I understand that some of the same spirit is showing this week, that the passengers, the pilots, and the assortment serving as cabin crew display an exceptional appreciation of each other.
Where are all these party flights I keep hearing about? The ones where the passengers and crew have a fabulous time all the way to their destinations? It didn't happen on my trip, either the outbound on Saturday or the inbound on Sunday. The crew all started out in really good spirits but that was soon knocked out of us. Strangely, it is a route unsually known for being one of the nicest on the network. Also strangely, it had a much heavier load than normal, despite being on day 1 of the second strike. Yet, despite a full crew complement, full services and an early departure and arrival both ways, a certain section of people spent the whole journey complaining about anything they could find including the fact that the chicken meal had mushrooms in the sauce and they didn't like salmon, the person in front/behind had reclined their seat/turned their reading light on/kept moving around and even that we encountered turbulence on the inbound!
If I wasn't such a nice person, I'd wonder if maybe they had deliberately booked with BA or not accepted any of the other options during the strike so they could be "victims" and dine out on the stories of how they were stranded in distant lands, thanks to the horrible nasty cabin crew, with not even a drop of water to cool their parched throats. I'd also guess that they were actually quite disappointed to find that we all turned up for work and that they even got the normal service including hot meals throughout the aircraft. But obviously, I am a nice person so I don't suspect any of that.
I don't expect passengers to curtsey as we walk past (although a few flower petals sprinkled in our path would be nice
), but a bit of understanding would be good. We had a lot of young crew on that trip who were understandably nervous about breaking the strike and a few got off the aircraft wondering if they'd done the right thing.
So while I'm glad the atmosphere on many flights is good, please don't assume that's the way it is on all of them. To be honest, I'm getting a bit sick of hearing about it. And if you want to be a "victim", may I suggest you don't fly from LGW. Unless you don't like mushrooms and salmon of course....