This is a very interesting topic.
It is clear from comments on this topic and some others, that certain airline staff firmly believe that flying passengers may be quite legitimately treated like sh*te, as it is the passengers fault because the low cost airlines have become successful etc....so effectively if you are flying in economy tough luck. Dont expect staff to be courteous, or helpful in the slightest. Oh, and by the way, its quite OK for staff to treat you this way, apparently.
Then, and this is the bit that cracks me up, these very same airline staff come on this site and whinge about how passengers are becoming less friendly and how their job is awful, and so on. I mean, come on, what planet do you people live on? Treat your customers like sh*t and they will reciprocate. It is the same in all service industries. Wise up.
Recently I had first hand experience of a member of staff from the worlds favourite airline, where there were no queues, and no real pressure, and where i made polite reasonable requests/questions (simple trivial things not requiring financial or any real staff input), only to be met with a completely 'couldn't give a sh*t attitude by the staff member. To be fair to BA, usually the staff are good, but, as someone who really depends upon airlines, i really hope this 'attitude' does not become the norm in the aviation world.
As regards the passengers being to blame for the demise of standards, i do not agree at all. Many companies simply have policies, whereby the cheapest flight is always selected. Is this because the 'traditional' airlines fail to differentiate their product adequately to the people who make policy decisions?
I think the people who frequent this site who blame the punters for the standard of service they get should consider another service sector, hotels. Now in the UK there are many budget chains (travel inn etc..) who compete for business with what might be described as the 'traditional' hotels or 'legacy' hotels. But here is the difference, the non budget hotels are experts at differentiating the product or service they offer. When I check in to a 4 star big hotel chain, I dont expect poor treatment just because there is a budget hotel next door. In fact usually quite the opposite happens, the 4 star works even harder to demonstrate why it is worth staying in their rooms rather than the budget chains. Maybe the dimwits of the aviation industry I described at the start of this posting could learn something from that.
I think some people in the airlines use all of this on a personal level merely as an excuse to be sloppy in their work. Unfortunately, they do untold damage to the reputations of the majority hard working staff who do care