What's the stupidest, least substantive thing you can complain about?
In another airline subforum here on FT I have come across a thread which I found very amusing (What's the stupidest, least substantive thing you can complain about?) and which apparently already exists in many other other airline subforums on FT. Would be fun to also have it for AF.
So, what are things that sort of irritate you but which are way to silly to ever dare complaining about?
Here's my nomination for Air France:
Always reading out the full name of the airport where the plane just landed. It's quite funny to hear the Air France FAs struggle with some difficult to pronounce names (for them) - and it's all pretty useless. Most cities only have one airport, or other airports in that city are really secondary and no traveler would expect to land there. And in some cities where there are several gateways - e.g., in London, New York, Tokyo - I still think that there's little point in doing it as most passengers know where they are going. And for those few that step out of a plane say at LCY and go "hey, Heathrow actually isn't all that big", well, the wake-up call on where they really are comes early enough, no need for AF on board to irrirate them. On the pronounciation efforts "Franz Josef Strauss" is one of my preferred, very hard to pronounce for a native French speaker and they make it sound like someone in a bad movie would make a German sound just to show what a harsh language German can be, but "Ruzyne" is quite good as well, and I don't even want to know "Licencio Benito Juarez" or "Arturo Merino Benitez - Pudahuel Internacional".
Whatever, I guess this comes from the time when AF used ORY much more and to give pax an orientation they specified which of the two Paris airports the plane had just landed.
Any other nominations for the stupidest, least substantive things to (not) complain about?
Last edited by San Gottardo; Nov 30, 12 at 4:44 am..
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"Les membres d'equipage portant un insigne rouge sont charges de votre securite" - what are the other ones here for? Counting the clouds or something?
One degree more substantial:
- Getting Perrier rather than Badoit as AF's sole sparkling water (I'd say it's substantial to me but seems to match nominations on the other thread you reference)
- Bad orange juice
- Ghastly 'pain polaire' in the AF lounge sandwiches.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by irishguy28
You mean there actually are staff on board without a red badge?
When the airline decides to put more flight attendants than the minimum required by safety regulations on a flight, it can bring in ADDITIONAL flight attendants that are not certified on the specific aircraft type (for example, flight attendants certified for the A340 on an A380) but that may have the language skills needed (for example Mandarin, Japanese ...).
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Quote:
Originally Posted by San Gottardo
On the pronounciation efforts "Franz Josef Strauss" is one of my preferred, very hard to pronounce for a native French speaker and they make it sound like someone in a bad movie would make a German sound just to show what a harsh language German can be, but "Ruzyne" is quite good as well, and I don't even want to know "Licencio Benito Juarez" or "Arturo Merino Benitez - Pudahuel Internacional".
for me the best on AF, in term of pronunciation, is arriving in BKK Suvarnabhumi
Drinking Champagne in a plastic cup really hurts my ego.
Also, it's so annoying when the FA's speak english to me. Je suis français, et je veux parler en français.
What's the stupidest, least substantive thing you can complain about?
I find drinking champagne from plastic glasses a real issue. As much as drinking wine from water glasses (en Première!).
As for the FAs that are not there for my security but for "my comfort" and to provide more chatting partners to the other FAs in the galley: fair enough and even a good idea to have that. But shut up about it. What do you expect passengers to do? In case of an announced emergency they don't want to sit closely to an FA without a red badge? When FAs pass through the cabin to check whether people have put in their seatbelt passengers will not accept the authority of non-red badged FAs? Also I fear that AF is sending the wrong message. Some people may think "wow this is the only airline where part of FAs don't ensure security", which put together with AF's dismal safety record may not be reassuring. Probably the opposite of what is intended.
Here's another one that I tend to find slightly annoying but too unsubstantial to complain about: in the IFE some movies appear several times. Once for the version in French with English subtitles, once for the version in Dutch with Korean subtitles, once in Hindi with Portuguese subtitles, etc. A bit annoying.
