Miles & More (Lufthansa, Austrian, Swiss, and other partners) - Unprofessional comments by captain

Just came back from Munich today on LH836 (really empty flight) and the captain made some funny and some really unprofessional comments from the flight deck.....

Whilst I like the funny ones, I do get somewhat irritated by comments like: Please can you occupy all window seats so our competition THE RED PLAGUE thinks we are fuller.... I do understand that LH probably does not fancy AirBerlin too much, but such a comment to paying customers by the captain I found really ..... BAD!! :td: :td: :td:

Anyone else ever experienced something like that??

Actually this sounds quite comical. A nice change from some of the stuffiness.

I think it is funny!

Actually I liked the part about occupying the window seats, but calling their competition THE RED PLAGUE I found really unprofessional...

It is funny but the typical joke the captains come up with ALL the time on TuiFly (which is now sort of part of the RED PLAGUE).

I think the AB guys can take it these days and funny enough, there are always some on board of the LH DUS-MUC-DUS flights for staff rotation.

Any examples of the funny ones?

Actually I liked the part about occupying the window seats, but calling their competition THE RED PLAGUE I found really unprofessional...

I hope you told him your opinion of your experience of flying with THE YELLOW FEVER.

Just came back from Munich today on LH836 (really empty flight) and the captain made some funny and some really unprofessional comments from the flight deck.....

Whilst I like the funny ones, I do get somewhat irritated by comments like: Please can you occupy all window seats so our competition THE RED PLAGUE thinks we are fuller.... I do understand that LH probably does not fancy AirBerlin too much, but such a comment to paying customers by the captain I found really ..... BAD!! :td: :td: :td:

Anyone else ever experienced something like that??

I had the same announcement on a HAM-MUC flight. Looks like, we both had the same captain.

hey,

I find it funny - why do we need to be dead serious during the flight?

Just flown Southwest (ABQ->PHX->SJC) and both pilot and cabin crew had funny comments. Spoken to my fellow-traveller and she said that on the previous fight she had the best one: just after landing, instead of "please remain seated", FA said "volunteers for cleaning our toilets are requested to stand up now".

But yes, offensive words about competition are cheap. We always say "our good friends from Dresden" :)

mf

On a flight to Stockholm the purser said before take off: "Please place your heavy bottles under the seat in front of you". This is the one I liked best. The red plague is funny.

So far I never had the "I need a XXX and a coffee" one though...

On a short flight from FRA to ZRH we were taxing for ages, right before we started Captain said in Schwitzer Deutsch "After we have taxied half the distance to Zürich, we will now fly the rest".

Cheers
aquaguy

Oh and for sure you all know this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivjybzdXVmI

Oh and for sure you all know this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivjybzdXVmI

... ah, (almost) everyday life @ SouthWest - dying to see LH purser doing similar stuff. ("you're not gonna get that on United" :) )

mf

Just came back from Munich today on LH836 (really empty flight) and the captain made some funny and some really unprofessional comments from the flight deck.....
[...]
Anyone else ever experienced something like that??

I think it's just funny and maybe the captain wanted to make a joke. I had flights with very nice crews in the good old DBA times and they sometimes made also some jokes.

In that time it was e.g. something about very dark and black clouds which they had to avoid and thereby getting a delay of some minutes (but didn't remember the exact phrasing).

Maybe in such a way they avoid the daily routine of short-haul flights. So if it's just fun, it's ok. AND very professional due to helping everyone to concentrate on the flight.

I love things like that. The best thing ever being told by a captain was when we had a failure of electronics and we had to change aircraft in FRA after being already on the runway (also LH). After landing the announcment: "Concerning the delay: better two hours late than having a bad headline next day. So have a nice evening" :D

I can only join in - this was a good one and it shows that AB competition is taken seriously by LH...

Not a textbook definition of political correctness, but a good joke.

I think it is a great joke, like the Swiss captain in the first Lufti days:

"Sorry, I am still working on my high German !"

Those of us who were booked on the Condor charter flight for the Star Mega DO this week had the pleasure of a hilarious cabin and flight crew.

One memorable exchange (and please imagine this delivered deadpan and with impeccable comedic timing):

Purser: Ladies and gentlemen, I stayed up all night to set up a little camera in the cockpit to show you the take-off, it is playing on the monitors now. But don't tell the captain, he doesn't know.

Captain (low, calm voice): I know.

Purser (low, calm voice): S--t.

They had the entire plane roaring with laughter.

I also liked the "Oh, how I always wanted to do this to a passenger" line during the slightly non-standard safety briefing :D^

TBH I was laughing so hard after reading the captains comment ... classic! :D

During the long taxing at Paris CdG yesterday the captain announced: We will now be taxing for 12 hours before we can take off to Hamburg.

Well, it didn't happen on LH, but on DI (yes, the good old days before the Red Plague).

It was the very last flight from MUC to DUS. After touching down in DUS the purser made the following announcement (in German, however):

"Welcome to North-Rhine Westphalia Ladies and Gentlemen! We will distribute the immigration cards for all Bavarian passengers shortly. In case you don't have a valid visa for NRW we will have to send you back to Munich on the next available flight."

50% of the passengers laughed their butts off, while the remaining 50% were very, very quiet.

Despite the fact that I am from Bavaria I liked the joke :-)

Actually I liked the part about occupying the window seats, but calling their competition THE RED PLAGUE I found really unprofessional...

I am certain it was just an innocent joke... No harm in that...

Cheers, AG. :-:

#1 and #11 are in today's Bild as some travel agent's "favourite jokes". Somebody reading FT, huh? :-P

+1 for funny too! I enjoy a little humor as long as it's not about safety issues. I remember that SWA flight attendants used to say that you should pick your favorite child and apply the oxygen mask on them first incase they dropped from above

Opps double post. Sorry!

+1 for funny too! I enjoy a little humor as long as it's not about safety issues. I remember that SWA flight attendants used to say that you should pick your favorite child and apply the oxygen mask on them first incase they dropped from above

Supposedly this one is also from Southwest:

"Please put your own mask on first before assisting children or other passengers acting like children..." :D

Seems like there are a few more captains with a sense of humor on the Munich routes. Two years ago on a Friday evening flight I had a captain who's announcement before take off was rather than the usual "Cabin crew: take-off in one minute", "So, nun geit dat los!" (for the non German speakers, this means 'off we go' and was spoken in a very nice strong northern German accent). After this he turned quite swiftly onto the run way and off we went on the way into a nice week-end in Hamburg.

I personally am happy about any crew member who's trying to make a boring flight a little more cheerful.

Flying FRA-LHR earlier this year, we were lined up on runway 18 waiting to go. Our captain announced: drei, zwei, eins and then immediately he applied full power and we rocketed off! (Airbus A321)

We were sitting down in this small Embrar, and the captain had time (we got very uch delayed), so he left the cockpit with a small flush teddy bear, showed it to us all, and said in German something like:
please meet your auto-pilot, I'm here just for carrying it around, and helping it with jumping to the dash board.

This was about one month after a similar crossair plane crushed in the same route (or the opposite direction, slightly after SW went down, and LX was supposed to be the base for its new operation).

We were sitting down in this small Embrar, and the captain had time (we got very uch delayed), so he left the cockpit with a small flush teddy bear, showed it to us all, and said in German something like:
please meet your auto-pilot, I'm here just for carrying it around, and helping it with jumping to the dash board.

This was about one month after a similar crossair plane crushed in the same route (or the opposite direction, slightly after SW went down, and LX was supposed to be the base for its new operation).

:td: Not funny!

Germans do have a dry sense of humor!

Actually I liked the part about occupying the window seats, but calling their competition THE RED PLAGUE I found really unprofessional...

I actually don't have a problem with the nickname - "THE RED PLAGUE". It doesn't disparage the airline's quality, but rather acknowledges them as significant competition for LH. It is, in fact, a back-handed compliment. If the nickname had suggested that Air Berlin is unsafe to fly on, then I would say it is unprofessional.

I find the comment quite amusing.

:td: Not funny!

Actually it was funny. I personally was a bit shocked to see the pilot holding this small teddy bear, and I had to ask someone for translation, but all in all, the experience was very nice.

But on the other hand, I am from Israel, where we have some really black humour (do not continue to read if you do not like morbid black humour):

What does not kill you, makes you stronger.
What does kill you, makes your mother stronger.
And what kills your mother, entitles you for a special one week vacation from the army.