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When exactly did passengers stop caring about us?

I ask for two reasons: First, because of the luscious new trailers for the upcoming TV show Pan Am, which depicts passengers dressed in their Sunday best-yes, that’s what they did back then-dressed for travel.

Hard to swallow, that one. But, yes, they dressed to travel back in the day.

And, second, because of the preponderance of horror stories from the news that suggest things have gone too far in the other direction. That far from the “please, thank you, and may I” stereotypes of pre-deregulation air travel, modern day airline passengers actually hate us.

Well, “hate” may be too strong a word.

How about “strongly dislike”?

<snip>

As you can imagine, passengers see this differently. Some say flight attendants are too demanding, insisting on polite behavior and smaller carry on bags.

“Somehow, people still compare us today with how things were in the 1950s and 1960s and then are upset when those expectations aren’t met,” passenger Mike Smith says. “These programs, such as the upcoming ‘Pan Am’ TV series and movies like ‘Catch Me If You Can’ and ‘View From the Top’ portray a level of behavior in the industry that simply hasn’t existed for decades.”

Smith told me the average passenger loves to fly and is happy to comply “within reason.”

When you combine the airlines’ need to cut costs and salaries and employees having the expectation that since they are not getting paid enough, the flight attendant doesn’t have to put up with passenger abuse, it’s bound to end up a recipe for disaster,” he says. “And at 30,000 feet there is very little a passenger can do to fix some of these issues other than say “please” and “thank you” and hope for a “your welcome” from the flight attendant.”

One other thing: Passengers are under a great deal of stress because of increased waiting at security lines, continually changing rules, less amenities, less leg room and more crowded aircraft. But Smith agrees that there’s never a reason to forget your manners.

I agree. I think there are plenty of reason for the passengers to be unhappy, but none to be impolite. I’m especially troubled by a saying that’s used a lot, most privately, among passengers: “I’m not turning it off, it doesn’t interfere with the flight!”

If the “manners” element had actually been stripped out of the passenger’s behavior, then why not let monkeys fly? Wouldn’t they do a far more efficient job of complying with the rules set forth?

No, I don’t think all passengers hate us. But too many of them seem to, according to flight attendants.

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Originally Posted by BearX220 (Post 16887876)

Twelve weeks' paid summer vacation plus massive weeks-long holiday breaks . . .

Originally Posted by BearX220 (Post 16890349)

She works a ten-hour day, 30 weeks a year? How terrible for her. Perhaps she would prefer to work a twelve-hour day 49 weeks a year, like a lot of the rest of us.

Does she have to go out and drum up her own students / customers? Does her pay go down if her students do poorly on tests? Does she face any performance reviews at all that could affect her career? Does she have to work Christmas morning or the Fourth of July? Does she have to make strategic decisions, hire and fire personnel, meet quotas, or face having her job outsourced to India?