Jetconnect...a JetStar prototype
>>Sorry guys, but you work in a Service Industry capacity
EXCUSE ME?
I actually thought that we Flight Attendants, like Pilots, worked in a Flight Safety capacity. How our marketing department chooses to differentiate us to the customer is another matter.
Did you notice how many Flight Attendants were in the cabin? Was it an all economy config? Which under NZ regs means there would have been a minimum crew of THREE working in the cabin. Deliver a meal and bar, a chat, recover, make duty free sales, look after the cockpit team, and prepare the aircraft for the return sector. Did you notice that there would have been no inflight rest area for that cabin crew - who may have been working their SIXTH DAY STRAIGHT of a flight duty time which is the same length as a long haul flight time?
If you are in fact a pilot yourself, don't you attempt to anticipate turbulence and put the seat belt sign on BEFORE it gets there? And liase with the Cabin Safety Professionals about making a precautioinary p.a to the customers? That's called CRM.
I make no excuses for poor service or lazy crew, there is always time to complete a service - bar turbulence or medicals - it's only the level of the challenge that changes. However, if you pay peanuts for your airfare you will get monkies to serve you. Most of the time though, you will get Cabin Safety Professionals who are there out of pure passion and professionalism, and whose exploited passion is subsidising your family holiday.
What more do you want when someone is being paid on or slightly under a net AUD$24-30K a year - with no career progression opportunity past that wage point?
You get what you pay for. Pay slave wages, with slave-like employment conditions and the service you describe is increasingly what you will get.
Want more, pay more. Don't want it, don't buy it.