Service with a...smile?

dasleben

dasleben

That's just, like, your opinion, man
It's gotten to the point that I outright loathe deadheading on American carriers. I had a long deadhead home from overseas on Airways today, so I was naturally in my "alternate" uniform (i.e., jeans and t-shirt); I was just a regular passenger to them. On a 9 hour leg, we got a grand total of two beverage services (hours 1 and 8); the rest of the time, the FAs sat in the aft galley complaining about whatever FAs complain about.

So, around hour 5, I was getting a little parched. Everyone else was getting up and making their way to the aft galley to get their drinks themselves, but I'm lazy. Hit the button. Ding. One of the FAs, looking visibly annoyed, appeared out of the aft galley.

"Yes?"
"Hi, any chance I could grab a ginger ale?"

No response. Just waltzes back to the aft galley, grabs my drink, and sets it down rather hard on my little tray. Of course, no ice. "Thanks," I say. Again, no response, but this time the annoyance was palpable: The look she shot me was that of "If you want another, you better come get it yourself." Apparently, hours 2 through 7 for FAs on Airways is break time. Must be in their contract or something.

What the hell ever happened to real customer service in this country? Maybe I'm spoiled from regularly riding on foreign airlines (Middle Eastern airlines are the best), but a simple request for a drink is enough to get me the stink eye? No wonder these airlines file for bankruptcy every 3 years!
 
Most people in this country nowadays have poor work ethic. Doing your job means being there from the beginning of when you need to be there until you're allowed to go home. It doesn't have anything to do with what you actually accomplish while you're there. It always amazed me that executives at Delta don't walk through C and D concourse in ATL and simply be ashamed of what their product is. But to them running a business is all about balance sheets.

I think if they treated their employees well and hired the right kind of people, things would change quickly.

At my job, I hate when the first thing a flight attendant asks of every leg is "how many miles is it?" because they are hoping they don't have to serve. You don't have to be a Singapore Airlines style robot of a flight attendant. Just be friendly, respectful, and be proud of the job you do and people will have a good experience. When I'm standing at the door, I can always tell the quality of our flight attendant by the way the passengers act on the way out. Except going into out of NY. Those people are always pissed off.
 
Screaming_Emu said:
It always amazed me that executives at Delta don't walk through C and D concourse in ATL and simply be ashamed of what their product is. But to them running a business is all about balance sheets.
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I couldn't agree more. I always think "Man, if I was CEO and I watched this go down...heads would roll." But, these people still have jobs.
 
This is why I always fly Jetblue when I can. I'll pay more if I have to, just to get their service (I know this wasn't an option for you since you were deadheading anyways). It's pathetic how bad service is on board these airlines, but at the same time, can you blame them? I'm always courteous to the FAs if I'm airlining, however it's appalling at how disrespectful passengers can be. While I'm not defending bad service by any means, I can understand that if I was used to a bunch of miserable people treating me like crap every day, I probably wouldn't be able to give my 100% either.
 
Ziggyfuzz said:
Airways is one of the worst
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Who are we kidding they are all the worst. The CEO's don't care because they are still cashing the checks and passengers are still buying tickets. Anyway, business as usual.

It's not the going to work part that annoys me, it's the waiting 8 hours to go home.
 
Roger said:
;)
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Ha! To be honest, I haven't flown Air Ex. Being able to ride the ferry for free means I have not flown to Juneau in years. I hear AirEx has great pilots and mechanics. But the inflight service is lacking. :)
 
My idea of good customer service: that lady that has worked at the Pop Eyes in ATL (can't remember the concourse) for atleast the past few years that always greets her customers with a, "Whatchyu want baby?"
 
Personally I like Fedex. Consistently grumpy crews, free water before takeoff, and a guided tour out of the cargo area. No flight attendants anywhere.
 
Mark815 said:
This is why I always fly Jetblue when I can. I'll pay more if I have to, just to get their service (I know this wasn't an option for you since you were deadheading anyways). It's pathetic how bad service is on board these airlines, but at the same time, can you blame them? I'm always courteous to the FAs if I'm airlining, however it's appalling at how disrespectful passengers can be. While I'm not defending bad service by any means, I can understand that if I was used to a bunch of miserable people treating me like crap every day, I probably wouldn't be able to give my 100% either.
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Same can be said for just about every customer service worker. While there is never an excuse to be downright rude, I can't say I'd want to be the guy that has to listen to people belittle them all day because they can't return their Target pillow case without a receipt. I work in food/bev which is quite a bit better than retail or the airlines in terms of customer/employee relations, but I still see it all.
 
I've had one of my worst flying experience as a full paying customer on a CDG-ORD flight in business class with AA. It was like flying Aeroflot in the 70's, minus the vodka. From this day on I chose to boycott US carriers abroad.
 
I was on the Aer Lingus flight between Madrid and Dulles and couple weeks ago and got stuck in the back. Every hour or so, after the meal service, they'd bring the drink cart around and couldn't have been nicer about it. Pretty much the total opposite of that airways flight.

Kinda strange, US carrier route, foreign operator, US crew.
 
This really annoys me as someone who has been trying to become a flight attendant for about two years. I know I would actually give a crap and try to be a decent representative of the company, yet every time people with more "customer service" experience than me get the job and absolutely bomb at it. I have to laugh when I go to an interview and see all of these people trying to show how "people oriented" and "customer service oriented" they are...then fly the same airline home and observe downright surly flight attendants. So much for experience being an indicator of future success. In recent years, the job of flight attendant has evolved from customer service AND safety to a primarily regulatory compliance/safety role BUT that doesn't mean customer service should go out the window.
 
jynxyjoe said:
Personally I like Fedex. Consistently grumpy crews, free water before takeoff, and a guided tour out of the cargo area. No flight attendants anywhere.
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I don't know what you are talking about! Fed Ex guys rock! I usually ask if I can sit up front. Talk to them about the job and land a few more contacts.... Great group of guys.


That aside, JB and SW are the absolute best....
 
Pilotforhire587 said:
I don't know what you are talking about! Fed Ex guys rock! I usually ask if I can sit up front. Talk to them about the job and land a few more contacts.... Great group of guys.
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Exactly what I do.. If I flexible plans on personal travel, I'll take FedEx just because. Great guys and fun conversations up front.
 
scramjet said:
This really annoys me as someone who has been trying to become a flight attendant for about two years. I know I would actually give a crap and try to be a decent representative of the company, yet every time people with more "customer service" experience than me get the job and absolutely bomb at it. I have to laugh when I go to an interview and see all of these people trying to show how "people oriented" and "customer service oriented" they are...then fly the same airline home and observe downright surly flight attendants. So much for experience being an indicator of future success. In recent years, the job of flight attendant has evolved from customer service AND safety to a primarily regulatory compliance/safety role BUT that doesn't mean customer service should go out the window.
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You also must understand that (at least the airlines we service) give their flight attendants no tools to make anything better. They are given just enough to BE regulatory compliance/safety personnel. They have to be service friendly by shear force of will, and lasts for about 2 years on average. After that...

Well anyway, either motivate the flight attendants and give them some tools (other than free drinks) to service the customers or allow them to work only two years and bring in new ones.

Now it would cost some money, but... we could do things like:
-pass along gate information for destination
-collect some of the magazines and leave them on the plane for the next customers (wouldn't even have to buy news ones)
-meals/hot towels/all the things we are missing
-extra FA onboard
-limit their working times and increase pay. Fa's at my airline are generally AFB about 400 hours a month, that's insane. They are by definition overworked and underpaid and overstressed.
-I've seen FA's fired at my airline for doing the job exactly as they've been told to do it. The company treats them as disposable, that's a hard thing for any employee to get over.
-real frequent fliers should be getting real rewards every flight, I wouldn't even mind thanking them for flying personally even though it isn't like I'm really an employee of who they bought the ticket for.


Basically the plan is to beat them until moral improves. It's not working. It's easier to put all the blame on the FA's than management to look at themselves and ask what they could do to make it better. Let's face it though, the customers care for about 15 minutes after the flight so they can complain to the gate agent and get 15-30k more miles as a freebie. Then they come right back.

I see it in my own business, I forever have customers crying, really pining for one major thing, however they keep buying what we offer and wouldn't pay the costs required to change what they want changed. When customers change in enough numbers to rationalize our change in this industry (or mine) we will do it. Hell, even my old man is back to flying United after he swore them off for SWA... of course United's FFP is better than SWA in many respects and his expectations are so low now (thanks to SWA) he doesn't rationalize paying the extra 50-100 bucks for the Southwest experience. He couldn't stand the service at United so he went to SWA were there was no service but there was a smile, now the smile costs more and United is just giving no service instead of bad service, and they've given back some neato perks for the FF's.

Humanity doesn't always want what it says it wants. In fact, I would go so far as to say humanity rarely wants what it says it wants. This is why any industry gives a lot of decisions over to the bean counters, if a customer complains about wanting something special but doesn't actually buy it when offered (or does in such small numbers it's not worth it), why would we respond to it? My partner and I sometimes say, "you know what, we will do it when it costs us sales," and I think that's the reality of the airline industry too.

The good news is, business will have to shift it's feet soon. Expecting the customers to begrudgingly hand us their money time and time again is not a long term business plan. Something will happen to change the industry relatively soon, some internal or external force, and companies will have to adapt. 10 years after that another shift will occur. Then another. Then another. The I'll retire and be on my sailboat and I won't even see a plane unless it's a drug runner (I'll wave and thank them quietly) flying low over the water, but I'll still log into JC to see what is going on with spaceflight and flying cars.
 
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