BRITISH AIRWAYS passengers are being cheated out of watches, perfumes and other luxury duty-free goods by a number of cabin staff who are switching real goods for counterfeits on long-haul flights.The swindle, which costs individual passengers hundreds of pounds, is being operated on flights from London to Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and other long-distance destinations. The scam was confirmed by BA this weekend. The practice is said by some sources inside the company to be rife and will further undermine customer confidence in BA as it prepares to face an Office of Fair Trading inquiry into excessive ticket prices. Two weeks ago The Sunday Times revealed that BA was charging its British passengers up to 190% more than other Europeans who book from the Continent to travel on the same long-haul flights.
Sources inside BA revealed last week that crooked cabin staff have been buying fake watches and other luxury goods in Hong Kong and Singapore for just a few pounds apiece. They take the products, which include counterfeit Raymond Weil watches, Gucci sunglasses and Chanel perfumes, on board the aircraft and switch them for the genuine items. The fakes are then sold from in-flight duty-free trolleys. The genuine items are pocketed by cabin crew and sold on the black market in Britain, netting them a profit of as much as £200 per item. Sources close to BA claim that some of the switched goods, such as designer watches, are sold to jewellers in Kensington and Bond Street in London. Some retailers are known to give good prices to airline crew, who offer them as "unwanted gifts". An insider said the bogus sales first came to light when a BA passenger returned a watch to the manufacturer because it did not keep time.
"Although all the paperwork was correct, the manufacturer said the watch was not a genuine product and referred the customer to BA," the source said. The airline compensated the passenger and asked him to sign an agreement not to publicise the incident. BA confirmed the problem but declined to release full details. "There have been a handful of cases involving a handful of staff. We take the matter very seriously," a spokesman said. The number of cases uncovered by BA investigators is thought to represent a fraction of the total, however. A BA employee said last week: "The goods could have been in the system for days, weeks or months. There's no way of pinpointing who is doing the switches or how many items are affected." BA said it sold 3m duty-free items on its flights last year but the total value of the goods was commercially confidential. It is understood that at least one BA steward has been dismissed. BA's senior management has called in the internal security division to investigate.
The fraud has so far proved difficult to stop. Counterfeit goods, bought without packaging, can easily be switched because wrapping for the genuine items is frequently opened on board to allow passengers to inspect them. If no sale is made the opened package is returned to a bonded warehouse in London and later loaded onto another flight. Although most of the counterfeit goods originate in the Far East, they can be sold on virtually any of BA's long-haul flights. A former BA steward described an incident in which a colleague was dismissed after being accused of switching a fake Alfred Dunhill watch for the real thing on a flight from Japan. "A lot of people are involved in handling the trolleys. It's not just stewards but those working in the bonded warehouses," he said. A former 747 pilot said the swindle was one of a several involving corrupt BA staff. Although not all involve a direct fraud against the passengers, most hit the airline, causing financial losses estimated at £3m a year. John Anderson, executive chairman of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, a trade body set up to combat fakes, said the scam by some BA staff was "widespread and possibly organised".
He is unhappy with BA's attitude towards counterfeit goods. He pointed to a reference in the company's 1999 brochure, which promotes BA holidays in Turkey with the promise that customers visiting Istanbul's grand bazaar can buy "fake designer clothes". "There is an irony here," he said. "I will be writing to BA this week to warn them they should be taking a more serious approach to counterfeiting, an £8 billion international industry with links to drug-trafficking and organised crime." Counterfeiting has become big business in Europe, where an estimated 100,000 jobs are lost each year as firms that produce genuine goods are deprived of business. Counterfeit copies of many of the items in the BA in-flight sales catalogue are openly available on the black market in the Far East. Brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel, Hugo Boss and Raymond Weil are all popular with the criminal gangs behind the business.
Reproduced from Sunday Times (of London) 12th September 1999.http://home.clara.net/brescom/Documents/BA_FAkes.htm
BRITISH AIRWAYS passengers are being cheated out of watches, perfumes and other luxury duty-free goods by a number of cabin staff who are switching real goods for counterfeits on long-haul flights.The swindle, which costs individual passengers hundreds of pounds, is being operated on flights from London to Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo and other long-distance destinations. The scam was confirmed by BA this weekend. The practice is said by some sources inside the company to be rife and will further undermine customer confidence in BA as it prepares to face an Office of Fair Trading inquiry into excessive ticket prices. Two weeks ago The Sunday Times revealed that BA was charging its British passengers up to 190% more than other Europeans who book from the Continent to travel on the same long-haul flights.
Sources inside BA revealed last week that crooked cabin staff have been buying fake watches and other luxury goods in Hong Kong and Singapore for just a few pounds apiece. They take the products, which include counterfeit Raymond Weil watches, Gucci sunglasses and Chanel perfumes, on board the aircraft and switch them for the genuine items. The fakes are then sold from in-flight duty-free trolleys. The genuine items are pocketed by cabin crew and sold on the black market in Britain, netting them a profit of as much as £200 per item. Sources close to BA claim that some of the switched goods, such as designer watches, are sold to jewellers in Kensington and Bond Street in London. Some retailers are known to give good prices to airline crew, who offer them as "unwanted gifts". An insider said the bogus sales first came to light when a BA passenger returned a watch to the manufacturer because it did not keep time.
"Although all the paperwork was correct, the manufacturer said the watch was not a genuine product and referred the customer to BA," the source said. The airline compensated the passenger and asked him to sign an agreement not to publicise the incident. BA confirmed the problem but declined to release full details. "There have been a handful of cases involving a handful of staff. We take the matter very seriously," a spokesman said. The number of cases uncovered by BA investigators is thought to represent a fraction of the total, however. A BA employee said last week: "The goods could have been in the system for days, weeks or months. There's no way of pinpointing who is doing the switches or how many items are affected." BA said it sold 3m duty-free items on its flights last year but the total value of the goods was commercially confidential. It is understood that at least one BA steward has been dismissed. BA's senior management has called in the internal security division to investigate.
The fraud has so far proved difficult to stop. Counterfeit goods, bought without packaging, can easily be switched because wrapping for the genuine items is frequently opened on board to allow passengers to inspect them. If no sale is made the opened package is returned to a bonded warehouse in London and later loaded onto another flight. Although most of the counterfeit goods originate in the Far East, they can be sold on virtually any of BA's long-haul flights. A former BA steward described an incident in which a colleague was dismissed after being accused of switching a fake Alfred Dunhill watch for the real thing on a flight from Japan. "A lot of people are involved in handling the trolleys. It's not just stewards but those working in the bonded warehouses," he said. A former 747 pilot said the swindle was one of a several involving corrupt BA staff. Although not all involve a direct fraud against the passengers, most hit the airline, causing financial losses estimated at £3m a year. John Anderson, executive chairman of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group, a trade body set up to combat fakes, said the scam by some BA staff was "widespread and possibly organised".
He is unhappy with BA's attitude towards counterfeit goods. He pointed to a reference in the company's 1999 brochure, which promotes BA holidays in Turkey with the promise that customers visiting Istanbul's grand bazaar can buy "fake designer clothes". "There is an irony here," he said. "I will be writing to BA this week to warn them they should be taking a more serious approach to counterfeiting, an £8 billion international industry with links to drug-trafficking and organised crime." Counterfeiting has become big business in Europe, where an estimated 100,000 jobs are lost each year as firms that produce genuine goods are deprived of business. Counterfeit copies of many of the items in the BA in-flight sales catalogue are openly available on the black market in the Far East. Brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, Chanel, Hugo Boss and Raymond Weil are all popular with the criminal gangs behind the business.
Reproduced from Sunday Times (of London) 12th September 1999.http://home.clara.net/brescom/Documents/BA_FAkes.htm
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