News and notes from around the interweb:
- On the matter of schedule creep
- Delta says they offered a private option to the woman, that power outlets in the lavatories aren’t meant to support medical devices (bringing a device on board, power it yourself), and no – coach passengers can’t move up to business class for privacy. Sounds about right.
Hey @delta the outlets in the bathroom not working so can’t pump except at my seat in front of strangers. Tried alternative but you won’t let me sit in my in laws‘ first class seat to do it privately
— Alix Anfang (@alixanfang) May 29, 2019
- Southwest has eliminated paper ticket jackets they were really still giving those out until now?
- How many people think it’s a good idea to slap an employee at the gate and then rush the jet bridge? Spirit Airlines, natch. (The employee wasn’t obviously right here, but…)
@SpiritAirlines your worker has no customer service and I’m sad I didn’t get the first part on camera where the worker told everyone in line WHAT YALL DONT LISTEN smh side had some nerve thinking he was going to talk to people any type of way smh pic.twitter.com/cGjTUdaKP3
— Rissriss2x (@GUAPPESO) May 22, 2019
- The making of Delta’s first Airbus A330neo.
- The acceptance percentage is low but are they hiring the right people and creating the right incentives for the ones they do bring on board?
All companies are having problems hiring and retaining people. While you come in contact with more flight attendants, it just seems focused for you. But, it is problem everywhere.
I know the breast-pumping woman thinks everyone will be sympathetic to her plight, but most folks aren’t. It does sound callous, but if you have unusual needs, you do need to take reasonable steps to take care of yourself. And do we really want to have somebody taking up a lav for an extended period of time to pump (or use some other type of medical device)? That would inconvenience more than a dozen people, easy.
I do wonder why USA flight attendants aren’t “better” even though the airlines have a basically unlimited pool of applicants to select from. Of course, you could say the same thing about some of our elite universities. 🙂 For the flight attendants, I think it’s mostly unionization and fatigue (the job gets old pretty fast).
Wow, real mismatch between the headline and content (actually, there is no content) here. Where is the data to support that there are “better” applicants in the pool? No, it is not likely that someone is choosing between Harvard Law and being an FA on AA. That being said, controlling for factors omnipresent in the US airline market (unionization, service culture, wage standards) and the company (AA focus on D0 over customer experience, etc.), I would say that the experience of myself and most people I speak with is that the newly hired FAs are almost always hard working, eager, and professional.
New hire FAs are great. Reliable and friendly. Sure, they might not be the most experienced to handle things like passenger disputes over who gets the last meal. But these are edge cases and not important. The important thing is the new FAs aren’t tenured enough to be as jaded as (some) senior FAs.
All service problems I’ve ever had, or heard of others having, are attributable to senior FAs who no longer care about polite or good service.
To be sure: most senior FAs are great. But some are not. And among the pool of bad FAs, all are senior.
I know it is sophomoric of me or whatever, but I gotta admit I got hype off that Spirit video!
Yes, Jason. Yes. I’m 1 hour removed from a 10.5 hour MAD-DFW flight that sat in MAD for an extra 90 minutes pre-takeoff and 30 at DFW after landing. The flight attendants were ancient and, as always when ancient, disinterested, perfunctory, disengaged and seemingly miserable. Sorry, I guess I’m ageist, but every 68 year old attendant who looks 86 and exudes disdain turns out to be just that.
@Jason – The flip side of your argument is to ask what the airlines do to turn eager, personable, motivated people completely around? That’s no small task.
Gary talks at length about what the big US airlines do to devalue earned miles, to devalue status earned by frequent flyers (customers) , to make excuses for the way they serve customers (weather delay thousands of miles away as the excuse for poor service)….and yet people here call out the attitude of the air crews working for those same companies (employees who have seen their employer screw over the customers over and over and over) ????
If you worked for a company who over and over screwed the customer what would your attitude be?
The problem for FA’s is spending 10 years on reserve before they start actually working. It starts out as a part time job for most. If something better comes along, you take it. Thus, adverse selection in action.
Actually, I am not thrilled an airline I’ve been wanting to be employed with rejected me the same day one of their employees was filmed drunk on the job. It frustrates me as I would NOT do something reckless like that on the job and I keep getting turned down despite an extensive background in customer service. These companies DO have good candidates, they’re just dismissing them.