PhlyingRPh

I was staying at a hotel in NJ last week where BA crew also stay. I struck up a nice conversation in the lift with a couple of FA's, one of whom was a purser, and I invited them to the concierge lounge for a chinwag and some drinks. While there, we were discussing demanding passengers (and I admitted to being one), but I was a little disappointed by the following comment that the purser made:

"I cannot deal with the average Indian passenger, especially the men" They went on to discuss common stereotypes and there is no point going into them here, but I was not very happy when it emerged we had crossed over from mild humorous observations into what I considered blatantly anti-Indian passenger sentiment.

I told them that one of the things I noticed in flights on BA to Pakistan in the 70's and 80's was that often a passenger would ask a FA a question, but even before the passenger got two words out the FA would shout towards the galley "Call the National, please, call the National!" and would promptly sod off, expecting the National to take care of it. Lets face it, most of the time it's going to be - Can I have a blanket, pillow, cup of tea, etc. It's not going to be a discussion on the treaty of Lichtenstein now, is it?

Anyway, I think that gives one data point on this subject, and I hope it's a minority one.

CAlex

If your conversation was over drinks in a Lounge I would definitely not quote it here and "blame" the FAs for it. It is their opinion mentioned over drinks, and maybe coming from a not-so-extensive experience.

I am now in India for the 6th time in ~6 months, and during my flights I could see few types of passengers:
- Western tourists who don't care about service, they are going for a cheap holiday
- Indian executives who are very "precious" and careful to do anything to be noticed by other pax; IME this ranges from telling the FA out-loud how much he paid for the C fare, to spending an extra 120 seconds to arrange his watch and to turn on iPhone, while keeping Y pax behind the curtain. The FA and Y pax were all looking at him in disapproval.
- Western executives who enjoy seeing the ones above, all they care about is getting some sleep on the flight and to leave the airport asap on arrival.
- Indian travellers who do not ask any questions and stick to rules during the flight like it's a military exercise. It's exact same type of behaviour that one can see across Europe with pax flying for first time. Curious is that once plane landed, they same people instantly start to move around for their luggage, even if there are 10 more minutes to leaving the aircraft.

All-in-all, I am sure there are cabin crew who don't enjoy only flights to HKG, SIN, BKK and JFK, somebody needs to fly to areas with less infrastructure, higher security risk and more demanding pax.

PhlyingRPh

They made comments that I thought were at best derogatory to Indians, and at worse, racist. I did not name the two individuals, and they knew I was not impressed with their thoughts on the subject, so I see no problem in posting about it here.

Keyser

sounds like this one guy i came across on a lhr-del flight a few years ago....my seat in business was stuck & wouldn't come back up....i informed the hostess about this & she was in the process of getting someone to fix it....just then the fasten seat belt sign came on as we were about to land....another 5 minutes pass by & no one has come by to fix the seat....then this steward passes by my seat & gives me a dirty look....his exact words were 'why can't you indian men ever follow the rules????put that seat up immediately"....i got up from my seat, looked him dead in the eye & said that if he did not apologize immediately then i would make it my purpose in life that he never worked for any airline ever again & i could accomplish that feat without breaking a sweat....he mumbled some sort of an apology & just rushed off....

hserus

Best place to troll for more of this BS would be the FA equivalent of pprune I guess.

And the fun part about negative racial stereotypes is that there's no shortage of a*holes that actually fit the bill to a large extent. That kind of helps the prejudice based stereotype along ..

ps: @saad / keyser .. kind of helps to be a hotshot lawyer like you are, to get an FA's ... fired from his airline for being dumber and more hostile than usual. But yes, probably the best response to hostility that you don't deserve is to stand up to it.

Keyser

the truth of the matter is that i could have probably not gotten that guy fired, let alone make sure he never works for any other airline....but the reason these guys get away with things like this is because no one stands up to them....if you give me unnecessary attitude then you will get it right back from me....

rathin100

I thhink your data point si interesting precisely because its over drinks etc. My point is that if personal (as aopposed to formal, and therefore workplace sanitised) attitudes are negative then we have more work to do than we thought.

rathin100

+1 and in the long run it helps the airline improve by weeding out thsi sort of nonsense. No one.. and I mean NO one.. who works in an airline should be allowed to make that sort of nationality specific comment. I can assure you that on LH/LX if there had been a specific complaint then there would have been an enquiry and if there were any airline employee witneses willing to testify, the Staff members services would be terminated. ( they tend to protect one another just liek in all professions) Even otherwise he would be on close watch..

rathin100

I would cut the ""Western"" category in two different ways


Western executives/businessmen/tourists/bounty hunters/etc who think they understand Indian (or Pakistani or Bangladeshi ) ""psychology"" and so how to deal with ""these Indians/Bangladeshis etc (I love it when they generalise about nearly 2 billion people) and deal with South Asian passengers, airport staff etc on this basis resulting in some rather misguided and odd flareups.

Western executives/businessmen/toursists who dont do the above. They understand the diversity of the subcontinent, the absurdity of cultural generalisation across such a diverse cultural space They enjoy their experiences and generate a lot of mutual affection fun and good business

The balance in my view is still with the former though they have learnt/been forced by corporate necessity to hide it. The latter is increasing in volume though.

Incidentally, in Brazil where I am now posted suffers the same kind of stereotyping by some foreigners though less sharp because the country looks superficially white and the citizens appear to be largely european immihgrants, the indigenous population having been killed off or foced into the periphery many years ago.

rathin100

+1 clear enough to me

PhlyingRPh

I know another country like that

rathin100

shhhhh!

jahason

The categories are well summarised. The Western/Indian executives, etc If its of any comfort to Indian PAX BA cabin crew seem to have the same attitude to all PAX on most routes. It's not even attitude but a belief that they are running the best military service anywhere. That is why I much prefer Eastern carriers.

But generalising again my wife has the following opinions. Western carriers are efficient but discourteous. South Asian (Indian, Pakistani, etc) are courteous and inefficient. But Asia Pacific carriers such as Cathay Pacific and Singapore are both courteous and efficient. Hence most of my business goes to them if at all possible.

rathin100

Thats a nice summary :-) let me nuance with some generalising exceptions


Western category -- NOT efficient: TAP, Iberia the greek airlines, Alitalia (ugh!) and most former Eastern bloc airlines (LOT is a nice exception to the exception).



S Asian category: Indigo is efficient; Air India courteous? -- depends which Air india you are flying on a particular day.

SPECIAL: Emirates I think is courteous AND efficient Maybe because its a blend of South Asia and the West, Dubai style (Ie the South Asians do all the work and the Westerners are ""top management""" -- i.e they are featured in articles with titles like The emirates story)

Rest of Asia: Not courteous: All the chinese airlines
Not efficient: THAI, Malaysia, Phillipine airlines, JAL, korean Air, MIAT
Add to category ( c + e): Asiana, and maybe those two funny taiwanese airlines whose names I can never recall

jahason

Of course my comments (or can I simply blame my wife for her comments?) should be taken with a big pinch of salt.