A smile, sense of humor, eye contact are
desirable qualities in FAs (or any service employee for that matter).

Most intensely disliked habit: ignoring customers while FAs sit together going over next month's "bid sheet" for routes they want to fly.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/redface.gif My sincere apologies to those who are offended by what I orginally thought as a cute comment - especially to A Flygirl who is dedicated to her work.

An attentive and friendly FA is an excellent FA. The best example IMHO are SQ FAs.

Some FAs do even more.

Kyklin, absolutely no offense taken. For an old gal I think mine is holding up quite well . I just referred to your post with my own attempt at a pun. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

EPS, that was a great article and worthy of attention. I know of some fa's with my airline that do similar work but they are not so well organized. If it is possible could you be kind enough to let me know how to contact Airline Ambassadors? I'd like to inquire if they could use some help from their neighbours to the North. Thank you.

Flygirl (gotta love that name, big time Jennifer Lopez fan here, as well as In Living Color), the website address for Airline Ambassadors is:
http://www.airlineamb.org/

The email address for interest in membership is

[email protected]

I wish my schedule was more flexible that way I could help out as well.

Thanks Dalguy. Info will be forwarded. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

There are good flight attendants and then there are F-A's like "A Flygirl" and EA/AA/FA (see AMerican thread) who should start their own school for Flight attendants.

I have NOT meet EA yet but I met Flygirl at the FAQ and she simply brightens up the room as she walks in. The sun comes out, the flights are on time and the passengers are smiling.

Most F-A's are fine. there are the few who are very special IMHO who remember my face, know the first thing I like is a coke little ice (I would prefer PEPSI but whatever) and just making me feel comfortable.

And sometimes if I have Mr. Or madame Sourpuss next to me, I prefer to talk to the airline staff. They are fun and I tell them of my adventures and my cats.

As one who started this thread, maybe I should add my comments...

IMO, I think it is ultimately the Flight attendant's service and attitude who makes one remember their experiences.

Although I have not personally met A Flygirl, I do feel she is one of those who will go the extra mile for the passenger and especially she is a CP FA!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

On top of the basic service that we expect from FAs, I always appreciate those FAs who are willing to chat with passenger on a long 13 hr flight instead hiding in the galley as someone suggest reading over next month's bid sheet and not appearing until prior to landing. Isn't communication skills one of the major requirement of getting hired?

I noticed on some of my CP flights that there are major major problems with "some" of the higher seniority FAs. For example, on my HNL - SYD flight couple weeks ago, a few flight attendant were simply more excited to be heading to SYD for the first time than serving customer. Not a crack of smile and conversation from them on the 11 hr flight beside among themselves. To a customer, it makes them feel... "I paid X amount of money to travel and this is the kind of service I am getting and it seems like they are more excited than me..?" After all, the airline pay those to serve us and not to pay them to travel around although I feel that's what some of the FA thinks from the way they do the job.

However, there is one particular experience that I remember on CP. It was on a YYZ - YEG and I was one of the 5 people in J class and upon reading the manifest and noticing I am an ExecPlat, the FA came over and tell me how nice it is having me on board and she thank me on behalf of CP for flying with them so much. It is these little things that they do that make us remember those "good" experiences. This might seem like a minor thing the FA did but to me it showed me that they truly loved their job and not just for the sake of getting paid and flying all over the world.

Whenever I get poor service from FA on a flight, it really spoils my mood on the flight especially on those long transpacific flights which is where most of those disappointing experience occurs.

FA are airline's front line employee and also people that customer have the most interacting time with during the whole journey. In simple terms, they represent the company and most customer judge their liking of the airline based on service given beside ontime, baggage...... It only take a couple of bad experience to lose a customer and many good ones to keep them.

Most of the time I feel I can do a better job than most of them.

Oops... double post.

[This message has been edited by Empress (edited 08-05-2000).]

Austxhiker, absolutely right, you are...
Singapore Airlines FAs are the best! (not to mention prettiest? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif)

they are gentle, attentive, personable... they also have smiling eyes when talking to you, how do they do that?

in domestic flights, when i requested a pillow/blanket from a passing FA, nine of of ten times they never returned... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

With all of the status comping going on between airlines, I think it makes any FA look quite foolish and presumptuous to fawn over a passenger's presumed loyalty when in fact the passenger may have earned such status on another airline, but was granted comparable status on the airline being flown in the desperate hope that the passenger's loyalty will be won over.

That is, of course, unless the manifest or some other indentifier denotes whether a passenger's status is earned or comped... which is a whole other can of worms...

FQTV: I don't think you can find an airline which will comp you the highest status: Executive Platinum. So I think it's pretty safe what the FA did.