A layover might result in a layoff in a flash.
Whereas airways usually limit crewmember social media use on the job, British Airways has taken the crackdown to the following degree — by limiting what members publish throughout their private time as properly.
The service now prohibits airline workers — together with pilots and flight attendants — from documenting the place they keep throughout crew layovers on social media, One Mile At A Time reported.
British Airways defended the transfer as they felt it helped conceal crew members’ whereabouts. “The protection of our folks is actually essential to us and as a accountable employer, we’re repeatedly how we will enhance their safety,” airline reps informed the Submit.
Per the coverage, the ever-popular “prepare with me” TikToks — wherein flight attendants movie themselves donning their outfits for the day — now not fly.
And don’t take into consideration snapping a pool or foyer selfie– the coverage applies all over the place contained in the crewmember lodge, outdoors the lodge and even the parking zone, A View From The Wing reported. Even a fast room-view shot exhibiting nothing however sky and curtains is verboten beneath the ban.
In keeping with the brand new tips, crew members are additionally required to go over their feeds with a fine-toothed comb and delete each hint of prior layover hotel-related content material — even the stuff set to “non-public” — or danger getting canned.
British Airways isn’t imposing this digital clampdown to kill crewmember enjoyable or torpedo fledgling influencer careers, however somewhat to mitigate any potential security dangers.
The airline’s safety workforce claims that unhealthy actors can use AI-powered location instruments to pinpoint crewmembers’ places, the Mirror reported.
This subtle software program can analyze refined background cues — together with parking zone indicators, pool tiles and even window geometry — to determine flight attendant lodging, which might put flight workers in jeopardy.
One Mile At A Time described the coverage as “strict”, writing that it “looks like a little bit of an overkill, because it’s not that tough to determine the place airline crews keep.”
The transfer follows a BA coverage rolled out in 2023 that banned crew members from posting whereas on responsibility, together with snapping cockpit selfies or sitting in an engine.
The crackdown comes as an elevated quantity flight attendants are taking on aspect hustles as influencers, usually offering journey ideas and different inside information to their generally million-plus followers. Unsurprisingly, a whole lot of the content material takes place inside motels with subjects starting from lodge cleanliness to one of the best methods to inform if an intruder is lurking beneath the mattress.
Flight knowledgeable Gary Leff at A View From The Wing discovered BA’s social media crackdown overzealous provided that crew resorts aren’t precisely a secret.
“Crews arrive in uniform to the identical contracted motels in every metropolis. Native drivers, aviation fans and would-be stalkers already know the place they’re staying,” he wrote. “They exit into town and inform folks the place they’re staying. So whereas it’s potential to extract location clues from photographs, it’s totally pointless to take action.”
He discovered the measure notably ludicrous as there’s been no precise incident of a lodge security challenge and that it’s all “hypothetical.”
In April, a BA crew member was discovered useless in his San Francisco lodge room throughout a stopover between flights — though there was no proof of foul play.
Leff added that this clampdown might put a damper on crew member recruitment as a whole lot of this outreach is completed peer-to-peer through social media so “cracking down on crew conduct makes those self same jobs much less engaging” to candidates.
