A couple of months ago, I fell asleep on a Swiss long haul day flight and awoke to find all 3 blinds around me closed.

And the CC member had done it without waking me up.

Pretty good eh?

Tightslot,

You may never have heard a member of the cabin staff refer to us as 'animals', but I certainly have. On one specific flight from Geneva to LHR(admittedly some years ago), a fellow passenger with a large rucksack accidentally knocked an already seated passenger. The exact words of said cabin crew member was "Some of these animals should be in the hold with the baggage". This was overheard by three or four of us. I happen to know that at least two passengers wrote to BA as a result.

Tightslot,

A serious question for you as you are a Moderator. Why do the number of 'posts' credited to a contributor tend to vary and (usually) reduce over a period of time. I'm credited with something over 100. What happened to the other 500/600 which I used to have??

I have seen the way some passengers behave towards each other and towards airline crew (ground and airborne) and to call them animals is a grave insult ............. to our four-legged friends.

That's the ideal. In the real world, it often involves a quick march down the cabin followed by an "order" to shut the blinds. You can't seriously be unaware that refusing a ("legitimate") order from Cabin Crew is a criminal offence. There are plenty who know this and have no fear in getting the implication across.

@ TightSlot ... thanks for chipping in here.

Blinds. I think the blinds issue is a matter for the individual CC and the pax concerned. As you rightly say, a lot of pax want to nap [and a lot of the IFE rhymes with that ;)] so it's a fair call. By the time you finish, one cloud looks much like another anyway! And I have 'suffered' from other folks having blinds up, with a low sun, to the extent that I can't even see the IFE screen :sad:
Perhaps some CC haven't quite hacked the customer relations aspect on handling this one?

CC "Down-Time". Again, your summary of CC duties during a LH sector spell it out quite clearly. Apart from popping outside to clean the windows, I'm not sure what you're supposed to do between services either! ;) The water/juice round [which, I guess, also serves as an overall "everyone's OK"] is about all you could be expected to do. However, that may depend on the airline: I've just double-checked with the OH and she's equally unaware of that water/juice round happening very often on BA to IAD in Club.
But, equally, how many "half-hours" do you have left on an 8-hour sector once you've done the main tasks? Maybe 3 max?


I think, overall, the fact that pax are having a good whinge at the moment is because of uncertainty over future bookings with a certain carrier, and potential financial losses. Some of us are actually bloody cross: in my case, you knew that already :)

I like my blinds up even at night but understand that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of one, to quote Mr. Spock. I have in over 30 years of air travel only come accross 2 bad cabin crews, one on a charter flight to and from the Maldives, the other was on a loco. Both these airlines we have never used again.
I am sure if I sat down for a drink with cabin crew we would all have different views on everything but so would any group of friends, so we as passengers should not use use the cabin crews political views as ammunition againest them.
As for what cabin crew should do when not running round after us moaning slf (my words) then I think as a whole they have got it about right.

@ TightSlot ... absolutely right. The current [may I mention BA?] situation has got a lot of pax, especially J-class, inflamed. I was one of those, for which I have paid a severe penalty. I still hope that one day my ban might be lifted.

I think tempers have now cooled, as the High Court and general developments [if not actual progress] have become clearer. Sadly, for whatever reason and without a lot of logic, as you rightly say, many CC have become undeserved victims of the few.

Have I had any major issues with CC? Only on one sector with one airline - and almost every time. On other sectors with that airline, the service has been superb. I have insufficient experience of other airlines to comment constructively - I basically only regularly fly one airline on one route.

I have great sympathy for those who are going through the mill at the moment. I think a lot of pax are just venting their frustrations about potential disruption, costs, value for money, poor terminals at LHR and all the other irritations that make flying in J less than we expect. In the process, the high visibility of the BA dispute brings all those frustrations and irritations to a focus.


Your question, so far unanswered .. I don't know ;)
But I will tell you a tale, from the days when we flew MaxJet STN>IAD. OK, I know it was a low-density, all-J operation. But the CC were forever walking around, not just 'being there' but actually talking to us. They were forever there, not tucked away in the galley.

One CC, Davida [a lovely lady who we'd flown with a few times] bumped into us, with the rest of the Crew, on arrival land-side at STN [where things are efficient and you get your bags quickly!].
We BOTH got big hugs and "See you next time". :ok:

I know that's an extreme case, but it shows what COULD be done. I just never get anything close to that on my sector with my airline [and I have very limited choices].

Happy Mod-ing. :cool:

I always ask for a window seat so that I can look out of the window - even clouds can be interesting - and have found it very annoying to be asked to close the blind. To some extent this is clearly because the crew are obviously expecting one to do so.

It is the only reason I have ever found to deliberately avoid a particular airline.

It's only an internet forum ;)

I get it in the neck in my professional life for the actions of other professionals at the equivalent of BA in my industry.

Unfortunately, every industry has groups of people who are opinion formers in a negative way.

I've mentioned stereotyping and labelling on this forum in the past and this is what is happening here at the moment.

In general, most cabin crew do a good or better job in my experience, although some (and it has to be said UK carriers) seem to have a small amount of crew who are a little stroppy (whether this is personality or behaviourally driven is difficult to assess.)

Don't you want some more wine? NO - I have to drive at the other end!!
OK, have a bottle to enjoy later.

And you wonder why maxjet went bust !

Would you expect that from the CC on an overnight flight of 10- 12 hour duration? Do you want/ need that level of attention?

Very often, as a passenger, I just want to be left alone.

@ L337 ... yup, there's a difference between day and night. There's also a difference between pax gazing into space and working on a laptop, couples versus singletons etc etc. Which is possibly how CC make decisions on who to talk to, I'd guess ... not forgetting eye contact and a friendly smile [either from the pax or the CC].

I don't mind, so long as the option exists.

To attempt to answer the question ... FINE to be in the galley and chatting with each other - but if we walk in to ask for something, or even those that are nosing for a chat with you DON'T turn with a look on your face as if we have just walked into your private lounge. By all means find a polite way to not be drawn into conversation but don't pretend you have a meal service to prepare when I know it's four hours to lights on time. It happens very, very rarely but it has the capacity to irritate mightily.

In my work, which is in public, I am often at a venue standing and chatting with colleagues on the sidelines, whilst waiting for a particular sequence to be completed and for me to then be in direct action again. In this, I am the senior person (for the sake of this thread, like CSD, but I'm actually the Cpt!) and if someone comes up to ask me a question then I break off in mid-sentence to smile and answer them for as long as it takes. When they move on, I/we pick up the conversation without a break. This is standard for folks in my line of work and I shall be doing this again in two hours time.


On the windows front (or is that 'on the windows at the side' front? :rolleyes:) I have:

• chosen a window seat
• selected the row in the cabin
• chosen port or starboard side for this particular sector
• so I WILL keep the blind open!

If they get really pointy about it, I half close the blind. Often, I wake in the early hours to watch the sunrise and will peek through a 1/3 open blind to do so. I am always polite in this matter.

I feel the same. Unfortunately, with the greatest of respect to TightSlot, refusal is rarely an option. If the CC are determined that all blinds are closed, then that's what will happen. I wouldn't dream of kicking up a fuss, but even if I did I suspect it would be counter productive.

Up to a point, I can sympathise. If you're on an eastbound flight departing LHR late at night, then it's going to be getting light after 4-5 hours. Under those circumstances, fair enough. It's the daytime flights when the blinds are pulled almost as soon as you've been fed that bug me.

It's an interesting question. With 200 hundred people jammed like sardines into a metal tube do we have to try a little harder to get on with each other? I've spent a few flights with all the blinds down except one, and that single window which is pointed directly at the sun is quite honestly a nuisance. Do we have the (probably non) right to say "I got the windows seat so it's my blind" and if you don't like it then tough? Although i don't think cabin crew have lawful authority to make you close somebody elses nuisance blind I am always glad when they do. But then there have been some glorious views out there which it would be a shame to have missed. Not often of course, but it does happen, and maybe it is just tough on the others that they don't have a window seat when that happens.

TightSlot,

See my earlier post on page 8. Yet another example of total lack of respect for the SLF.

I'd be the first to admit that not all cabin crew are the same, far from it. But you should know, that it only takes one idiot to tar all cabin crew with the same brush.