Standard question, and I believe, part of the operations manual . In Russian there are very formal ways of addressing someone, and informal ways. These days, some prefer one of the other.
If you're wondering where all of that comes from, its because in the heydays when Russia was flush with cash, when brent crude was 150+, SU hired McKinsey and SQ in flight cabin crew trainers to completely remake the airline, and to raise service quality levels without taking up too much of the crew time and expense . They also needed to memorize pleasantries in English…etc,. those that could not make the cut were let go. The effects remain to this day.
If you notice, the way champagne is poured, its exactly how a Singapore girl would do it.
After UN ( Transaero) went belly up, some of the better looking / fluent English/German/French/Mandarin speakers were absorbed into SU, and today work for SU and Rossiya. Those folks might not have gone though the same rigorous training, which is why sometimes you find lapses. In general though, the procedures are all laid out, asking how you would like to be addressed is one of them ( intercontinental flights)
I don't have memories of the old SU, but i heard it sucked. The new SU is kind of nice to fly no?
Last edited by OpenSky; Sep 22, 2018 at 8:28 pm