If more than 15 minutes pass between two onboard sales, this will in future have consequences for flight attendants at the Vienna base of Lauda Europe. The station management exerts massive pressure on the cabin crew in an internal letter.

Said circular, signed by the base supervisor responsible for Vienna and available to Aviation Direct, reads like a mixture of sales pressure from a column of pushers and the methods of an old secret police. The fact that the monitoring of employees is not only made no secret, but the tightening is also announced, appears particularly worrying.

It's only a matter of a few cents, because according to the cover letter, the average onboard revenue per passenger is 1,07 euros. The base supervisor wants this to rise to an average of 1,70 euros. As a reference, it is stated that the average turnover during the low-flying period is said to have been 1,86 euros. In view of the increasing number of passengers, the base supervisor describes this as “unacceptable” for Vienna.

The table below shows the average income from on-board sales, assuming the planes are fully occupied. This is intended to illustrate the insignificance of the amounts due to which pressure is exerted on the cabin crew.

In order to be able to show the manner in which the base supervisor responsible for Vienna communicates with the Lauda Europe flight attendants in an unadulterated manner, all quotations will be published in the original English language in the further course of this article. Regarding the average turnover, the manager writes to the flight attendants: “This is unacceptable for the amount of flights and passengers that we are having. This shows lack of commitment, lack of leadership inside the cabin from your side and lack of adherence to inflight sales procedures in place ”.

Monitoring and approaching the report

Measures are now to be initiated in order to be able to increase sales figures. The base supervisor, who comes from Portugal, assumes that the number of passengers will rise sharply due to increasing demand and the resumption of routes. The on-board service offer will therefore be changed to the extent it was before the corona pandemic. There are instructions to the cabin crews, who have it all:

“Said so, facing your inability and lack of self-motivation to provide results:

• Flow of service is not a guidance anymore. It's MANDATORY in all flights.
• Fresh food is to be sold in all flights and, at the end of the day, no food is to remain unsold.
• Extra focus on the perfumes as bringing more revenue. 20/30 € perfumes is to be performed in all flights independently of the flight duration.
• Gaps in transactions of more than 15 minutes in any given flight will be investigated.
• 30 min post flight duties are to be completed and debriefing will be performed in all flights, independently of the time of arrival, until further notice. Upon finishing onboard duties, and with all crew present, the senior must call me directly on my phone and present the results of the day's operation and justify them.

I will not accept any justification of the type “pax were sleeping” “pax were not willing to buy” “pax had own food” and so on.

Get your head inside the TIPs Manual and flow of service and deliver results.

Motivate your crews to arrive at these results.

Non-compliance with any of the above will be investigated and treated accordingly. "

Flight attendants fear increased "own sales"

Several Lauda Europe flight attendants told Aviation Direct that they suspect that due to the great pressure and the announced surveillance (keyword: more than 15 minutes between two sales) one or the other cabin employee will buy goods themselves and that out of fear of possible consequences. This phenomenon has already existed at Laudamotion in the past, because selling pressure is nothing new.

When asked how the sales targets should be achieved, a flight attendant replied that it is completely impossible to sell something to a traveler who does not want to buy anything. On the other hand, she would find it intrusive if you say “No” and still persistently get goods for sale in the style of oriental bazaars. There are simply flights on which the travelers would be very hungry and thirsty and would therefore buy a lot and on others only occasionally or not at all. The situation would be similar with the range of goods in the duty-free offer.

The sale of food and beverages as well as goods and the controversial scratch cards takes place in the name and for the account of the sister company Ryanair DAC. This is not news, because the predecessor Laudamotion was switched from the previous Do & Co range to that of Ryanair in winter 2019. The scratch cards were an exception, because they were made at Lauda Europe Introduced just a few weeks ago. It was not sold as a Laudamotion and, according to reports, because the management did not want it. The food and drinks offered on board Ryanair, Buzz, Malta Air and Lauda Europe are priced below the high price level of Austrian Airlines. In Vienna, the fresh goods from the Ryanair Group are also obtained from Do & Co. In this respect, there is no difference in terms of origin.