everyone vocally involved. Before starting, I explained what I was about to do and said, “Just shout the answers out.” Bear in mind that three of these points are read during every single Pre-Flight Briefing, so everyone would have heard them many, many times.
According to Hayley’s LinkedIn profile, she has never flown as Cabin Crew for this or any other airline. Her past experience comes solely from being a ground-based Cabin Crew Manager. In this company, although Cabin Crew Managers fly to assess the performance of their team, Hayley only moved into this position in June 2018. Therefore, she would only have flown a handful of times by the time she began the investigation into Bart’s grievance. Cabin Crew Managers fly once a month and work as ‘Cabin Crew’. They do not fly as a Flight Manager, so would never be required to conduct a Pre-Flight Briefing.
So what Hayley told me during the disciplinary meeting in August 2019 regarding the ‘ice-breaker’ that she uses “when she flies” is a lie. What she meant to say was that if she were to conduct a Pre-Flight Safety Briefing, she would ask each crew member to tell everyone something about them that nobody else knows. Furthermore, my manager had told me the company wanted the crew to become more vocally involved in the briefing. An ‘ice-breaker’ is not part of the Pre-Flight Safety Briefing and never has been.
Cabin crew are generally not quiet and meek people. In this airline, they’re employed for their personalities and work alongside different people every time they fly. Having been cabin crew with this airline since 1990, I can tell you that most crew are friendly, sociable, outgoing and naturally chatty. Therefore, an ‘ice-breaker’ is totally unnecessary.
Although all Pre-Flight Briefings follow a set format, no two are exactly the same. That’s because each Flight Manager has their own style and personality. The tone of some briefings is more serious, while in others, it’s more lighthearted. Some Flight Managers stick rigidly to the format drawn up by the company, and others are more flexible and may deviate slightly. However they’re carried out, due to time constraints and information that must be included, it can be a struggle to get everything covered.
The following screenshot comes from the outcome of my appeal conducted by the Head of Cabin Crew:
Bart, who had been in the company for just eleven months, used the words “bombardment and tirade of SEP questions” in his complaint. Regarding my lighthearted comment to Katrina and Claire when I said, “Shut up, you two, you’re not allowed to answer any more questions,” he manipulated that to accuse me of being “visibly and verbally annoyed.”
The crew who complained in their witness statements about the “different style of delivery” of my Pre-Flight Briefing were Bart’s fiancée, Anna, Peter, and Mia. All three had been with the company for less than twelve months. Ven wasn’t present because having been called out from standby duty, he was still travelling to the airport.
Regarding the comment, “up shit creek without a paddle”, what I actually said can be seen in Bart’s grievance:
The following screenshot comes from the outcome of the initial investigation carried out by Cabin Crew Manager Lana:
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with saying, “up the creek without a paddle.” Bart’s allegation that my briefing included “a bombardment and tirade of safety questions” and that I subsequently “became visibly and verbally annoyed despite everyone answering” was like everything else in his grievance, a devious and malicious lie.
The Pre-Flight Briefing, which is the first time the entire operating crew gets together, sets the tone for the day. You’ll often be speaking to a group of people of different ages and backgrounds whom you may have never met before. On our flight to Atlanta, I had only flown previously with Bruce and didn’t know anyone else. The youngest crew member was twenty-three, the oldest in her mid- to late forties, and I’m in my fifties.
In the outcome of my appeal, the Head of Cabin Crew stated she did not believe the cabin crew were fabricating evidence.
The following extract comes from the minutes taken during Bart’s meeting with Crew Manager Lana. Pedro was the Employee Relations Consultant. His purpose for being present was to take minutes and to ensure company procedures were followed.
This next screenshot is from the performance feedback that I wrote on Bart.
This comes from the outcome of Lana’s investigation:
In an earlier section of the outcome of her investigation, Lana states that she could find no evidence of bullying or harassment having taken place on the aircraft. She then said words that I used in my feedback amount to bullying and harassment. Those words were “quite why”.
Regarding not giving consideration as to how Bart may feel when reading my feedback, how does anyone feel when they’re given “constructive” feedback, irrespective of when it’s written?
According to British Employment Law, managing an unsatisfactory level of performance by providing developmental feedback is neither bullying nor harassment. Providing, of course, that it’s delivered courteously and professionally, which mine was.
Bart had been flying for eleven months and had never flown as cabin crew before. As a flight manager, coaching and development were part of my job description. On both sectors of our flight, Bart struggled with even the most basic aspects of the service despite telling me he had worked in that cabin many times.
Knowing what I know now, I don’t believe he had ever worked in First Class before. I think it was his first time, but as a narcissist with an overinflated ego, he didn’t want to admit it and even wanted to work up as Purser. That’s why he had no idea how the service should be delivered. He made some really basic mistakes that any crew member who had worked in that cabin, even once, would not have made.
During the grievance investigation, I asked the company to confirm whether he had worked in First before. Inflight working positions are recorded electronically for every flight. I never received a response.
When you read the feedback that I wrote on Bart you’ll see that it was written in a courteous and professional manner and with the aim of trying to develop him.
The last paragraph in the excerpt above regarding treating colleagues with dignity and respect is farcical. I’ve already shared several extracts from Bart’s grievance, which are rude, disrespectful and highly offensive, but wait until you read his complaint in full.
When you read Anna and Ven’s witness statements, you’ll see that they too were rude, disrespectful and highly offensive, yet nobody was interested.
Being Cabin Crew | The Ugly Truth 