In my opinion both as flight crew and a very frequent full fare paying passenger; the real function of cabin staff is to ensure that as many of us as possible, including themselves, get to safety in an emergency. The drinks, food and so on are a valuable extra but actually the cabin staff are there to cater for the unmentionable occurence when their training and expertise will really be needed. I get extremely irritated when passengers abuse the cabin crew in whatever form that abuse might take. So too do plenty of other frequent travellers. Many of us are perfectly aware that the customer who sloshes back the booze or makes a nuisance of themselves is the one to watch out for if and when the mustard hits the ham sandwich.
Those of us who travel a lot, can usually suss out those cabin crew who will keep their heads when all around are loosing theirs. We expect them to be able to do so.
I was recently on a flight from Barbados to Philadelphia and we knew that the cabin crew, in spite of their age and experience, were woefully incapable of handling an emergency. Sure enough, a nasty situation arose, over the Bermuda triangle to boot, which didn't help morale much, and the cabin crew performed miserably. It really doesn't do when there are people groaning in the aisles with broken bones and impacted necks for the cabin crew to be nipping up and down the aircraft telling everyone that they, the cabin staff, will need to rub themselves up with Ben Gay on getting home or that the false teeth, implanted after a previous motor car accident, may be damaged -some of us were even showed the damned teeth - all this whilst the Captain was deciding whether to divert into DC. In fact, on this flight, if there had not been a couple of hostesses from another airline on board, matters might have become rather more lamentably hilarious.
So, at the end of the day, I think it is fair to say that cabin crew should be professional people with an attitude reflective of that ethos. Excuse the following statement please, but passengers do not like to feel that a cabin crew member is a silly little trolley dolly only in the job for the next exciting night stop. By the same token, passengers should never assume that such might be the case.
Oh yes, you will have no idea how stupid some people can be on an aircraft until you witness it for yourself. I don't suppose it's a terribly good idea to presuppose that passengers have any intelligence or air cred at all!
Good luck!
