Do flight attendants really hate us?
Aug 8, 2011 | 8:06 am
#31
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So your arguments are that FA can have bad day, they may had to deal with rude passengers and are tired of long travel. OK, but tell me one thing:
FAs on some airlines doesn't have bad days? FAs on some airlines doesn't have to deal with rude passengers? FAs on some airlines aren't tired of long travel? Because FAs on some airlines provide great service, are always smiling and willing to help.
Why one FA tells me "we'll have drink service in 20 minutes" and another "Sure, I'll be right back" when I want bottle of water?
My answer is: FAs on some airlines are well-trained to provide great customer service (what is part of their job) and are either required by management to do so or simply realize who pays them.
FAs on some airlines doesn't have bad days? FAs on some airlines doesn't have to deal with rude passengers? FAs on some airlines aren't tired of long travel? Because FAs on some airlines provide great service, are always smiling and willing to help.
Why one FA tells me "we'll have drink service in 20 minutes" and another "Sure, I'll be right back" when I want bottle of water?
My answer is: FAs on some airlines are well-trained to provide great customer service (what is part of their job) and are either required by management to do so or simply realize who pays them.
Aug 8, 2011 | 9:48 am
#32
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FAs ride around in airplanes a few days a month, hack up ice blocks, and dole out Diet Cokes. Then they hide out behind the galley curtain and get paid to read People magazine and do Sudokus. They may not be getting wealthy but that wasn't in the brochure to start with. Meanwhile they enjoy relatively terrific job security. Judging from the freedom many apparently feel to ignore, lie to, or abuse their customers, they don't worry too much about getting fired. FAs have the luxury of undermining their management and mistreating their customers without penalties. Most workers who do only one of the above find themselves on the street within minutes.
In an era of 18 percent real unemployment these people might have the grace to cut the caterwauling about how awful their jobs are. As Mom used to say, it's harder when there's none.
As for the "safety officer" rap, the whole "We're here to save your a@@, not kiss it" line... spare me. One in several thousand flights has a safety issue requiring an FA to do anything more complicated than arm or disarm the doors. Most will complete their careers without ever being so challenged. And when emergencies occur, many FAs fold like chocolate teapots; aviation records are full of accounts of FAs freezing up, weeping, collapsing, etc. at the one moment in their careers their safety training matters.
I don't know if there's another class of workers in America that displays more attitude with less justification.
Last edited by BearX220; Aug 8, 2011 at 10:52 am
Aug 8, 2011 | 10:48 am
#33
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Totally agree that FAs on some airlines routinely provide better service than others. I connect this to the point JerryFF made upthread: employees who are treated well by management serve their customers well, employees who are treated poorly struggle. The "some airlines" where I find weaker service all have histories of management/labor strife, significant reductions in benefits, bankruptcies that wiped out retirement plans, etc. The airlines with reliably better service, in the USA at least, are those with recent histories of growth and relative cooperation between management and labor.
Aug 8, 2011 | 11:24 am
#34
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Any industry that has to deal with the "General Public" is a tough industry to work in.
Service industries are not easy.
I worked my way through college in retail dealing with hordes of people with thousands of different personalities, demands, and attitudes.
After a while, I became jaded. I started to see most people as demanding, self-centered humanoids that wanted to vent on the poor schmuck in the store.
There seems to be an underlying tone of "The Customer is ALWAYS Right" no matter if the customer has spent 29 cents for a pack of chewing gum, or 299 dollars for an airline flight. Some customers will want preferential treatment for that, and demand high expectations and servitude from those they deem "should deliver" on the payment that was made.
Flight Attendants have to deal with all sorts of weird personalities. Not everyone is well dressed, upscale, and level-headed. Not everyone is rational. I once witnessed a passenger go off on a flight attendant because he asked the man to pull down his window shade for a movie. The passenger demanded his name, and stated he would "Have his job" when he got done with him. If you deal with that nonsense for a few years, you are going to lose faith sooner or later in human common decency and begin to see your passengers as a pain in the behind. And you may get "numb" to a human interaction. This may come off as "hating" the passengers, but IMO, it's simply a human response to being treated harshly by passengers over time. Surely, some may have brought attitudes into the job with them, but for the most part, humans tend to become products of their environment. Being crammed into a small aluminum tube for thousands of hours a year dealing with the general public is not exactly a relaxing job.
I'd probably last two weeks (and I'm being generous with my estimation) if I had to be a FA. Dealing with the general public is very difficult.
I usually just smile at FAs and do what they ask of me. And I rarely ask anything of them. I hope I never have to ask them to help me in an emergency. If I do, I'll be glad they are there for me.
Service industries are not easy.
I worked my way through college in retail dealing with hordes of people with thousands of different personalities, demands, and attitudes.
After a while, I became jaded. I started to see most people as demanding, self-centered humanoids that wanted to vent on the poor schmuck in the store.
There seems to be an underlying tone of "The Customer is ALWAYS Right" no matter if the customer has spent 29 cents for a pack of chewing gum, or 299 dollars for an airline flight. Some customers will want preferential treatment for that, and demand high expectations and servitude from those they deem "should deliver" on the payment that was made.
Flight Attendants have to deal with all sorts of weird personalities. Not everyone is well dressed, upscale, and level-headed. Not everyone is rational. I once witnessed a passenger go off on a flight attendant because he asked the man to pull down his window shade for a movie. The passenger demanded his name, and stated he would "Have his job" when he got done with him. If you deal with that nonsense for a few years, you are going to lose faith sooner or later in human common decency and begin to see your passengers as a pain in the behind. And you may get "numb" to a human interaction. This may come off as "hating" the passengers, but IMO, it's simply a human response to being treated harshly by passengers over time. Surely, some may have brought attitudes into the job with them, but for the most part, humans tend to become products of their environment. Being crammed into a small aluminum tube for thousands of hours a year dealing with the general public is not exactly a relaxing job.
I'd probably last two weeks (and I'm being generous with my estimation) if I had to be a FA. Dealing with the general public is very difficult.
I usually just smile at FAs and do what they ask of me. And I rarely ask anything of them. I hope I never have to ask them to help me in an emergency. If I do, I'll be glad they are there for me.
Aug 8, 2011 | 4:52 pm
#35
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Nobody wants to be in a teacher's lunch room, especially one week before a break or vacation. I would imagine FA are like that too.
Aug 8, 2011 | 5:15 pm
#36
Join Date: Mar 2011
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Foreign cabin crew are so much better than domestic...
I think the recruitment and training has something to do with it. Foreign crews have to do same day turnarounds also. I don't know if they're like WN crews hopping all over the country in short 1-2 flights the entire day, but they still fly 2-3 hour regionals all day and maintain a basic customer service standard.
I think the recruitment and training has something to do with it. Foreign crews have to do same day turnarounds also. I don't know if they're like WN crews hopping all over the country in short 1-2 flights the entire day, but they still fly 2-3 hour regionals all day and maintain a basic customer service standard.
Aug 8, 2011 | 11:03 pm
#37
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No, real comparison is to a teacher. Low pay scale, parents expecting that their little rug rat is a genius and should be treated like the second coming. Nobody wants to be in a teacher's lunch room, especially one week before a break or vacation. I would imagine FA are like that too.
Aug 9, 2011 | 1:06 am
#38
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Foreign cabin crew are so much better than domestic...
I think the recruitment and training has something to do with it. Foreign crews have to do same day turnarounds also. I don't know if they're like WN crews hopping all over the country in short 1-2 flights the entire day, but they still fly 2-3 hour regionals all day and maintain a basic customer service standard.
I think the recruitment and training has something to do with it. Foreign crews have to do same day turnarounds also. I don't know if they're like WN crews hopping all over the country in short 1-2 flights the entire day, but they still fly 2-3 hour regionals all day and maintain a basic customer service standard.
Aug 9, 2011 | 2:44 am
#39
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the typical work week, 50 weeks @ 5 days per week would equal 250 days and that doesn't include holidays being removed.
school at least where I live is 180 days of actual school days. That excludes all the days the teachers have to be there when the students are not there. Where I live the median teachers salary for all grades K-12 is ~$58K.
How is this more iron clad than an FA?
What exactly does the FA earn (median?), what are the FA's median hours per months?
How is a teachers job cush? You have 20-30~ kids per classroom. Its your job to teach, control and make sure that each kid is up to some bizarre no child left behind law (another topic all together) and then you are supposed to do all the grading and planning on your time. You pay for your own supplies or a great deal of them. You deal with parents as stated above, trouble making kids and a school board made up of people so far removed from reality they have no clue what goes on in the schools and then have to deal with what the county supervisors think you should be doing and they are further removed from reality than the school board. You are asked to do more with less each year.
Teachers have minimum education standards and often have post graduate degrees, what do FA's need?
Lets see what could I live with less of in my lifetime
FA's or Teachers
FA's hands down
No I'm not a teacher nor have I ever worked in the school system
Aug 9, 2011 | 4:07 am
#40
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I don't. Thank the almighty.
Last edited by RobbieRunner; Aug 9, 2011 at 4:24 am
Aug 9, 2011 | 5:32 am
#41
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Is it a surprise to the FA that s/he has, say, 300 new customers in a confined space every day, day after day? If they can't deal with it then it's time for a career change.
Aug 9, 2011 | 5:48 am
#42
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Point being that the rigors of the job may cause some to appear unfriendly. That's an occupational hazard.
I really can't imagine myself doing that job. I guess it's a living for some. Not my cup of tea.
Speaking of careers, off to work. G'day.
Aug 9, 2011 | 6:09 am
#43
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Wasn't commenting on that. Was commenting on why it may appear they "hate us", as the thread was originally posted.
Point being that the rigors of the job may cause some to appear unfriendly. That's an occupational hazard.
I really can't imagine myself doing that job. I guess it's a living for some. Not my cup of tea.
Speaking of careers, off to work. G'day.
Point being that the rigors of the job may cause some to appear unfriendly. That's an occupational hazard.
I really can't imagine myself doing that job. I guess it's a living for some. Not my cup of tea.
Speaking of careers, off to work. G'day.
Aug 9, 2011 | 7:01 am
#44
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I'll believe that FAs are there primarily for my safety when the airlines start hiring registered nurses to be FAs- that was a criterion when they originally started using FAs on passenger flights.
One point in their defense: the FA who got in deep trouble for deploying the emergency slide on a plane to get the heck out mentioned that so many people who boarded were already exhausted and frazzled by the airport experience- the TSA lines, not enough seats in the gate area, blaring TVs, beeping carts, repetitive announcements. So the FAs are already dealing with a lot of pent-up anger that they did nothing to create.
I believe that the biggest problem among the legacy airlines in North America is the union structure which treats any FA who goes to another airline as a newbie- even if they have 20 years of previous experience. It means that most of them will grimly hang onto their current job, no matter how much they hate it, because of the perks of seniority. And it shows.
One point in their defense: the FA who got in deep trouble for deploying the emergency slide on a plane to get the heck out mentioned that so many people who boarded were already exhausted and frazzled by the airport experience- the TSA lines, not enough seats in the gate area, blaring TVs, beeping carts, repetitive announcements. So the FAs are already dealing with a lot of pent-up anger that they did nothing to create.
I believe that the biggest problem among the legacy airlines in North America is the union structure which treats any FA who goes to another airline as a newbie- even if they have 20 years of previous experience. It means that most of them will grimly hang onto their current job, no matter how much they hate it, because of the perks of seniority. And it shows.
Aug 9, 2011 | 9:09 am
#45
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Originally Posted by JoeBagodonuts
How is a teachers job cush?
Originally Posted by JoeBagodonuts
No I'm not a teacher nor have I ever worked in the school system.
Like flight attendants, teachers have craftily built up a public image heavy on martyrdom and sanctity, with the intent of neutralizing all criticism and protecting the entire class of employees, no matter how bad they are. The FA's "We are here primarily for your safety" or "We're here to save your a@@, not kiss it" is the teacher's "If you can read this, thank a teacher," etc.
Yet neither job rewards good performance or penalizes terrible performance, and neither stands for excellence. The airline customer experience in the US has degenerated to a grim and stressful level, and the children processed indifferently by public schools get dumber every year.