Programs: DL Platinum Medallion, UA Premier Platinum
Posts: 55
professional courtesy annoyance
Yesterday I flew CDG-ORD on the Delta 767 (odd flight for them to have, I know). I was in EC which was nearly empty and a group of about 4 people got on and sat in the middle section of EC.
One of them gave the flight attendant a package of candy from the CDG duty free and explained that they were southwest flight attendants who were "along for the ride" and thanked them for all of their help. (I assume SW FAs can interline on international flights which is pretty standard).
The flight attendants then took extraordinary care of them the whole flight. Free EC upgrade, extra attention with free drinks, and even gave them amenity kits from business class (including the noise cancelling headsets).
I understand professional courtesy and obviously it happens every day in nearly every profession, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was just annoyed that it was so blatant and obvious. It's kind of hard to not be annoyed when they turn a completely blind eye to a PM and then pamper the heck out of the competition's flight attendants.
Programs: A3*Gold, SPG Plat, HyattDiamond, MarriottPP, LHW exAccess, ICI, Raffles Amb, NW PE MM, TWA Gold MM
Posts: 19,340
Were they assigned seats in EC, "self upgraders" in exchange for the candy, or put into the EC seats for free by the cabin crew (again in exchange for the candy bribe)?
__________________
Check out the new External Miles and Points Resources forum.
Yesterday I flew CDG-ORD on the Delta 767 (odd flight for them to have, I know). I was in EC which was nearly empty and a group of about 4 people got on and sat in the middle section of EC.
One of them gave the flight attendant a package of candy from the CDG duty free and explained that they were southwest flight attendants who were "along for the ride" and thanked them for all of their help. (I assume SW FAs can interline on international flights which is pretty standard).
The flight attendants then took extraordinary care of them the whole flight. Free EC upgrade, extra attention with free drinks, and even gave them amenity kits from business class (including the noise cancelling headsets).
I understand professional courtesy and obviously it happens every day in nearly every profession, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, but I was just annoyed that it was so blatant and obvious. It's kind of hard to not be annoyed when they turn a completely blind eye to a PM and then pamper the heck out of the competition's flight attendants.
If any of this detracted from the quality of your travel experience, I can see your point, otherwise what was the harm of any of it? I have been in EC on TATL's where the FA's gave those seated in the front rows of EC glasses of what passes for pre-departure champagne on DL, and leftover chocolates after the meal service. It never bothers me since I am still getting what I have paid for.
If any of this detracted from the quality of your travel experience, I can see your point, otherwise what was the harm of any of it? I have been in EC on TATL's where the FA's gave those seated in the front rows of EC glasses of what passes for pre-departure champagne on DL, and leftover chocolates after the meal service. It never bothers me since I am still getting what I have paid for.
Just one traveler's opinion.
+1 - As long as OP got his seat and his service was what is reasonable, so what?
Programs: DL FO (I miss PM!), UA GM, SPG GM, Hil SM, Avis First, DL SunTrust WC
Posts: 2,781
Wirelessly posted (iPhone 3G: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10A403 Safari/8536.25)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Often1
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCEflyer
If any of this detracted from the quality of your travel experience, I can see your point, otherwise what was the harm of any of it? I have been in EC on TATL's where the FA's gave those seated in the front rows of EC glasses of what passes for pre-departure champagne on DL, and leftover chocolates after the meal service. It never bothers me since I am still getting what I have paid for.
Just one traveler's opinion.
+1 - As long as OP got his seat and his service was what is reasonable, so what?
+ 2. I don't see any reason to have been annoyed but to each his own.
Location: a crowded gate waiting to hear my name called off a standby list. possibly in another dimension.
Programs: Marriott Platinum
Posts: 261
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kwaj boy
As a point of interest, Southwest does not have an interline agreement with any other airline.
not for REVENUE passengers, but SWA employees can fly on a myriad of other carriers, including Delta. Both on the "zed fare" discount agreement, and also for jumpseating crewmembers.
__________________
"A mile of highway will take you a mile,
but a mile of runway will take you anywhere."
One of them gave the flight attendant a package of candy from the CDG duty free and explained that they were southwest flight attendants who were "along for the ride" and thanked them for all of their help.
If that hadn't happened, you wouldn't have noticed the difference -- as it stands, where's the harm, where's the foul (and yes it's basketball season!)
The flight attendants then took extraordinary care of them the whole flight. Free EC upgrade, extra attention with free drinks, and even gave them amenity kits from business class (including the noise cancelling headsets).
Just a note to clarify that they were not upgraded for free to EC, people on Zed fares can legally be assigned any open seat within their ticketed cabin, in this case, the Y cabin.
Oh and, the chocolate trick is scientifically proven to work for -any- passenger, revenue or non-revenue . Was recently reading a trip report on another site where the reporter in question discovered that a box of chocolates was the key to free flowing Limoncello (and extra dessert too) when flying Alitalia.
. Was recently reading a trip report on another site where the reporter in question discovered that a box of chocolates was the key to free flowing Limoncello (and extra dessert too) when flying Alitalia.
