A British Airways passenger flying within Europe complains that she’s bad at opening water bottles. British Airways will hand out small water bottles, and so she often asks whomever she’s traveling with to open them.
In a rant, she’s holding a Harrogate Spring Water bottle which British Airways stocks. And she notes that previously she’d asked a flight attendant to unscrew the bottle and they were helpful and friendly about it. But she flew to Switzerland, and when she returned she asked a flight attendant to help and they responded:
Sorry, what? …is that hard?
The flight attendant relented, unscrewed it, and offered “it’s not that hard.” But another passenger chimed in that yes, in fact, those bottles are difficult to open.
One Mile at a Time flags this and thinks that she should be “traveling with a reusable bottle that doesn’t have a cap that needs to be unscrewed” since she has trouble opening bottles.
Not to be a Karen, but I had some attitude from a BA air hostess last night. And I kind of want to get it off my chest. Like, I don’t know, I just found it really rude. If you’ve flown BA before, you know that they hand out these miniature water bottles with like three drops of water in them. You know, as like a complimentary bottle of water and sometimes like a snack, okay?
And I know these bottles are particularly hard to open. …So I asked the air hostess, this time no one was asleep in my row. So I asked her like, would you mind unscrewing the bottle please? And she looked at me like, sorry, what? And I was like, I thought maybe she didn’t hear, but she kind of gave a bit of an attitude. So I was like, do you mind unscrewing the bottle, please?
And she was like, is that hard? Like kind of like spoke to me as I was like a child. I don’t know. Like it was just so condescending. I just felt like shit. And I was so like too stunned to speak. The woman in the aisle seat was kind enough to like butt in and be like, yeah, they’re actually really difficult.
I struggle with those all the time. And she’s like, it’s not that hard and handed it back to me. …First of all, it’s not that hard for you to do it. If I’m asking you, if I’m asking you, it’s because I need you to help me. What if I broke my wrist? Like I was, I don’t know, doing rehab on my wrist and I couldn’t use my wrist. Okay. I know that’s not the case, but like she was just very judgmental and there was like no need for the attitude. Like I should have asked a passenger who probably would have been way nicer.
@michellejoseph__ i was too stunned to speak #ba #britishairways #flightattendants ♬ original sound – michelle joseph
This woman’s rant attracted a counter-rant all of its own, from an ‘anti-influencers’ who goes off on ranting influencers. He frames it as entitlement, arguing it’s not cabin crew’s job while responsible for safety for 150 people to ensure a 30-year old can hydrate, and mocks the half-finished bottle prop.
Oh my God, you guys, I was on an airplane and I was literally shaking, but not from the turbulence. I’m sorry, but how is it the responsibility of the flight attendant who is looking after the safety of 150 people? to make sure that a 30-year-old adult can find an adequate source of hydration. But the icing on the cake is her waving around her half-finished water bottle from the prior night’s flight, as if that’s going to help her case. You guys ask me why I stopped doing influencer parodies. I could never top this.
It seems like the ask for help is pretty minor – just to twist a cap – and the decent thing to do is to offer assistance. The dispute here is really about tone and dignity. She was met with contempt. But she’s flying British Airways so yeah.
And even if most people can open the bottle, the correct response is to assume there may be a limitation (injury, arthritis, neuropathy?) and just help without snarky commentary.
Flight attendants may be there for your safety, but they’re also there to provide service. Without the safety regulations, many airlines would staff fewer flight attendants. But they do have service responsibilities. Opening a bottle for someone does not present any conflict with safety unless it’s during a critical phase of flight. And her complaint is condescension – no safety duty requires it.
British Airways, though, is known for issues with water. They even tried removing water from long haul coach and tried to ban flight attendants from drinking water, too.
Many people have disabilities that makes twisting things open challenging for them, so, in fact, for that particular passenger it probably *IS* that hard! Opening people’s water bottles is no different than any other reasonable accommodation.
And it’s the airline that’s trying to reduce service requirements by handing out water bottles instead of doing a beverage service, so no, I don’t think it’s on the passenger to bring their own water bottle. Not like they can fill it after security without…. buying a water bottle. (I know some places have water refill stations.) If the flight attendant doesn’t want to open the water bottle, are they going to go back to the galley to pour a glass of water instead?
I always though that “BA” stood for “Best Avoided|”. Was I wrong?
I don’t find the passenger’s request strange. I have had water bottles that were difficult to open and my hands are stronger than a lot of others. I have also found it strange that a lot of flight attendants insist on opening a can of soda instead of handing it over still closed and much less likely to spill. I do find it annoying that others insist on mocking her.
The poster is illiterate. I quickly scanned her scree and think I counted 20 uses of the word “like,” of which 19 are unnecessary. Like, lady, type away and like then globally remove all of the “likes.”
Dislike.
Years of jet-engine-level noise left many British Airways flight attendants with hearing worse than a karaoke machine at 2 a.m. So when a man in the next row politely asked a flight attendant to unscrew his water bottle, she misheard him and thought he was requesting sex at 30,000 feet. “Would you mind screwing it open?” he asked. Without missing a beat, she winked and shot back, “Trust me, it’s not that hard.”
why are all these silly things happening on western airlines? Attitude of the staff who have all the authority and seemingly no real responsibility to customers? Clearly customer is no longer king? he is only a sucker nowadays
The Harrogate bottles ARE harder to open than most! Something I’ve noticed several times when traveling to the UK.
Some of us have arthritis in our hands which nake opening bottles difficult to impossible. Asking for assistance should be a given. The flight attendants I know would be happy to assist as long as you add, When you have a minute.
Some of your finest witticisms, @Ken A!