OT French Kettles

[Rod]

We have been looking for a new kettle for some months now.

After dismissing every one we see for some reason or another, we came across the Krups FLF2 - which we think might be fine:

Except we don't like black!

Further searching found:

which appears to be the same kettle but available in white (that would be acceptable). But, being amazon.com, this is obviously the US model FLF2-J4

- wrong voltage and a paltry 1750 watts. The wattage issues have been discussed at considerable length here recently.

As we are off to France for a couple of days, I just thought about getting one there. (DIY bit - I would have to change the plug!)

Again, this is a similar model (FLF244) but it seems to be in noir only. And here at last is the question! Why is this is rated at 2200 watts? Do French electrics not support 3 KW appliances? How do they handle high load appliances such as heaters, cookers, etc.?

(No - thankfully we are not and were not going to be flying!)

[Andy Hall]

If you look a bit further there are 2.5kW ones

Circuits are 16A from what I've seen so no reason why not.

32A and 45A circuits.

Lucky you. I was nearly stranded on the way back today. Lot of nonsense - I think that they should sack the lot. Not that anybody goes on the airlines for the catering anyway.......

[--s-p-o-n-i-x--]

As far as I understand it, they are simply catering for French electrics, which generally is lower rated than here.

If they were to sell 3kw kettles in france then a number of older French houses would catch fire.

sponix

[Grunff]

Totally agree - I've never understood the concept of going on strike - I can't imagine ever not turning up to work in this way, and if I ever did, I'd expect to lose my job. I've felt this way in all my previous jobs too, where I would have had a lot less say in the matter. The whole concept is just alien to me.

[Harvey Van Sickle]

-snip-

Ummmm...that's precisely what happened, and what's led to all the fooferah...

(Where BA shot themselves in the foot was by out-sourcing their catering to save a few bob: by doing that, they get caught in third- party crossfire. They get all the grief an blame, with no control over the solution. Chickens/home/roost/to/coming stuff.)

[Rod]

Harvey Van Sickle wrote in news:Xns96B0EBE06B3ABwhhvans@62.253.170.163:

I suppose you could say that they have landed themselves in hot water. :-)

[Peter Parry]

French electrics generally struggle with 50W appliances. Also the French have an odd way of selling electricity with the rate depending upon the maximum (not average) consumption. This is policed by a device known as a "disrupteur" which knocks off the supply if you exceed a certain load. To reset it requires a visit from the electricity board or the use of a device every corner shop sells.

Generally very badly and accompanied by burning smells, smoke and loud fizzling sounds. Decades (centuries) of bribing various officials and inspectors has left France with an electrical system the Albanians would be ashamed of.

[Paul Andrews]

LOL

I worked in France for a few months and rented the top floor of a house. The rest of the house had the owner living in and an attached dance studio (the owner was a dance teacher). One evening I tried putting on the kettle whilst i was ironing. The result was that the whole house went into darkness, including the dance studio, during a dance lesson..

Beautiful house though. When we left they decided to replace the carpets, which were foam backed and glued down. They were most amused when I said that most people in britain put newspapers underneath specifically to stop the carpet sticking to the floor..

Paul

[Mike Dodd]

Better that than the frogs torching our sheep.

(Dons fireproof clothing)

[Mary Fisher]

No need, I couldn't agree more.

Mary

[Andy Hall]

The catering company laid people off. I really don/t see what business that is of the airline staff, baggage handlers etc.

The correct procedure would have been for the airline to have continued to fly, giving customers a voucher or part refund on tickets and to push the cost of doing so to the catering firm for non-performance of supply.

Outsourcing is simply a way of not having to deal with non-core aspects of a business.

Airlines use rather a lot of kerosene as well, but typically don't do oil exploration or run refineries.

[mike ring]

Not all bad, then

mike

[Harvey Van Sickle]

On 13 Aug 2005, Andy Hall wrote

Agreed, but an airline is a service industry, and the passenger experience *is* an essential core aspect of that business. It differs fundamentally from, say, building and fuelling the planes.

When you out-source some aspects of your core business in service industry -- like passenger servicing, call centres, or reservations -- you clearly lose direct control over that part of your core business and can only influence it indirectly.

[Andy Hall]

Well..... the passenger experience thing is what the airlines traded on for years and moderately successfully.

Then passengers decided that they wanted to buy on price and not service (or the airlines convinced them of it).

Most airlines outsource their passenger handling and catering at many remote locations and have done for some time.

As far as reservations are concerned, most have been progressively screwing the travel agents over the last few years and driving passengers towards buying restricted electronic tickets on line. This is going in the opposite direction and not always that helpful to travellers.

[Mary Fisher]

Which do you do, Andy?

Mary

[Andy Hall]

A combination of the two.

If I am doing a simple out and back trip to somewhere that is well served with flights like Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt then I usually pick an airline and book it on the airline's web site. The major groupings are reasonable for that (e.g. OneWorld, Star Alliance etc), especially when there is code share. Frequently I don't know when I will return, so may book a fixed outbound flight and a flexible return. It's reasonably easy to change a booking or even check in on line and to use E-tickets in this scenario.

However, often I am doing trips involving a sequence of 2-4 places in a week and where it is either too restricting or even impossible to make the complete trip with one airline or even with one alliance. It may also be that a direct routing isn't possible or economic. In these instances there is a high likelihood that I will need to alter a flight timing or even a routing along the way. In these instances, an E-ticket, even if possible, would be a nightmare. This is because of a mix of currencies and the non joined-up nature of the airline reservation systems between companies, and the effect is that if an alteration is needed part way through, the airline handling it has to convert the ticket to paper, calculate the value, do the currency conversion and usually issue a new ticket. In complicated cases, this can take 30 minutes or more and is hopeless if one is tight on time. So for these, I use a business travel agent who is first of all able to get me good combinations and options of sectors and fares and secondly can help with changes mid trip. They would be more expensive than on line booking for a simple trip, but for the complicated ones, being able to call them 24x7 if needed and get issues fixed and changes made without hanging around is well worth it.

[Peter Parry]

They are all related, a point that passed the dimwits at BA by by a very wide margin.

Unfortunately many companies run by accountants, and BA are a classic example, have decided customers are a non core activity.

[Andy Hall]

It's a customer/supplier relationship, with BA being the customer of the catering firm - separate companies. Therefore what possible relevance does the employment terms and conditions of the caterer's staff have to the employees of their customer? That's a nonsense.

That's certainly true.

[Peter Parry]

BA used to own the catering company and off loaded it (complete with TUPE) to another firm, that firm in turn off loaded it (at a nice profit) to the current owners who of course had to recover the price they had paid for it. At the same time BA were screwing the company into the ground on price as BA accounted for well over half their UK turnover.

The point all the bozos with MBA's missed was that at Heathrow whole families work there and have for years. The catering staff were wives, cousins, sisters etc of the baggage handlers and when they went on strike they didn't find it too difficult to persuade other family members to join in.

BA have so little idea about, or interest in, who works for them (apparently they are busy re-designing the design on tail fins) that this simple relationship and the effect it might have simply didn't occur to them.

According to the BA person I was talking to today they had calculated that by off loading the catering (and other) services they would reduce the probability of the follow on strikes they have seen before and the last few days has caught them completely flat footed.

[Geoffrey]

Firstly, the catering company didn't lay people off, they fired them. Secondly you have to realise that the ground staff at an airport are a bit like a village. They all know each other and are a pretty close knit community. When a big part of your community gets fired, you get mad.

Once upon a time, the Unions were there to make sure the bastard employers treated their workers decently. Maggie put an end to that (and BTW an end to rather a lot of jobs at the same time) but there are vestiges left - hence the rather impressive cessation of BA flights.

Sometimes people have to fight back. There comes a time when some people say "stuff that - you cannot continue to treat people like serfs and we'll bloody well show you that you can't".

I feel sympathy for all the people who had their holidays ruined but I daresay the sacked catering staff wish they could afford the occasional foreign holiday and I expect the directors of BA will still get their large bonuses and long holidays at the end of the year while their minions continue to work for minimum wage with a smile on their faces, glad to have a job.

In a few weeks, everyone will have forgotten about it, the catering company will get "new" management and will be manage to sack the workers quietly and with no fuss.