While in many cases you are absolutely correct (one of my recent faves was the guy talking about FAMs playing Brick Breaker on their Government Blackberrys, which the FAMS does not use), sometimes FAMs are too easy to spot, if not by enforced, inane proceedures (preboarding, old dress code, etc.) then by their own actions.

Sometimes a group can be it's own worst enemy. :( Other times it's stuff outside their control.

Some of my patrol officer friends with take-home cars can't resist driving fast and lighting up crowded intersections when off-duty just 'cause they can. It violates department policy (and quite likely, state traffic law), but who's gonna stop them?

If I held a license to kill and were permitted to carry a .357 on my flights, I might be tempted to flaut such mundane, pedestrian rules onboard. After all, who's gonna stop them?

Better hope al Qaeda is never successful in placing a convert in the ranks of the sky marshals. Some blonde, blue eyed golden boy who doesn't change his appearance when he adopts Islam (unlike the prior stupidasses). All he'd have to do is kill his partner at the right time and suddenly it's part II. And who's gonna stop him?

What would have happened if OP politely asked the FAM to stop this behaviour, at least during meal time?

He would've been a threat to the flight and the FAM might very well have shot him. :td:@:-)

Don't be ridiculous. jplus didn't say the request would be made by a mentally ill passenger wearing their backpack backwards and certainly didn't involve the use of the word "bomb." So far, that's the standard by which we measure whether marshals fear for their lives. ;)

Here are a couple of other threads, one on this topic, and another containing my post where I ran into the same thing.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=295576
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=601460

I'd pretend to be unaware of the person's profession, and ask in a respectful, non-threatening manner.

"Do those taste good? My college roommate chews a pack every other hour. That's nice, do you terribly if you don't do it during lunch?"

Or am I just hopeless naive? @:-)

I'd add, "Too bad about him. He died of throat cancer at 27."

Wow. Substantive.

^ ^ ^ That was clearly missing above :D :D :D

Wow that's gross!:td::td::td:

I had an...shall we say "incident" in my younger days that ever sense smelling or seeing the "split cans" causes me to become rather nauseous.

Personally who cares if its a FAM, employee, or some random pax I'd ask them to stop or ask the crew to be reseated or just projectile vomit on the guy.

Ugh. With apologies to any users of smokeless tobacco, sitting next to someone doing this same thing made a four hour flight seem like eight hours. Except he wasn't using a bottle. He was using his leftover soda cup, placed out in the open on his tray, inches away from my knee. By the end of the flight, it was almost full.

I seem to recall announcements made universally on flights about "federal law prohibits the use of tobacco products in flight, including cigarettes and smokeless tobacco" or some such. Is this no longer true?

Opinion.

I'll see your brevity and raise you conciseness. :D

I see your conciseness and raise you empathy and experience. Do you really think they wanted to shoot Alpizar? Your flippant post alluded that you mayhaps do.