Dear Steemians and Guests,
We live in an age where civilization on Mars is considered almost a reality, the Elon Musk legacy itself proves it a greater possibility. It’s the age where vehicles fueled on fossils is considered banned and air travel is considered the most economical and time saving. Yet our mind sets... How civilized we are as soon as we step in to an aircraft? I used to think that people had an inbuilt chip in their brains to trigger to be “RUDE MODE AND GET ALL THE ATTENTION IN THE WORLD” as soon as they start boarding the aircraft.
THE ULTIMATE BATTLE
THE RUDE VS NEUTRAL VS THE KIND PASSENGER
WHO WINS????
Being an air hostess for 9 years and 10 months I can relate to a thousands of stories which comes in pretty, ugly, sour, war like, mishandled, deported, and the list keeps on growing. Before we begin to understand the logic behind people behaving oddly and treating cabin crew differently and vise versa let me put the picture before you in simple terms.
How passengers feel like:
How crew feels like:
As far as we remember the tantrums between crew and passengers, this has been the case for most airlines. Whom to be blamed? Passenger, crew or the management?
To answer the question “who wins” don’t we have to check both the sides of the coin? Evaluate the different circumstances in different airlines but the same passenger. On a typical long haul flight about 10 hours long, how many times would you press the call bell to get the attention of a crew member or rather walk up to the galley to get the attention and ask for a glass of water or a snack? How many times the same set of passengers get more than the required attention and end up eating and drinking in excess compared to a neutral set of passengers? Whom do you think the crew dread the most to decline a request; to the rude? Neutral? Or the kind?
Have you heard that there is crew who fly from Colombo to London without having their meal, by simply having a juice or water……..???? They even give their crew meals to passengers who are adamant on having their choice of meal on the menu regardless of the choice running short.
From the passengers point of view he thinks that what he has paid for the seat should be plucked in during the flight. When we sit on that passenger seat its seldom that we think part of it goes to fuel, aircraft maintenance, overheads, staff wages, airport tariffs, aerobridge surcharges and of course food.
The rude passenger
He will ring the call bell at least 45 to 50 times, shouts at crew, disturbs the other passengers and try to influence them telling the crew is doing a sodding job, gets more than the stipulated quarter of alcohol and demands for extra food, demands for the choice of meal on the menu, asks for cashew from business class, asks for all sorts of things from upper classes except the class he is travelling on, never appreciates the fact that he is consuming someone else’s quota as well.
The neutral passenger
He will only press the call bell when he is parched, willing to shift the choice if the meal choice has run short, never try to band with other passengers and say the crew is doing a sodding job. This is the guy who gets neglected. Because he never explicitly bothers crew. Never write a complaint or whenever the crew passes by would never say that he knows so and so from the management and try to be important. His quota will be consumed by the rude passenger eventually. The question of being an ethical passenger on-board is a huge fact we neglect very easily. Do you think being rude is smart and being neutral is dumb? I have seen all the sides of the coin and have seen how it flips and flops too.
The kind passenger
This is the type that we call “the smooth operators”. They can be kind but very dangerous. They are the type that will smile with you all the time, never troubles the crew, walk up to galley and chat with crew, compliment the crew all the time, very politely gets all demands satisfied, yet last minute when the captain makes the announcement for the crew to be seated they will ask for a glass of water. IF you don’t give it then hell falls down on you; they will write to the top management saying they were not looked after, didn’t get the meal choice, a big fat lie wanting to sue the crew and asking for compensation and free loyalty miles and tickets.
Who do you think have won the battle? It’s a never ending questionnaire, how would you determine who is lying and who is honestly defending his job?
Do you know the times a crew would report a harassment against the crew is far lesser than a passenger writing to customer service for a glass of water dispute and get compensation is higher?
The same unruly rude passenger being 100% trouble maker to Asian crew is higher than him being nice and bubbly to European crew. I often thought maybe it’s the skin colour that does the magic, but no, it’s the rules and regulations in place to safeguard the crew as well as the passengers. With the cultural differences people treat people differently. An aircraft is the best place to experience that. Being cabin crew I say this with a heavy heart.
On the other hand there is this situation as well. The crew harassing the passengers. Not being polite enough, not being aware of the product and not being able to provide the passengers with the most basic information, often mishandled, occasionally shouted at, and again the list could be a long one. Air travel is a love-hate relationship between crew and passengers that will never be resolved without murdering once conscious or character. Just imagine we trying to board SPACE-X PROJECT CAPSULE TO GO TO MARS AND WE THROW THESE DRAMAS ON-BOARD!
There are rules and regulations set by IATA ( International Air Transport Association ) and other recognized bodies to protect passengers and crew. Yet we are unable to come to peaceful grounds every time we fly. Lets just hope space-x project will have a sub project to identify the perfect passengers and crew combo to be on board to go to MARS!
Dedicated to all Cabin Crew in the World and for all the Air travellers
***Happy Flying***