You actually believed that one?

In other words, the answer to DataPlumber's question is yes.

Let's not get off topic. Yes, I do believe the content in the linked post is true, and it's not just because I found it on the Internet.

Back to the point. The bottom 1% of FAs are really bad, as described in the OP and subsequent anecdotes in this thread--but at the moment there is no easy way for AA to identify these FAs. If AA wants to reduce the prevalence of OP-like incidents it needs to implement a process other than waiting for mistreated customers to write in.

Lot's of interesting opinions on this one.

What I have found, especially in the current environment, is that it helps to be proactive and pleasant. The OP probably didn't care about the type of pasta (though we don't know that from the post) but did care, as so many have pointed out, about the sauce. In that case, rephrasing the original question to "what type of sauce is on the pasta?" may have elicited an informative response and eliminated all of the angst expressed in these 9 or so pages to date.

I'm certainly not trying to blame the OP in any way, I just find it helpful to be specific with the questions I ask. It tends to receive a more accurate response. A smile and a little congeniality have never hurt (oh there was that one time...).

Out of curiosity, what do you have in mind?

We could start by having ISMs on every flight. If they had both responsibility for delivering a consistent product to the passengers and the onboard authority to make it happen, I bet that things would get better verrry quickly.

That said, we're talking fantasy, not reality. I recognize that such a change would be the subject of a negotiation based on the collective bargaining agreement, and would never actually happen. But look at foreign competition. All of the better carriers, and many of the not-so-much-better ones, have ISMs or equivalent. Other than U.S. airline cabin crew, can you think of a lot of customer-facing service jobs with no supervisory presence?

Speaking for myself, I commute TPAC five or six times/year in business class. I used to be a strictly AA metal (with the occasional AA codeshare on JL) customer, EXP. About two years ago I switched to QR; and both the hard and soft products are so far superior that I wonder what took me so long. And it costs less, too.

I think it was an unpleasant joke??? - a kid had just urinated in a bottle and the parent was handing it to FA. I don't think he really wanted it warmed up. The questions weren't all from the same flight. But.. many questions I've heard also didn't make the list, particularly requests made by passengers knowing full-well they were not entitled to things. And staff awkwardly trying to say no, though not always managing to.

my partner had a similar experience on iberia, so possibly cultural thing. in a separate incident on the same flight my partner tries to explain headphones don't work and she needs a replacement. fa returns with a scornful look and reluctantly hands them over.. stands over for a bit as if waiting for payment.. :confused:

I think the point is that quite often the FA or person in service do not know the answers and will not easily be able to get the answer. When you are serving hundreds of people and having to go and get this information, i can see why it would be frustrating - because a) you may not be able to get this information easily b) may not be obvious why someone would care if if it was linguine or taglitelle.

Oh yeah definitely and can be very annoying on flights - but they cannot help themselves as they are unaware of social etiquette.:o

less pressure in business when the army of people being served is much smaller and the client, generally more refined.

One more time. The OP asked what kind of sauce was on the pasta. Which the FA can do by, oh I dunno, glancing at it. So it doesn't matter if it wasn't obvious why someone would care if it's lingune or tagliatalle, because that's not what the OP wanted to know, and it's not the question that set the FA off.

And even if someone were being picky, the FA should never be an ... about it.

This.

The thing that is incredibly aggravating for the flyer is the vast majority of FA's are good. However they also cover for the driftwood and deadbeat FA who is rude and uninterested.

This primarily happens in an 'us-or-them' employer/employee relationship that is strained.

AA does need to jettison some of these customer service vacuums though. Maybe set up a dedicated survey system of 'how was your flight', and match it to the employees. While anyone can have a bad day, overall the results will show who the people are that need to be shown the door.

Note - some text removed in quotes to make points clearer.


Really? And the title of the thread is "FA response to type of pasta"...
My point actually wasn't about specific details but rather repetitive and disruptive questions. I understand from this thread that there is a difference across the atlantic about where service begins and ends - here you get given something and anything else is extra, in america, it would more likely include extras such as questions (termed service), etc. Our mindset of service really doesn't exist to the same degree and that's not to say we wouldn't be better off with an american approach to customer service. I'm just trying to explain the different attitudes and expectations towards this experience. None of this is meant as a criticism of the OP.

Maybe just waiting to see if this set of headphones works?

Fixed it for you. Because the text you removed was literally the clarification that the OP issued to the flight attendant—"What kind of sauce..."—which precipitated the "I didn't stick my finger in it" response.

I understand that you're not trying to say the OP was wrong, but you are brining up examples and hypotheticals unrelated to the situation in a way that allows you to group the OP's completely within-bounds question that the FA could take one quick look at the dish to answer.

I spend lots of time in restaurants, in hotels, on airlines in Europe and the UK, and I've asked many people some basic questions about how a dish is prepared. People have always been gracious. So I do find the idea that in Europe and the UK, asking a basic question about what kind of sauce comes on a plate of pasta is akin to demanding Michelin Star service and is justifiably met with indifference or rudeness, to be preposterous.

No, what I'm doing is categorising behaviour on a flight that may explain why people in the service industry do not behave as perfect as they may be expected to. It isn't to justify perceived poor performance, but to suggest that things aren't black and white, like the majority here may be claiming. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt if at all possible. While you might claim the FA didn't do that in this instance, when people are time pressured and stressed, they can behave irrationally. I'm suggesting the environment in which the service was held was likely to have had a number of contributing factors, which, when I think about it, can easily explain why the FA may have been 'off hand'. That is because I think people have unrealistic expectations of one another and I find this one-sized approach a little bit silly. I've seen FA treated poorly and others in the service industry and I have a lot of sympathy for them. Who didn't have a bad day? To say that they're in a safety critical role and therefore shouldn't (as others have said) make an 'off the cuff' remark seems to really be quite over the top in my opinion.

Anything is possible I guess. But I don't think so.. she looked really annoyed like she wanted to shout. Alls well that ends well.

Sorry, but having a bad or stressful day does not excuse rudeness, sarcasm or the like for people in a customer-facing service role. Dealing with customer inquiries is their job. If they can't do their job because they're having a bad day, they should call in sick.

The bow tie pasta has a light tomato sauce:D

This I agree with. Others in this thread have tried to suggest that the OP was asking for something over-the-top by asking what sauce was on the pasta.

I do agree, however, that, while the FA was out of line and rude, sometimes people are just stressed out, or their mother is sick, or they're missing a kid's birthday...I think we can have compassion for that, and still expect that they won't snap at us.

Thank you. In that case I'll take the chicken :D

All this reminds me of one of the funniest overheard passenger-FA interactions I've experienced in my decades of flying.

Seatmate: "What kind of wine do you have?"
FA: "Red or white"
Seatmate: "What kind of red wine do you have?"
FA: "No I meant that's what I have. Red or white."

The issue is more staffing. You can't compare UA/DL/AA to the likes of CX/JL/QR etc. Foreign carriers staff well over FAA minimums to provide a higher FA to passenger ratio.

With such low staffing in most cases they have 2 people handing out meals for ~260 passengers. Split that out and each has to give out 130 meals, ideally as quick as possible. Even at 30 second for each person that is still over an hour to get everyone a meal. Throw in some crazy, off the wall questions and it may not be as easy as just "chicken or pasta".

This made me laugh. I've heard this so often it's crazy.