Most flight attendants are kind or at least polite. But what do they really think of you?
What Flight Attendants Really Think Of You And Your Demands
A flight attendant posting under the handle “We Hate You” recently left the following comment on a story I wrote about flight attendants not serving pre-departure beverages to first class guests on American Airlines:
AA flight attendant here: I determined that most people are immature pieces of sh*t. Like 85% of the people feel so entitled it’s actually crazy (my own napkin stats). Had so many people think they can just sit in a pod business seat just because it was empty, had people go in the back galley (where we store all the drinks, food etc) to serve themselves a drink by opening and closing random compartment like they were at someone’s house for the first time. Had people get mad at me for being delayed because of either weather or mechanical. Majority of people are f*cking babies.
Tell us what you really think!
I highlight this not to say that it reflects the view of every flight attendant at American Airlines, but because after writing this blog for 15 years I’ve come to know many flight attendants who feel this way and (gasp) even some outside the USA. In fact, some even feel this way (double gasp) at Singapore Airlines!
I don’t mean to be unfair toward flight attendants because I know far too many wonderful ones. Many come to work each day thankful for their job and ready to serve their passengers. I am so thankful for those folks.
But don’t kid yourselves: many see this as just a job and after years on the job have become jaded and bitter. Knowing how a flight attendant may feel about you before your flight may help you to better approach every onboard interaction…
As always, treat everyone the way you want to be treated. This certainly applies to flight attendants.
Of course flyers should treat airline employees with respect…
on the other hand…
Most people flying have paid a handsome sum of money for their trip and they ARE entitled to the service they are paying for. A FA must have their limits and they shouldn’t feel bad telling a rude passenger “No”, but the ones paying for their seats deserve the best possible service.
@Moe … Best to choose an airline known for pleasant service . Japan Airlines comes to mind .
Do they fly to Milwaukee?
I’m polite to cabin crew but TBH, I don’t give a toss what they think of me, I’m not there to impress them or indeed anything else, they are there for my safety and to provide a service. End.
I too am polite and genuinely try to be a nice person, but I don’t care what they think of me.
They are doing a job, most employees who are customer facing don’t like their customers, that is just part of the system.
I can understand why Flight Attendants don’t like their customers, but it is what it is.
At what point complaining about the human character flaws of your clients makes one seem bitter,ugly,petty and deeply unhappy with life choices no one forced you to make?
I have usually found that a respectful approach is best with everyone encountered whilst traveling : FAs , pilots , airline ground staff , security , taxi service , hotel staff , shop staff , police , military , and other people .
Anywhere in the world it is wise to avoid nightclubs , sidewalk hustlers , or any place where there is drinking .
we should start a thread about what flyers think of flight attendants…especially flight attendants at US airliens.
Reading this AA flight attendant’s post was heartbreaking.
American leadership should spare no expense to legally detect who this person is. And if they really turn out to be an AA employee, then invite them in for a long, thorough interview and investigation by HR.
Just speculation, but this person is either a fairly new hire with bad habits and a terrible attitude or a super senior union member who is a cancer to the carrier and passengers alike. I rarely fly AA. Reading this post has reinforced my resolve. Granted, all airlines have their share of bad apples. But AA tends to gold medal this event the most.
Thank you for posting it Matthew. Deeply unpleasant to read, but important to know. Oh, and notice I didn’t say fire the employee. Good luck with that. #unions
“American leadership should spare no expense to legally detect who this person is. ”
NO. THAT’S CALLED A WITCH-HUNT
You may not agree with them but it’s their right to privacy and free speech which you threaten them with.
Reminds me of a documentary on British rail I watched about 20 years ago… a conductor said “This job would be alright if it were not for the passengers.”
If no passengers, no job.
Even at Spirit we realized, in the words of Ben Baldanza, you can only “poke someone in the eye with a stick so many times.” Only airline where now expectations are exceeded when I fly… thanked for my status, always inflight service, crew who seem to want to be at work. Maybe because they made a conscious effort to NOT hire anybody who had previously been a F/A at a legacy airline in the last decade?
This unfortunate trend started in large part… decades ago when air fares dipped below Greyhound’s/Continental’s fares
Interesting comment. Back in the 6o’s, Continental was the “business man’s” airline – really fancy. I found a 1960’s paper ticket from my late father Dallas to Denver for $49.00!!!!!! which was the same price I paid for an airline ticket on United (which bought Continental)this last year.
Frontier often sales this route at $19. You cannot even drive for that price! First Class on this route is often only $200 one way.
When you take $49 in 1960 and index it for inflation, it comes to $504.41 today!
We are living in an era of very cheap air travel.
Please don’t resort to using AI artwork for your articles. That double collar and freakishly long shoulder is the easy giveaway and it’s freakish and disturbing.
Besides, the dystopian AI artwork already seems to be a trademark of VFTW articles…
I think, in the states at least, many people don’t interact with the public much except in air travel. They have Uber, or they drive their car, they have an office where they interact with perhaps a dozen people or so. So when they’re in a tube where they’re trapped with 2 hundred people, they act squirrly.
FA’s do a job where they interact with those hundreds of people a day and in a service position. It may be mentally taxing and draining on them. Personally, I’m a balance of intervert/extrovert and I find it draining to interact with so many people for extended periods of time. I find it stimulating but then I need a break for a while.
The point being that it’s possible that FA’s can get emotionally burned out in their job and not even know it. I know FA’s get a lot of training on safety and such, but perhaps it would be useful to have for them ways to decompress from the effects of interacting and serving so many thousands of people a year including the impacts of the jerks even if they comprise only less than 5% of the population, not 85%.
This FA’s overestimation of the jerks at 85% indicates severe burnout. When I start travel, I strive to keep my spirit up so I’m extra nice to people, I say good day, hold open doors, and such, simply to keep good will going.
Maybe flight attendants will be ROBOTS like the one in the picture.
any service profession such as waiters, flight attendants, or even nurses must possess the capacity of understanding and compassion when working with people since you are dealing with human psychology and behavior.
Yes, I think this AA sky hostess should perhaps retire.
So that photo is what you think all flight attendants look like?
No, that’s the photo to get people to click.
Ah, got it. Click bait.
Given the vast majority of passengers on my flights don’t engage in the kind of behavior about which the flight attendant complains, I say she’s 100% wrong if she is talking about US airline flights’ passengers.
Thankfully most flight attendants don’t seem to have such a hostile opinion about passengers.
If anything, I have found US flight attendant attitude has seemed to get generally somewhat better the last two years than it was 10 or 20 years ago — but the power-tripping nuts are still around even as the chances to get complimentary peanuts on the flights are not what they used to be.
What a sad, pathetic miserable life this FA chooses to live. The job is a difficult one and requires extreme patience and professionalism under difficult circumstances. Fortunately most flights are relatively mundane and uneventful. This FA should definitely find other employment. Their time is up. I usually fly United and find that their cabin crew are usually quite professional, especially the former Continental Airlines crew. American seems like they have a cabin crew problem that will be difficult to fix
FAs love me. In fact I gave one some real service one night after a flight in a hotel room. I’m not saying if it was a male or female either 😉
Until robot servants are common, I imagine most human FA think of themselves and their jobs first, with pax being of secondary concern. I hope my flight today on Croatia Airlines from TIA to ZAG is not cancelled today, and I would be fine if there were only pilots and no FA. I prefer to dine beforehand at a lounge, and only need water on flights under 8 hours.
Flight attendants should be given 5 year contracts at an airline and when it expires that’s it. Being a flight attendant is supposed to be job for young people under 30 who are enthusiastic about the experience. It’s not meant to be a permanent job. People who have been flight attendants for 5 years at another airline should not be hired.
Ahem, I can throw a grenade into the room and make this observation:
Back in the 1950’s to 1960’s when this job came out, the majority of women were doing it for fun before they married and settled down typically by age 25 or so. My mother married at the age of 24 which was 1 year above average for the time. Women didn’t all become housewives who never worked. Generally, a woman who had 4 kids, like my mother, usually had their hands full for about 7 years until some of the kids went to elementary school and then they’d work part-time and later, full-time when the kids were all in school. This was the norm and I recall in the 1970’s to 1980’s that most people knew each other for a block or two and most people had families by the time they were in their late 20’s, at most.
Without going into a LONG analysis of why this is so, women increasingly worked longer hours and had children later or worked the same job until retirement. Well, at least back then. Thanks to a variety of factors, most people are lucky to stay in a job for more than 10 years now. The idea of a “starter job”, something fun such as an FA to travel and see the world, perhaps meet something, has become “quaint”. Listen, back in the 1980’s, I considered becoming an FA for that very reason. I’d have loved to have met my wife on someone else’s dime (ok, now half dollar). Oh, for the days when people thought about a job to MEET people including a spouse!
I loved the Internet when it came out, back when I had an ARPAnet account, and it was wonderful but I couldn’t have imagined the dystopian society we’d evolve into where people are both more social online, but less social offline than in the past. I felt LONELY in California similar to Ryan’s line in Up in the Air where he said he was “surrounded” by strangers.
For some, this modern society is wonderful and good for them. For others such as this FA, they may be asking themselves, what is going on with their life.
And you may ask yourself, “How do I work this?”
And you may ask yourself, “Where is that large automobile?”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful house”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful wife” — Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime
I suspect everyone in a service role (server, clerk, reseptionist, etc.) feels this way. No, it’s not 85%, and they know it. It just feels that way sometimes, because you remember the jerks. Good news is that if you act the way you should, you’ll stand out.
I have flown for at least 23 years with AA and I always try to be attentive and smile upon boarding. I also give the flight attendants and pilots $15.00 Starbucks gift cards to show my appreciation. Sad that this attendant feels this way as we are not all bad apples. Maybe they should rethink their job
I work at AA corp HQ. I understand many FAs have been in that job for years (sometimes decades) and are tired of it. This is why whenever I see someone giving me exceptional service, I try to note the person’s last name on the badge (without getting too creepy about it) and send “thank you points” on the company recognition program.
I’ve been very lucky.-39 years of regular travel ( AA, US Air, Nation’s Airlines, Spirit, Jet Blue, Alaskan) -never had a bad FA. All have been professional, helpful and courteous.