Well, I have to agree with many of the things written here. I work for Etihad Airways.
Sometimes u have amazing crew, sometimes u have real assholes whose behaviour is not provoked by pax, but it's their attitude that causes problems (I'm the smartest, I'm the senior, I'm from this/that country .... billions of stupid reasons).
On the other hand, some pax can be extremly rude to the crew, which than causes a bad response from the crew and leads to generalization of all the pax u have on a certain flight!
So far, I have realized that the worse pax r the one for whom somebody payed the ticket (especially in 1st and business class). Recently I had a flight where few pax were upgraded from economy to business, and they were behaving like they own the aircraft and the whole company!
So, can u imagine what was the crew response? I guess u can ...
Also, a friend of mine had a pax on Beirut flight who was real pain in the ass. So, he finally couldn't stand it anymore, came to her, and in quite sharp tone explained few things
After that she became the sweetest pax on board! Why does it have to be this way? Violence causes violence!
But there is no easy solution to this, it can be put in two advices:
1. for the crew: put your attitudes down a little bit
2. for the pax: respect us and u will get respect
Happy flying!