Originally Posted by
Unimatrix One
I had an unpleasant encounter with a JL person at JFK who appeared to be an actual JL employee who spoke Japanese. I was quite surprised, because their behavior was very un-JAL-like. Maybe that person spent too much time living in NY and lost the "お客様は神様" ("the customer is god") ethos.
I once checked in at Heathrow with a Japanese friend, one of the Japanese ladies being at the counter. My friend afterwards remarked, "she does not really understand how to speak properly to a customer". Which she absolutely did not, I had noticed that as well. My guess is that some of the staff were born and raised abroad, and did not really get the polite Japanese phrases ingrained to be second nature. More like a Japanese translation of the standard local terms.
I would say she was rude, just not how you'd expect the Japanese to flow at a JAL first class counter