Originally Posted by
Moleish
Completely agree - the crew really does make or break it. Recently on a EDI-LHR flight with a fairly large CE cabin, but by far not the largest I’ve seen, the IFL was panicking about the time available before the service even started. As soon as they returned to the galley after the initial service runs, comments including “we don’t have time for top-ups” and “I’m not going to look at them as I go through or they’ll ask for things” were heard.
I do appreciate the flight time can be tight for getting everything done, but the cabin was completely cleared in a good ten minutes before the ‘ten minutes to landing’ call - so probably less need for panic and more time for top-ups than the IFL was giving herself and team credit for!
Also concur with this. Was on the 10pm to NCL one night over the summer and there were I think 5 people in CE. IFL came out to take orders before take off (which I quite like, regardless of cabin size), but then said 'it's going to be a bit of a rush!'. And then, despite taking the orders and the small number, it wasn't exactly smooth.
Contrast with a MAN flight one evening a couple of years ago with a full 12-row complement of CE where the crew ran two double trollies (whatever it's called when they link them together), served everyone in a handful of minutes and I think we had 3 top-ups (or piccolo bottles as they were then). And charming and friendly. I think they had 4 crew which is unusual for CE, but I might never have noticed or that might have been someone else helping out. Was definitely an A21N if that makes a difference in crew load. But it can be done.