<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by lairdb:
What kind of response do you get?
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Well, firstly, doing long-hauls and having been in a window seat on all but one of them that I can remember, I mostly stay where I am. Climbing over 1 or 2 other people to get something and then climbing back over them to get back to my seat is pretty disruptive, especially if they and/or I are watching a movie.
British Airways have the worst FA's I've experienced, being quite capable of going over 2 hours without ever responding to the call button.
Despite what some have said, I've always had reasonably decent service from UA and US FAs. NZ, QF and AN are consistently good, and, as others have commented, Asian carriers such as SQ, TG and MH even better.
On one SQ flight, the barman ... er, I mean FA ... started simply bringing a Cointreau when I rang, since that was what I asked for previously! (and this was in the cheap seats down the back)
This is the sort of service which makes me continue to fly SQ whenever possible ... even though I may not get Mileage Plus status bonuses and other airlines may be cheaper. At the other end of the scale, I haven't flown BA since I experienced their "never answer the call button" FAs and quite possibly never will. This difference between SQ and BA was one of my reasons for switching from using QF and its allies to using Star Alliance.
I'm sure some airlines, and their FAs, underestimate how much goodwill they can generate by simply providing decent service and how much they can lose by giving lousy service in this area.