What I'd like to know is, why can't the Captain, Co-pilot and flight engineer help out and push the trolleys up and down serving tea and coffee on a long haul flight ?
OK, as most peepl no, we don't carry a FE these days.
When I was a first officer on the B747-400 I went back to fix broken lavatories (messy), IFE, electric seats (my nice manager said I was 'proactive' - never heard the term before). I am, amongst other things, an ex marine engineer so that's what one does.
Whether I could handle an angry (possibly with good reason from pre boarding irritations) passenger is another matter. I have always preferred to leave that to the professionals until called to 'read the riot act' which only happened once and, with hindsight which is wonderful, we could have avoided that.
I'd just love to put your source in an 'automatic' aeroplane of his (surely not a 'her' with that attitude) choice and say "OK here we are at 35,000 feet inbound to DXB, gin clear day, totally undemanding, you land it."
OTOH he can have Kai Tak 13, 200/25G35 2000 8/600