Zulazai

Why do some Flight Attendands have cop attitude on US based airlines?

I have travelled on Emirates, Etihad, Cathay, British, Lufthansa, KLM, Jal, ANA and Air China and always found the attendants very pleasant under such a tasking enviornment however I recently flew on United to Mumbai and found the attitude of flight attandants quite obnoxious and high handed. They were seriously acting like police officers.

- During boarding one FA sternly told the agent to move away from the Aisle eventhough I just saw him arriving and putting his bag.

- Another lady with a small kid asked for help for putting her cabin bag and the FA responds "you should only bring cabin bags that you can lift, we cant help you with that".

- I got up during the flight and the washroom was occupied so I was waiting with another passenger. The FA told us to get back to our seats as congregating around washrooms was not allowed. I asked her can you let me know if the washroom gets vacant and she responded no I need to go back and use it when its empty... lol

- One old Indian male with limited english was asking her something about the food. She kept asking him do you want A or do you want B instead of figuring out that they messed up his special meals.

- I took an Ambien and was sleeping when they were apparently descending. Instead of tapping me to upright my chair, out of nowhere I hear a loud thud at the back of my head and saw the FA pushing my seat upright and then doing the same with another one and just going on. Im not exaggerating but it seriously gave me headache all day long. Maybe I was in deep sleep and the huge thud at the back of my head scared the .... out of me.

Its hard to describe their attitude and while the above things might seem petty, my overall impression was less than stellar. They had a very harsh and condescending manner of speaking with passengers like some cop who pulled you over for a traffic stop.

Since its my first time flying a US based airline Im just wondering if this is a standard practice for FA's to behave like TSA?

You want to go where?

You confused me with your capitalization of the word 'cop'. At first, I thought it was an acronym.

While I agree that United doesn't always have the most friendly flight attendants, I think that there are multiple things at play in your list of events with add up to your impression, and reasons are not all the same.

For example, the washrooms incident - United was one of the two airlines involved in the September 11 tragedy. As a consequence, a culture of security, some might say paranoia, developed amongst the cabin crew. They tend to be quite strict about enforcing security rules. I do think your expectation that the flight attendant notify you when the washroom is free is a bit much. The FA has other duties than to monitor the washroom and there are signs which will let you know when it is free. These signs are normally visible throughout the cabin.

The Indian gentlemen who had the problem with the meal had nothing to do with security. This probably stems from the lack of exposure that many Americans have to non-native speakers of English. They haven't learned how to communicate effectively with those who don't speak the language well and get quickly frustrated with them.

Your Ambien story likely has a third reason. People who have taken Ambien can be difficult to wake. The flight attendant doesn't have time to cajole you endlessly into waking up while they are preparing the plane for landing. For all you know, the FA may have made several attempts to wake you unsuccessfully before the they resorted to the more aggressive attempt to deal with the problem.

All these taken together add up to a less than stellar performance by the cabin crew, but it does help to recognize the background of each of the activities and recognize that some may be excused more easily than others.

georgewchubby

I imagine this has to do with not hurting themselves, if it's heavy, and not damaging the cabin bag (and being liable for the damage).

Calliopeflyer

I have a feeling that if the US was not known to be such a litigious society (one of the top in the world), they wouldn't have to enforce the rules so much - or to have enacted such strict rules in the first place. They are afraid of getting sued, because even frivolous law suits eat up a lot of time and money.

Kagehitokiri

indeed, more bureaucrat than cop

dvs7310

In the case of not helping lift the bag, this is SOP. I've heard that flight attendant health insurance doesn't cover injuries from assisting passengers with bags. That's not just US based carriers, my friend at Qatar Airways told me the same thing.

airplanegod

That's because you flew COdbaUA. While there are bad apples at every airline, this isn't really an issue with AS/HA/F9/NK/B6/WN/AA/US/DL/G4.

84fiero

Worse than the Emirates FA who you said falsely accused you and made you move seats?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...relocated.html

You can definitely get the occasional power-trippy FAs. Though also plenty of really great ones...and some in between. In fact that's the biggest problem with domestic airline FAs - inconsistency...even within the same airline.

Abyssin

They simply don't want.... I have stop flying US airlines because of this kind of behavior from FA. Just doing the minimum most of the time.

Zeeb

While that probably feeds into it, I've definitely run into my share of FAs, just like I've run into my share of TSA employees, who feel that their little bit of situational authority means they are allowed to be a tin pot despot, lording over all they see.

Oformula

You would have a point, if not for the Airline Deregulation Act. It preempts state law claims except in certain categories. Fear of getting sued has nothing to do with it.

ChangingNappies

If you look at complaints about FA on power trips calling cops to remove a passenger, it's almost always on US airlines.

Pup7

They haven't lifted bags for ages, and I've always been told it's due to liability. I have to say I agree with the FA: if you can't lift it, don't bring it. Why should he/she injure themselves lifting my stuff? And even my eighty year old mom (who flies probably twice a year) agrees with that and never takes a bag on board that she can't lift (unless, hahahaha, I or one of my siblings am flying with her).

ChangingNappies

Whether they have good reasons to do so or not, that's here something that would qualify has having "a cop mentality".

Zulazai

While what you saying might be true but there is still a thing called service excellence and compassion. I have always seen flight attendants on other airlines not only helping passengers but going through to make sure its properly stowed. Yes people should be able to lift their bags in a perfect world but there are sometimes situations. Some people are short and they cannot reach up that high. Now should this be used against them? There are also expectant mothers who also rather not lift heavy things.

Point being is that if you cannot be professional, do your service with a smile, have the ability to work under stress, and cant be a peoples person then maybe they should reconsider their careers?