KDCAflyer

Flight attendants who don't give a damn about passengers when things are fine aren't going to give a damn when the plane is going down.

And I thought the old folks squatting on DFW-HKG back in the day were bad. These new hires are something else...

LovePrunes

did they make an announcement about not doing service due to safety of crew? if not, i'd be mashing that button for them to come ask me what i needed

LowValueCustomer

This could not possibly be more accurate. Time and time again, the industry studies suggest that the "hide in the galley" behavior portends unacceptable performance during life threatening scenarios. I hate to say it, but I actively avoid routes where we've regularly had this behavior from FAs. For folks like us with serious medical considerations, the typical FA laziness can be fatal.

bryanb

I fly on the 80 minute route between SNA-PHX.

Southwest consistently and easily does a full drink service on the route. The one time they didn't, it was due to turbulence and we got a total of 4 apologies (before takeoff, in the air, once from the pilot, and once more before landing).

On American, absolute clear skies, FAs hiding in the galley. Sure, I could've run the call bell but all the employees so far had been so irritable on the ground (both at check-in and gate agents). And one of the FAs snapped at a passenger in front of me already for not hearing something during boarding. I didn't want to bother them if they were preparing the cart -- and it was late into the flight before I realized the cart wasn't coming. The only time they came out was before landing to announce that "so many people have been asking us about the AAdvantage Aviator Mastercard that we only have a few applications left." Not sure who was asking them about this, because they weren't visible for the whole flight.

I'm usually sticking with Southwest on this route, but my observation with AA again a few months later was no service.

formeraa

I wouldn't say Southwest is perfect, but most of the time they try to do the beverage service. I've had a couple of "possible turbulence" announcements on shorter flights over the years. In neither case was there any turbulence at all.

But I do agree that AA (and DL and UA) have a certain number of FA's who simply won't do their job. The only way to stop this is to write a quick note to AA Customer Service with the flight info and let them know. They do follow up on these complaints.

Kevin AA

In addition to Southwest, the discount carriers have excellent in-flight service. This is because they make commissions on the sales. Much like the stupid credit cAArd pitches, it's amazing how much people will work when money is out there for the taking. Southwest is unusual in that it's just a good work ethic -- almost as rare as hen's teeth.

enviroian

Why do these flight attendant unions encourage and promote laziness?

KDCAflyer

Because that's what unions have done for a long time.

ChurnieEls

Not that I want this to happen, but I bet if their iPads had the option to leave them a tip, you'd never get that brand of FAs to stop serving F&B in flight. Turbulence be damned.

EXP100

And the lazy ones are the loud ones.

Antarius

some industries are worse, airlines being one or them.

Instead of focusing on what's best for all members, they fight tooth and nail for every low performer. It's like having a boss that tolerates slackers, the whole team performs worse.

just read the statement put out by the pilot union after that 777 rolled across the runway in front of a taking off DL flight. Instead of being like "this was fortunate that no one got hurt. we will focus on making sure it never happens again", they trot out some absolutely absurd excuses; stuff so bad that if I buried it in a treat, my dog wouldn't bite.

PDXPremier

I did that and was surprised to receive a reply only a few days later but it was just a standard acknowledgement/apology....it makes me wonder if specific feedback for specific flights ever makes it back to the flight crew. I know the AS survey called "AS Listens" has a section where you can leave notes to the flight crew as well as airport staff. Not that I need a voucher for not getting beverage service, but I did find it interesting that there was no customer service voucher offered. Virtually any negative issue sent to AS results in some type of customer service certificate or miles even for relatively minor issues. Back in my UA days I remember getting a $200 or $250 voucher for the video screen not working on a Hawaii to mainland flight....lol.

asnovici

For the past few years the experience has been
- Complaint about FA service results in a form letter non apology statement and no compensation no matter how egregious the situation was
- Complaint about hard product even as little as no reading light on a 3 hour flight results in minimum 5000 miles

Very clearly AA doesnt care about service and doesnt want to address it or discipline FA.

PDXPremier

Odd
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DELee

Even so.

David