TomA

UA has been a mixed bag. Intra Asia is quite good. Domestic is decent. North American to NRT is mixed, but leaning more toward the bad.

I've had much better luck on CO.

SQ doesn't really have ANY surly FAs as far as I can tell...

LeviFlight

How did it get like this? Where is the sense of elegance within US carriers? While I appreciate many of the FAs on United (I mainly see the international staff) there are some that just should have moved on long ago. It's like we are left with a number that couldn't retire and are bitter about it. Perhaps doesn't help that United is not an airline that PAX would chose to use their own money to travel up front, so does not attract the lifestyle attendants of the past.

N1120A

I have never run into poorly behaved FAs on PMUA. Ever.

With the exception of a CLE-DEN and (my most recent PMCO) a LAX-EWR, I've always had a complaint about the attitude and service levels provided by PMCO FAs. Some better, some worse.

circitmage

The worst FA I ever came across in 30 years of flying was "serving" us in BF between EWR and HKG ... I dubbed her the Asian Mimi Bobeck (from The Drew Carey Show) and that's being gracious ... the look certainly matched, but the attuitude?!?!? ... I don't know what feral dog pit they plucked this abomination to the FA career from, but they need to drop her back in it

Rammed into us with her newspaper cart upon boarding without even so much as acknowledging or apologizing
Never once served us outside of the meal "services" - yes not ***ONCE*** in 16 hr flight
Food was served cold
Drinks were **never** refilled
When we got our own, they were **never** retrieved (we had to bus them ourselves)
All interactions were surly, rude, abrasive from the outset

I had the pleasure of telling her on a subsequent flight that I wanted a different FA or iff needed a different seat - The look of surprise was priceless ;-)

harvardalumna

I flew, for the first (and definitely the last!) time on UA, International, SFO-HKG. Was a C passenger. I'd my 3 yr old with me. I have to say I was very disappointed, shocked if you will.

My little one fell asleep shortly after take-off and woke up about 4 hrs later, hungry. I walked up to the galley instead of pressing the call button and asked for something to eat. Didn't want to bother them. The 2 FAs were chatting, ignoring me. I'd to wait for a couple of minutes before they turned to me and rudely asked what I wanted. I asked for food for my daughter and one FA looked squarely into my eyes and said, sorry, they ran out of food. I asked for finger food, bread, sandwich, anything and she claimed that all the other passengers have finished everything. Nothing to eat. So I asked for fresh milk and she said she didn't have that either. Her co-worker said that they had fresh milk and she then said she'd have to check. She pulled out a tray that had fresh milk and lo and behold, there were sandwiches!

I'd an incredulous look when I saw the sandwiches. She grudgingly pulled out a sandwich and told me that she was NOT supposed to serve the sandwiches until later??!!!

About 40 mins after I returned to my seat, my little one needed to visit the lavatory and when she skipped past it, I saw, on the trolley (?), the exact same kind of sandwiches that the FA claimed she was not supposed to serve 40 mins earlier! We were seated in C! I was and still am, mad. I doubt I will ever willingly fly International on UA again. I've always flown SQ - superb inflight service and recently, have started trying CX. Great inflight servcie too. I did not expect such service in Business.

malgudi

Elegance went out the window a long time ago

skidooman

A cultural difference, I believe.

If you are in Japan or Korea or, say, Taiwan or Hong Kong (China being a different story), as a customer service representative, expectations are pretty high. There are strict protocols that need to be respected, especially in Japan. That means certain very polite sentences you MUST say, a smile you MUST show, a sense of urgency you MUST convey.

Customer is king.

In such settings, you just cannot provide surly service. You then lose your face - and that of the company. Not a good thing in East Asia.

For instance, if you are sleeping and the meal cart passes in, many Asian airlines will put a sticker right in front of you reminding you it is never too late to get your meal. That certainly makes me smile as a pax.

Also, I feel that these employees feel a bit privileged. A bit like what I am told are the old days of air travel. You look at a flight attendant of OZ, or KE, or NH... let's be frank here, a number of them are selected in (great) part for looks in a way that is no longer permissible in the United States. Not only that makes them feel good, but that certainly assuages the males of the flight. No one wants to jerk off a nice looking girl, right?

Now, compare this with FAs onboard US flights... in general older on TATL/TPAC segments, in some cases overweight, in some cases clearly tired/don't want to be there. Not only the service may changes (albeit some FAs, even older, provide excellent service, and as FF we should recognize that), but the reaction of most of the pax to them will be different, unfortunately not for the better.

US airlines would benefit from a greater mix of ages for FAs, but that would be considered age-ism, thus forbidden by labor laws. So they have a strike against them before they even go to the plate. Unfair? Somewhere, yes.

Baze

One thing I have noticed from reading FT is some will call a FA surly and nasty and no customer service, bad attitude if they simply don't smile. So one idea of surly could be someone elses indifferent. And I agree with a post above that how you treat them can have a huge effect on how they treat you. All it takes is one DYKWIA attitude to change a FA to a bad mood. But at the same time all it can take is one person smiling and saying please and thank you to improve a FA's attitude. I can't believe how many passengers I see that can't extend common courtesy by saying, please and thank you. It is not that hard to do but so many can't seem to do it. No wonder some FA's act indifferent and in a bad mood. Though I have very rarely seen one I would call in a bad mood that could not be turned around with a smile and a please and a thank you. They are out there but in my experience they are few and far between.

FamilyMan

By far the worst flight attendants are found on any US regional carrier. Self serve would be better.

Baze

Some of the best FA's I've seen were on United Express flights (Sky West).

HSmartt

There was a period about five years ago when I couldn't give away those "good service" tickets on united no matter how hard I tried. I actually feel that the service improved last year, maybe the change made everyone hope for better (whatever actually happens).

TomA

Yeah, the union rules mean the most expensive flights come with the surliest agents. I will say, for reasons I cannot explain, CO long haul FAs are better than UA. I used to assume this was across the board, but since the merger I have flown a lot more UA domestic connections and the crews tend to be MUCH nicer than transpacific.


Or transpacific on Singapore or Cathay or Thai.

bob_the_d

i think desk agents and GA's are also worth mentioning. for me i've always found that the PMUA desk agents have always been been incredibly accommodating. they have always switched my flights, seating assignments and always resolved any issue i came up with even before the merger and i was a CO PLT showing up as *G. i've always had nothing but good things to say to those folks. the PMCO desk agents have been a mixed bag. i've had some nasty folks at the CO desks and some nice people. at the very least, most of the people i've interacted with (especially at EWR) are apathetic. even at the BF desk they'll always do what's required but barely even acknowledge i am standing right there. i've found the western european desk agents for both to be a little better and the ones in asia to be the nicest and adhere to the rules the most.

the GA's in the states i've found to generally be cranky on both PM carriers. i honestly can't blame them though. it seems like there's little break between flight turnovers and quite frankly if i have to deal with the flying public here and its odd refusal to follow boarding procedures, i'd be pretty pissed too. again europe and asia GA's for PMUA and PMCO i find to be on a completely different level in terms of politeness and willingness to help.

domestically i've found the FA's to never really be all that nasty to be honest. again, i've always felt a little bit of apathy or disinterest (or maybe it's complacency) but i've yet to encounter much in the way of rudeness. internationally i've had just okay experiences on PMUA C. nothing bad to say, just nothing positive or memorable either. it was... meh. truthfully i've had much better experiences on PMCO BF. the one quirk is that the stories are true that between meal services, they just kind of hang out in the galley and have conversations (and seeing as sometimes they get loud and they're laughing all the time, apparently they're quite interesting conversations) amongst themselves instead of checking in on customers, but i've only been met by nice people who were always happy to get what i needed.

everyone always runs into different employees. that's who i ran into in my travels.

boss315

Mixed bag on co and I've flown them for 31 years! Newark crews tend to be surly and pissy so I make a point of flying out of Houston. Much better overall experience: those good old Midwestern values! I gave up on ua to Asia 15 years ago until forced to take flight to Seoul last spring... Think the same nasty old bag served me as did 15 years ago. It was horrible....food mid flight sandwich that must have cone from 7/11, all served in a rush with a scowl. . Human relations training never hurt anyone starting out or as a refresher course

bob_the_d

SFO-ICN, i took that last october in C on a PMUA 744. i have to agree, the food was pretty bad and it was another example of my very mediocre UA experiences.