Originally Posted by eternaltransit

So, OP, sorry to hear that you weren't really happy with your flight. Now, I am quite familiar with the hospitality industry and I hate to see customers blamed when they get disappointed because after all you have spent a lot of money and weren't satisfied. However, I think you have to draw a distinction between whether the provider (in this case EK) fell short on delivering what they are supposed to by their own standards, i.e. a service failure, or whether your priorities and expectations are simply mismatched with what they are offering.

I think we see a bit more than average on the EK forum of the clash of travelling culture - passengers from many countries have been trained not to press call bells, not to demand what they want and rely only on what's offered or to be asked (a rather more passive model of service) - and judge their perceptions of service on the offerings: do you get hot towels, how frequent are drinks runs, whether staff chat to you. However, EK, along with the other ME carriers train their staff from a different perspective: they expect their customers to be demanding, to press call buttons and to call over staff when they want something, and to not disturb people if they can help it. You see this tradition of hospitality especially if you visit EKs major source markets - they are more geared to be summoned like (household/service) staff, and that's perfectly fine.

So, you get a situation where crew are puzzled that people who want things like more drinks, more cups, snacks, change of food because it's not nice, but don't make their concerns known to the crew - whereas those passengers sit there and stew because the crew can't seem to read their minds or facial expression (they wait to be asked "how is everything" - but the question is never forthcoming). You can see how this creates a bit of a conundrum.

You can see this in all classes of service - F, J and Y on EK (after all, the F model is to close the doors and use the seat phone or call bell to summon service if you want anything, otherwise to be left alone!). Couple this with the fact most Y crew are of the ages of 21-25, their first real job after university, and it is not seen to be a proper hospitality career by most of them, and you can see how mind-reading and service anticipation is not perhaps their forté.

It sounds like you place the highest priority on being offered everything in one go and to have crew engage with you and to make conversation - and it's coming into a clash with a service culture where passengers usually demand things instantly, to be as quick as possible and to not bother them. If passengers want to be entertained, they have arguably the best inflight entertainment system in the world and failing that wi-fi. Inseat power and USB to charge your devices. The crew (in Y) are there to serve, run drinks every so often, but more to get out of your way. After all there are 398-426 other people to serve in a short amount of time.

In my experience with Y crew, they are all actually quite willing to engage in conversation and friendly banter if you go and say hello to them in the galleys (between services). They are unfailingly helpful if you go and ask them for drinks or snacks in their galleys - unlike many other carriers whose staff will give you death stares and ignore you if you enter "their space". The problem on the A380s is that there are no seats in the galleys and the curtaining system still leaves the passenger cabin rather open (by design). Thus, you will always see crew, during their lunch break, eating on the jump seats which are in plain view. On the 777 for instance, you can eat in the galley out of sight. This is impossible on the A380 (except for 2 seats at the rear of the A380 away from any galleys). Similarly, it makes it more difficult for you to strike up conversation as you could in the rear of a 777, but then again, if one is dying for conversation with crew, I think one would make the effort and not care!

Still, it is difficult to know all this before you book your flight, which I sympathise with. It sounds like that your happiness and satisfaction with hospitality is much more entwined with how you interact with the service staff, rather than things like the hard product and service schedules, so I truly wish you luck on finding another carrier that can deliver that (without being extortionate!).

As to the issues about can size, food quality and drinks runs (which have solutions on board) - I think those issues are minor compared to the cultural clash you would still experience.