United brought back it’s “Fly the Friendly Skies” slogan, but redefined it to mean that their features likes routes and seats – rather than people – are friendly.
Alaska produced a video showing their people being friendly and helpful, and indeed in my experience their people generally are. Their flight attendants aren’t Singapore’s or ANA’s. But relative to North American standards they’re quite good.
This appears to be a six year old video, but it was new to me, and thanks to Roger K. for sending it along.
The video is set not to allow embedding but you can view it here.
I was surprised to see a flight attendant in the video actually helping a passenger get their carryon bag out of an overhead bin. Shocking. The scenes are as much their people helping each other as helping customers.
I don’t remember the last time I saw a crew member helping a passenger while not working a flight; in the video one helps a pregnant woman with a stroller get her bags onto the Seattle airport train. I was vexed about one thing in this scene though. She has a stroller but she has no baby. She’s very pregnant. Is this woman rolling the stroller in case she gives birth in the airport??
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Check out Alaska’s ‘North of Expected’ commercials! They are hilarious and echo the same message as the video you posted here.
I remember having a flight delayed for something mechanical when I was in grad school, and it was going to be just about 3 hours late. I was young and had very little money and was just starting to become aware of the fact that you can sometimes get compensation from the airlines in times like this. I believe it was northwest airlines, and I was asking the gate agent (I think she was a gate agent, but they were away from the desk and on their way to being off duty) about a meal voucher or something along those lines. I implied that I had no money and she took actual cash out of her own wallet to give to me to buy a sandwich. I did not take it and instead found my way to the customer service desk on the off chance of them giving me a meal voucher (heck, I had 3 hours to kill), and they did. It still amazes me to think back to this woman offering me her own money because her airline had delayed my flight. Way beyond the call of duty.
AS is indeed special. And they are even more so within Alaska. Its been almost 10 years now, but I recall being in F on a 41 mile Gustavus-Juneau flight. The Glacier Bay National Park Lodge refused to cook up the halibut I had caught earlier in the day, so I was trying to schlep 2 pounds of halibut back to DC without it going bad. I inquired of the FA is I could place it in her chiller. Instead of placing it in her chiller, she voluntarily fired up the convection oven, placed the helibut in 4 x 8 pans, assed lemons from the drink cart and served me awesome halibut 40 minutes later when we landed in Juneau.
I can only imagine that FA violated a fistful of rules, but this was well “North of Expected”
I dare anyone to ask a grouchy dragon on UA to do that.
Alaska definitely has a different culture than the larger USA airlines. Like on one of my last Alaska flights, I saw a female flight attendant “just chatting” with an elderly male coach passenger. Kind of the way a family member might make sure that grandpa was OK and had whatever he needed. When was the last time, for example, you saw a United flight attendant take an interest in a passenger as a human being? It’s pretty darn rare.
That said, it does seem difficult for a mega-USA airline to retain this human touch. Too many flights, too many people, I suppose.
“I was surprised to see a flight attendant in the video actually helping a passenger get their carryon bag out of an overhead bin.”
This happens on more than half my flights on Southwest Airlines. The FA’s are very motivated to get the flight off the gate on time, and gate-checking any bag will cause a delay.
I know you are not a fan of Delta, but I also frequently see them helping people with their carry-on bags, seating arrangements, and other little things (like voluntarily offering “wing” pins or better snacks from first class to young children). Especially during the on/off-boarding process, this culture benefits DL because they can turn the plane quicker. Of the major US airlines, I think DL and AS flight attendants are a notch above the rest.
Alaska is the real deal!
I routinely see AS flight attendants and even off duty pilots help passengers on flights. The effect is infectious. I help other passengers and am universally thanked by the crew for doing so. The result is an AS flight is often like a nice small town. Everyone is nice to everybody else.
But here’s probably the best example I’ve got of why AS deserves to do well. When I posted a question to Flyertalk about a flight that was delayed and Apology Packets weren’t distributed a flight attendant PM’ed me offering to send some.
Imagine that an employee monitoring FT and reaching out to a customer on their on their own time. Now that is the way to run a business. Kudos to both the line employees and management for setting a tone that encourages this kind of thinking.
If they can just keep on doing what they’re doing, these guys have every reason to be confident in the future of their business.
I am running out of credit cards to apply for. I figure the only way to be able to build up my bonus miles is to cancel 2 of my cards right now so I can wait 1 year, 18 months or 2 years so I can apply again for the same card. Those cards would be Aadvantage Citi that was activated on 11/08/2011 and Delta SkyMiles AMEX activated on 06/18/2012. The Delta was originally a Gold Delta SkyMiles Card but before the annual fee I changed it to the Blue Card with no fee. What problems do you forsee if I cancel these cards?
Thanks, Stephen