British Airways cabin crew are being put up in a hotel which overlooks the largest township in Africa, where a British doctor was shot and killed last year after taking a wrong turn while driving from Cape Town Airport and getting caught up in a violent and bloody protest.
The union which represents cabin crew at the airline has hit out at British Airways in a fiery memo, accusing the carrier of forcing predominately female crew members to lodge at a hotel on the edge of “one of the top five slums in the entire world” while male pilots get to stay in luxury accommodations in central Cape Town.
Up to two million people live in the tightly packed Khayelitsha township, with around 70% of residents still living in shacks. Khayelitsha is one of the poorest areas of Cape Town, and violent crime is rife.
“This township is universally acknowledged as both unsafe and with a notoriously high crime rate,” the BASSA cabin crew union slammed. “British Airways security have somehow classed the hotel as ‘safe’ whilst at the same time issuing an instruction for crew not to leave the hotel lobby as it is unsafe to do so”.
Crew members are required to get an armed guard to drive the short distance to the hotel from the airport.
In August 2023, top orthopaedic surgeon Kar Hao Teo was killed in Khayelitsha after taking a wrong turn while driving from Cape Town Airport.
“The hotel selected is just 1.2km away from the site of the murder,” the BASSA union warned its frantic members who are being forced to stay at the hotel.
The union claims British Airways made “secretive arrangements” for pilots to stay in one of the most sought-after areas of Cape Town while leaving cabin crew in what they described as “a clearly unsafe hotel”.
“That a BA department thinks that it is acceptable to treat crew like this is morally indefensible,” the memo raged.
Late last year, the same union had to confront the airline over instructions issued to female cabin crew over what type of underwear they were allowed to wear under new ‘see-through’ uniform blouses.
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