OTTAWA — Canada’s transport minister is calling out the newly installed chairman of a global airline association [IATA] for saying that his job as head of Qatar Airways would be too difficult for a woman to perform. Read the full article here>>
Two stories with big consequences for the participants and lessons for the rest of us were in the news this week. After years of fighting their firing for expressing concern about the security of their aircraft, 13 United flight attendants have been reinstated. You may recall from a previous post on my blog, that in the […]
Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker knows how to make an entrance. Arriving 30 minutes late to a press conference celebrating the launch of the carrier’s first services between Doha and Sydney on Thursday, he is introduced to the waiting media crowd as “His Excellency”. “I know that my airline is always creating a […]
They’re firefighters, lifesavers and great hosts – but woe betide the Qatar Airways flight attendant who gets pregnant. As the airline comes under fire, Gwyn Topham reports on a profession that still has a foot in the 1950s Round the back of one Gulf airline’s corporate HQ, a door opens into a hall dominated by […]
The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) has once again thrown down the gauntlet to Qatar Airways CEO Akbar Al Baker, and challenged him to prove that the airline is reforming its practices. The ITF has repeatedly exposed Qatar Airways’ outdated and autocratic working conditions. Along with the ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) it has also […]
In German there’s a saying that “dogs that are hurt, bark”. It’s a bit like the phrase from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”: “One doth protest too much”. The fact that a trade union dares to report on the poor working conditions at Qatar Airways seems to have struck a nerve. The fact that Mr. Al-Baker, CEO of […]
As global aviation industry executives convened in Doha last month, a much-publicised divide between GCC and European airlines showed little sign of being bridged In June, delegates arriving at the AGM of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the airline industry’s biggest annual bash, were among the first passengers to experience Doha’s new Hamad International […]
The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is running a competition to find the worst boss in the world – and there’s a familiar face in their hall of shame: Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways. He’s the man responsible for the culture of fear at the airline, the one staff there say they’re most […]
