Flying low
February 21st 2011 02:48
:
Vyoos news
Some administrative errors can be costly, as airline Cathay Pacific has just found out.
The British operation of Cathay, the national carrier of Hong Kong, needed a passenger services officer to be based at Heathrow Airport.
Salim Zakhrouf, 38, born in Algeria but a UK citizen and resident of the country for 20 years, applied for the position, sending a CV detailing relevant experience. A little later Zakhrouf received an email saying he had been unsuccessful in getting an interview.
Zakhrouf thought about this for two days, then applied for the job again. He attached the same CV, he even gave the same residential address, but this time he gave his name as Ian Woodhouse.
The application was received by the same Cathay personnel officer, who invited Woodhouse to an interview.
Zakhrouf has 17 years customer-service experience and currently works at Heathrow as a flight handling agent. He refused Cathay's invitation, and instead went to talk to his union. They are now planning legal action accusing the airline of racial discrimination.
Cathay Pacific's Head of Marketing for the UK, Roberto Abbondio, decided to phone Salim Zakhrouf to apologise. Abbondio blamed an administrative error caused by staff trying to process 709 applications for the job. As a result, Cathay intended to review its recruitment procedures, he said.
If the case goes to court, Zakhrouf will tell the judge that he has applied for seven jobs at Cathay Pacific in the past three years, and was rejected every time.
It will be interesting to see if Cathay Pacific claims clerical errors were responsible on each occasion.
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Comment by Andy Tope
Bagman's Gazette
Comment by Chris Champion
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Shocker indeed.
To be fair, this may reflect an attitude of the individual personnel officer, although how such a bigot could surive for long in a big personnel operation raises it own questions.
Or it could be pervasive Cathay culture. I lived in Hong Kong for 16 years and one of the most entrenched, systemic examples of prejudice I have ever seen was the attitude of welathy, smug Hong Kongers towards their brothers and sisters from over the border in China. Think city slicker disdain for country yokels.
Whatever, such repulsive attitudes need to be exposed as harshly and as often as needed to make everyone aware that all people ARE created equal.
There. I feel better now