The other day, I'm on a LAX-JFK p.s. flight in C ^ . Both Y and C were packed, about a third of F. The FAs were really hustling to provide the service on what has to be one of the fastest transcons, a bit more than 4.5 hours gate-to-gate. They were in a hurry, but IMO as attentive as one would expect under the circumstances.

After dinner, a pax across the aisle hits the call button and asks to speak to the head FA. A few minutes later, she comes by, only to receive the most outrageous verbal tirade I've ever heard in the air. Pax tells her "I fly hundreds of thousands of miles a year, and this is the worst service I've ever had on any flight!" Yadda yadda yadda. The stream of abuse goes on for a couple of minutes; no cursing, but with a nasty, demeaning tone. FA tries to apologize/explain/get more information, but pax will have none of it; he just wants to blast the FA for the "terrible" service on this p.s. flight.

Here's the kicker: I personally saw the two things that pissed him off, and he was way, way off in his perceptions. First, he complained that one of the FAs had ignored his request for something or other...thing was, the FA was rushing quickly toward the Y cabin and couldn't have seen or heard the pax's gesture. Second, he claimed that he hit the call button several times and waited for far to long for anyone to come by; again this was false...maybe 1 minute from the time he hit the button to the time the first FA came, with another 2-3 minutes until the head FA arrived. I was disgusted not only at these clearly bogus complaints, but the manner in which he expressed them was, IMO, totally out of line. I mean, I'm not a frequent C/F flyer, but geez, even if I were paying full fare, would that give me the place to talk to an FA like that?

(After the flight, before deplaning, I went up to tell the head FA that from what I could tell, the guy was full of s**t. She and her colleagues were relieved; they honestly thought they had dropped the ball and didn't even realize it.)

One other thing I more fully realized watching this guy lose a bolt: Dealing with angry people at 39,000 feet is totally different than on the ground; you just can't take chances up there. Shame on anyone who would blast an FA like that!