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Working life: The barricade battle is over

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Page context: Home > Transport International Magazine > Issue 25 October 2006 > Working life

Rob Koster is a senior purser with KLM and an active member of the Dutch Cabin crew Union, VNC

Do you have a typical working day?
Actually no. You are either flying or you are not. So you can be on board, at home or en route in a hotel. If I do a flight I always take it very seriously. It starts at home. I look up which type of aircraft I’m working on, and get information on the route and destination. And I think of a flight safety subject I want to discuss with the rest of my crew during the pre-flight briefing.

When I arrive at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, our base, the show starts. I have a pre-briefing with my purser, and a briefing with the other crew members. Then we prepare for a long day on board. We are on board as flight safety specialists first and foremost, though of course service is the main part of the job. So I always say: service is number one, but it is limited by flight safety.

"The workload is increasing at the same time as costs are being cut"

Do you work certain patterns?
No, we don’t have shift systems. Every flight has its own cycle. For example three days flight, six days off, or five days flight and two days off. It depends on the duration of the flight, time difference, time of departure and some other aspects. Throughout the years these cycles have changed. So basically we have shorter flights, three or four days instead of seven or 12, and more days at home.

With KLM, we have several types of aircraft and you are certified for three types. In my case it’s Boeing 747, Boeing 777 and Airbus A330. These aircraft are mostly used for long haul flights.

How did you get to be a senior purser?
Sixteen years ago I started as a cabin attendant. After a few years I did my language exams – English, French and German, and had an assessment to become assistant purser. In 1999 I became Europe purser after I did one more language exam, Spanish, and a criteria-based interview. Two years ago I did another criteria-based interview and since then I’ve been a senior purser, and that’s the highest position we have for cabin crew on board.

Last year the promotion system changed. The assistant purser and Europe purser functions have been combined into one position of purser. A purser is second manager on board the wide body aircraft, and first manager on board the smaller planes. Some of the old Europe pursers see it as a demotion, because they have to do a lot more manual tasks instead of managing their crew.

Does your union have much influence?
A few years ago KLM wasn’t doing so well, so they had to cut costs. I’m in the members’ council, the parliament of our union. Here we discussed the problem and we decided to work on a three-pronged approach: new career development, retirement and cutting costs. None of our 8,500 colleagues in inflight services lost their job.

However employee happiness has decreased. The airline industry is one of the most competitive of businesses. The workload is increasing at the same time as costs are being cut. VNC is the only union for cabin crew, but at the moment we have only 70 per cent organisation, which was about 95 per cent a few years ago.

What does VNC have to do to get these members back?
More than ever, we need to be transparent and develop a clear vision for the future. You don’t need to slap harder or make a bigger fist to the company. You have to be smarter than them. The barricade battle is over.

Do you still like your job?
It’s a way of life, and you can only keep going if you really like it. A lot of things have changed. Flying around is now for everyone and passengers are more demanding. The whole airline industry has changed. But I think I can go on until my retirement.

What will the future bring?
I hope we will continue to offer interesting jobs to people, which they can perform until their retirement. If companies look at their capital, they always talk about material things. But the real capital is their employees. They should invest in them instead of keep cutting costs.

Interview by Diederik Swart.

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Issue 25 October 2006

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