Comments on: Never say this

By: Ronda

Ronda — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 04:59:45 +0000

i’ve learned using the words ma’am/sir, please, and using the ter “if you could when you have time”, usually gets me what i need. Try to be non-impulsive or rude about your request and your pretty much garenteed what you need. even stuff that the flight attendents are supposed to charge for.

By: M Darcy

M Darcy — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:02:01 +0000

For Mr. Steinsky,

Your comment “on a % basis, the number of flight attendants who seem ambivalent about making the customer experience positive far outweigh the number of unruly passengers” shows your limited vision.

Obviously you haven’t had to deal with the 200 passengers sitting BEHIND you!

By: Janine Regan

Janine Regan — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 06:58:58 +0000

Whether a passenger or a member of the crew, when you fly you assume the inherent risks.
When I have paid good money for a seat on an airline, I am a customer and expect to be treated with attention and courtesy. I do not expect to be made feel as though I am a nuisance if I request a glass of water.
The flight attendents are being paid to do a job. That job entails interacting with passengers. We are not a nuisance. We are the reason the flight attendents are employed.
I do not accept or intend to tolerate “surly” employees, no matter what their personal concerns.
If these flight attendents are not happy with their positions, may I suggest they find other employment.
If you take the paycheck, meager or otherwise, then do the job.
I can think of no other industry where employee apathy or downright rudeness is tolerated because they are “unhappy”.
We all have our burdens, but on the job we are expected to perform our duties in a professional and polite manner.
As for their extensive safety training, based on the treatment I and my family have received over the las few years, in the event of an emergency, we fully expect to fend for ourselves!

By: Mark Terry

Mark Terry — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 22:52:53 +0000

Let’s just face it: when you’re up in the air, the flight attendant (stewardess to us old guys) is in command. Anything that could annoy her is taboo, and in this post 9/11 environment, the courts will come down very hard on any passenger who makes trouble. In fact, whether you are right or wrong makes no difference: the stewardess can still call for the cops to haul you away when the plane lands. And in that case you miss your rental car, your hotel, or your flight connection. So, the stewardess is always right. Smile and do what she says. If she says, “Stand on your head!”, you had better do it. Sue later, if you must, but don’t do anything that could possibly annoy flight personnel. Just be smart about it.

By: SonOfPolo

SonOfPolo — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 15:00:21 +0000

We think nothing of tipping waiters and maitres d’ for doing the basics of their job and when the food was done by someone else entirely. The flight attendants ought to be tipped when we consider the work they do for a bunch of often frazzled and impolite travelers; they do a lot more than any doorman or taxi driver or bus boy.
Sure, there some who are nearly as ornery as the passengers but, all in all, they do a great job under tough circumstances

By: John Steinsky

John Steinsky — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 14:50:46 +0000

I too fly a fair bit (about 150 flights last year) and agree with Mr. Lewis’ comments.

I offer the following:

In my experience, on a % basis, the number of flight attendants who seem ambivalent about making the customer experience positive far outweigh the number of unruly passengers.

To wit, in my 150 flights last year, I might have been on one or two where a passenger even slightly made a nuisance of themselves. On the flipside, I would say that at on at least 10% of those flights, the flight attendants were “cranky”.

So in effect, I submit, are we all being “punished” for the misdeeds of (very) few?

By: Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:46:29 +0000

Alright, so there are bad passengers. But are all flight attendants such angels? Let’s try for balance here.

I am generally a happy traveler, looked upon as “crazy” by my friends when I tell them that I love to fly. I have never, NEVER mistreated a member of a flight crew or ground staff. Granted, I fly premium class and pay premium fares for every flight, but I still experience bad attitudes from the flight staff. At one point I actually timed the length of time it took to get a smile from the flight attendants from boarding and settling into my seat – 1C – on a flight from New York to Moscow. Time from boarding to smile – 87 minutes. I have no sympathy for flight attendants who do not believe in the customer service part of their jobs and allow themselves to see their customers as the enemy. I know that they are my first and only resource for safety, but with over three million miles to my lifetime account, I have never needed their safety training (luckilly!). My Mother-in-law, a flight attendant with a US airline, tells me that I fly more than most FA’s…yet I’m treated as the enemy.

On a somewhat related note, I manage Loss Prevention for a multi-billion dollar retailer. Somehow, I have been able to see most of our customers as what they are – our largest asset and the reason we are still in business. 99.9% of them are not theives, and I do not see a reason to treat them as such.

Neither flight attendants nor passengers are the enemy, yet passengers are being treated as a class with more and more animosity. There are FAs out there who deserve to be reviewed more critically, yet the airlines have taken the point of view that a passenger’s complaint is generally unsound once in the air.

I love the websites which train passengers to be better passengers, yet I find a severe lack of reference to genuinely poor service.

Elliott, do you really think that the passengers that need this information are reading this website? The bad passengers don’t even know how to check in, let alone become involved in website and forums about travel. Let’s focus on allowing flight attendants to be able to enjoy the majorty of passengers while providing information on how good, happy fliers can help their less-fortunate travelling companions (or strangers in the next seat) to enjoy their experience.

By: Bob Beilstein

Bob Beilstein — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:35:07 +0000

Good story! It’s funny, but oh so true — FA’s are back there with the passengers, and not hidden behind an armored door. You can’t really blame them for being a bit, shall we say, testy these days.

You forgot the one about not complaining about how late you’ll be as you’re safely sitting on the ground in a badly-broken airplane.