AE FAs spout that fairly regularly, too. One went so far as to say water bottles could not be placed in seat pockets or the overhead bins, but must be placed on the floor.

My ANC-SEA FA the other day thanked everyone for flying with CO, a member of SkyTeam! Haha, this was last week. Im sure it was a tongue slip-up, but I thought it was funny nonetheless.

LOL...

There are still some rules in effect in and out of DCA which some FTers may/may not know about, but certainly not the no standing. The current rule regarding :30 is that if the seatbelt sign is illuminated, customers are to be directed to the rear lavatory if at all possible.

Yup. The last time this happened was on COCO out of EWR with a flight time of about 40 minutes. FA got on the horn after boarding had been completed and said something to the effect of "because we are flying into DCA Federal law prohibits anyone from standing during this flight. No lavatory. No overhead bin access. And there will be no service."

This was about a year ago.

This promptly drove my business over to the US/DL Shuttles (which are far more convenient than CO's operation) for the majority of my flights between the two cities.

I did notice the 'Bose Add On', which is interesting considering Southwest specifically let's you keep these on during all phases of flight. I guess the 'everything with an off switch' concept is perceived as easier to enforce.

I was on a EWR-LAX flight on Saturday, Sept 11th, where the FA thanked us for flying on behalf of CO & SkyTeam. (BTW, it was a CLE-based cabin crew)

Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto....sorry, I couldn't resist.

long live SkyTeam..rah rah!

Luke..I would assume CO would have a policy prohibiting reflecting on internal "goings on" in a negative light by posting in a public forum..why would you bring this to the table on FlyerTalk?

I had the same early landing announcements on my IAH-PHX flight a few weeks ago. As soon as we began our descent I was asked to turn off my iPod.

We landed 35 minutes later.

Again, why does everybody assume the FA is making up rules? Maybe the captain said they would be turbulence on the way down. Maybe they were supposed to land quicker, but got vectored around a bit. You really have no insight into it, yet everyone seems free to question the actions of the most professional men and women in the industry.

It's also possible that CO's superior service was so lavish, the crew needed a few extra minutes to put everything away. I think that's something reasonable we can afford them after having had the privilege of flying on the Rah! Rah!

^

Every now and then I catch a FA, GA, CSR, etc. going "offroading" when it comes to the rules but often find it's just easier to ask someone else, call back, etc.

Not trying to justify the behavior, but in CO's case I've been able to work around it. And to be fair, most of the issues I've come across have to do with RES where I know I'm right, but the agent just has not been able to grasp what I want to do. (Actually this happened earlier today when I was on a CC with the Plat desk with another FTer to cook up a rather complex award. First agent botched it but after hanging up and calling back I got an agent who'd sell in the flights I wanted and the thing magically priced out...but I digress.)

Getting back to FAs though -- lukeskywaiter I can certainly understand the issue of not wanting to write up fellow FAs, but perhaps there's some way you can send a discrete message to the powers that be (not sure if it's CO, the union, etc.) that they need to refocus on this...and who know, maybe posting on FT's enough to accomplish this.

The sad part is there those out there who'd adopt this ludicrous viewpoint and attack express it to others.

rotflmao!!!!!!!! ^ ^ ^

They did away with the 30 minute rule regarding DCA within a few years after 9/11. Or if they didn't, they quit telling people about it. Through '02-'03 it was definitely in force, but by the time I moved out of DC in '07, it was ancient history.