Looking for Friendly Skies? Stay on the Ground
Source: Media Article
Date: Aug 23, 2005
Thanks Jonathon for sending this one in!
Source: New York Times
Author: Chris Elliott
SKIP BOWMAN didn't see it coming. Otherwise he would have raised his hands to ward off the impact, or at least ducked.
Mr. Bowman, a composer and musician from Portland, Ore., had boarded a
flight home from Houston recently and noticed his seat did not have a
pillow. So he asked a flight attendant for one.
She instructed him to swipe it from another seat. That didn't seem
right to him. "Then she grabbed a pillow herself," he recalled. "And
she threw it at me."
Things are getting a little tense on commercial flights these days. And
no wonder. As the busiest summer in the history of commercial aviation
winds down, many crew members have reached a breaking point.
Overworked, underappreciated, worried about job security as one airline
after another struggles to avoid bankruptcy, they are showing an
emotional side that is taking passengers like Mr. Bowman aback.
"Airlines are constantly making work more stressful for the flight
attendant with increased duty time, inadequate rest periods, and
understaffed flights," said Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the
46,000-member Association of Flight Attendants.
While no one keeps track of the number of thrown pillows or rude
comments from flight attendants, plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests
that their mood is darker than it has ever been. Several months ago, I
was flying from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Dallas with my infant son.
When I asked a purser to point me to a restroom with a changing
station, she just rolled her eyes.
"I wouldn't know," she sniffed. "I don't do babies."
Such an exchange would have been unthinkable before airline
deregulation. Now, passengers like me who are scolded by an airline
employee almost feel lucky that they aren't also escorted from the
plane and thrown into a security force holding cell.
"When flight attendants have nothing to be happy about, they stop
caring," said James Wysong, a flight attendant and author of the book
"Air Travel Tales From the Flight Crew: The Plane Truth at 35,000
Feet," writing under the wryly chosen pseudonym A. Frank Steward. He
cites recent cuts in pay and benefits as the main reasons his
colleagues have turned hostile. "An airline employee's job
dissatisfaction is passed on to the consumer," Mr. Wysong said. "You
can hardly kick someone in the posterior and expect them to pass on a
smile."
Another flight attendant, Sharon Wingler, described this summer as "the
perfect storm" for her profession. "We've all taken pay cuts and many
of our companies are struggling to survive," Ms. Wingler said. "We fear
losing our pensions - if we haven't already lost them. We're working
more flights for less money, the flights are full, and summer is the
season of amateur travelers - the infrequent fliers who are
appropriately dressed for washing their car."
Hey, wait a minute. That's you and me she's talking about. And we're
not exactly in a happy mood, either. Sure, airline employees have to
put up with us, but we have to endure long lines, even longer delays,
crowded airports, even more crowded cabins, perfunctory service, and
poor or nonexistent food.
Some of us might even be tempted to heave the pillow right back.
"Many airline passengers are angry these days," said Elliott Hester, a
flight attendant who wrote the book "Plane Insanity: A Flight
Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet." "They
wait in long lines. They rarely get food on the plane, and when they
do, it's served at a cost. I can't tell you how many times I've been
yelled at by a passenger who simply expected some food on a long
flight."
How to defuse this mile-high standoff? Mr. Bowman avoided a pillow
fight by not responding to the projectile cushion. He vowed to "develop
a thicker skin" as a traveler and said he would think twice before
asking an attendant for help again.
Humor can take the edge off a tense situation, too. Allowing flight
attendants to practice their stand-up comedy routines does wonders for
airlines like Southwest and Song. And having a flight attendant sing an
in-flight safety announcement makes her seem more like an in-flight
M.C. than an enforcer.
But laughter will get you only so far. The Federal Aviation
Administration recently conducted a study on flight attendant fatigue
and promised to release it in June, according to the Association of
Flight Attendants. So far, it has not. Ms. Caldwell, the union
spokeswoman, says her constituents are being pushed beyond their limits.
No kidding. But don't expect relief anytime soon. As long as the
airline industry keeps bleeding red ink, its dwindling work force is
going to continue to sport that harried look. And as long planes are
filled to the bursting point, passengers are going to get grumpier and
grumpier.
Can someone broker a truce?