British Airways bans crew members from taking selfies during layovers: ‘Bit of an overkill'

New York Post

2 days ago

A layover could lead to a layoff in a flash.
While airlines often restrict crewmember social media use on the job, British Airways has taken the crackdown to the next level — by limiting what members post during their personal time as well.
The carrier now prohibits airline employees — including pilots and flight attendants — from documenting where they stay during crew layovers on social media, One Mile At A Time reported.
This means that ever-popular 'get ready with me' TikToks — in which flight attendants film themselves donning their outfits for the day — no longer fly.
The airline's security team claims that bad actors can use AI-powered location tools to pinpoint crew member locations, thereby compromising their safety.
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And don't think about snapping a pool or lobby selfie– the policy applies everywhere inside the crewmember hotel, outside the hotel and even the parking lot, A View From The Wing reported. Even a quick room-view shot showing nothing but sky and curtains is verboten under the ban.
According to the new guidelines, crew members are also required to go over their feeds with a fine-toothed comb and delete every trace of prior layover hotel-related content — even the stuff set to 'private' — or risk getting canned.
British Airways isn't imposing this digital clampdown to kill crewmember fun or torpedo fledgling influencer careers, but rather to mitigate any potential safety risks.
Flight expert Gary Leff at A View From The Wing found BA's social media crackdown overzealous given that crew resorts aren't exactly a secret.
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The airline's security team claims that bad actors can use AI-powered location tools to pinpoint crewmembers' locations, the Mirror reported.
This sophisticated software can analyze subtle background cues — including parking lot signs, pool tiles and even window geometry — to identify flight attendant accommodations, which could put flight staff in jeopardy.
One Mile At A Time described the policy as 'strict', writing that it 'seems like a bit of an overkill, since it's not that hard to figure out where airline crews stay.'
The move follows a BA policy rolled out in 2023 that banned crew members from posting while on duty, including snapping cockpit selfies or sitting in an engine.
The crackdown comes as an increased number flight attendants are taking up side hustles as influencers, often providing travel tips and other inside info to their sometimes million-plus followers. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the content takes place inside hotels with topics ranging from hotel cleanliness to the best ways to tell if an intruder is lurking under the bed.
Flight expert Gary Leff at A View From The Wing found BA's social media crackdown overzealous given that crew resorts aren't exactly a secret.
'Crews arrive in uniform to the same contracted hotels in each city. Local drivers, aviation enthusiasts and would-be stalkers already know where they're staying,' he wrote. 'They go out into the city and tell people where they're staying. So while it's possible to extract location clues from photos, it's entirely unnecessary to do so.'
He found the measure particularly ludicrous as there's been no actual incident of a hotel safety issue and that it's all 'hypothetical.'
In April, a BA crew member was found dead in his San Francisco hotel room during a stopover between flights — although there was no evidence of foul play.
Leff added that this clampdown could put a damper on crew member recruitment as a lot of this outreach is done peer-to-peer via social media so 'cracking down on crew behavior makes those same jobs less attractive' to applicants.