phxleanconsultant

I was recently on a flight from DFW to SFO in first.

You all know the usual way the FA's take meal orders if you didn't pre-order.

On this flight, the flight attendant had a print out of the flight’s meals that included a description and photos. It looked like something just printed on a normal color inkjet printer. It wasn’t a professionally printed menu like they’d have on an international flight. It was regular paper. Hmmm.

He sort of shoved that paper toward the passenger in the aisle seat and the passenger grabbed it.

“#1 or #2?” barked the flight attendant somewhat tersely.

“Do you want bread?” he said, as he pointed at pictures of the bread options)

The passenger handed the paper back to the flight attendant who then shoved it toward me.

“#1 or #2?”

This doesn't seem like good service.

Has anyone else seen an FA do this? How much are they "empowered" to do things their way and how does AA police their FAs about following standard procedures, I wonder?

CloudCoder

It seems like a great way to save time

OTOH, it takes time to post about it on FT.

So it's probably a wash.

Overall I think it's a great idea to save time and improve communication. Perhaps a bit more finesse would be appreciated. I've been on many other airlines (non-USA) where in-flight menus are mostly photographic.

phxleanconsultant

A photographic menu would probably be helpful, especially when there are non-English speakers on the flight. I just figured that AA would have an official solution instead of the FA having a workaround or their own solution.

Passing the same paper from passenger to passenger might concern germaphobes, as opposed to everybody getting their own professionally printed menu on an international flight.

Often1

Good on AA.

I would say that this is a first world problem, but it's not a problem.

javabytes

A picture would be helpful at times, but not without a description.

phxleanconsultant

Agreed this wasn't a major problem... just curious about what leeway FA's have in how they do their job.

Catbert10

And it seems just like last week we had a thread where people complained that AA didn't have a printed menu. Sounds to me like the FA took it upon himself to provide one. Kudos to the FA for being innovative.

DMPHL

Seems like it might have been photos printed out from AA's internal catering webpage, which has menus for each group of routes and preparation directions for each of the dishes, along with a photo of what it should look like. Those used to be available publicly, but AA slapped a password on them.

apeortdz

Did the FA really bark out that sentence or is that your dramatic interpretation?

swingaling

JAL does it this way in coach, anyway. I was recently on NRT-SIN with JAL and they had a large photographic menu showing the choices in multiple languages. Made it very easy for everyone. The FAs knew a little English, so communication wasn't an issue for me, but it definitely simplified the process.

rjw242

From some posters on FT, you'd think FAs did nothing but bark, scream, shove, storm, glower, and stomp.

3Cforme

You shouldn't cite the ~2007 Northwest Airlines FA job description without attribution.

fly747first

God, those were obnoxious, it's like they woke up every morning hating passengers.

Catbert10

But only when they aren't sitting in the galley reading People magazine

jbeans

This is acceptable in first class, only on a US-based airline.