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Location: Living near our Nation's Capitol since 2010
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Hi to All,
As a Flight Attendant who has just finished yet another 4 day trip, I am writing to implore all air travelers to PLEASE.....
1) DO NOT TRY TO BRING LARGE/OVERSIZED BAGS OR TOO MANY BAGS ONBOARD. Listen, the gate agents WILL PROBABLY NOT stop you. The planes I work..usually large planes..not Express planes..have only so much overhead space. YES..it IS first come, first serve. Just because you have a seat does NOT mean that the overhead over you is YOURS. The flight crew has no control over where people try to place their luggage. We are stationed at the front and back of the aircraft. We do NOT supervise every bag that goes up. When they are full, they are full. Its not fair for YOU to bring oversized/crazy bags on and then expect the overheads to close. We do NOT have a magic wand to shrink them. If the overheads dont close...WE WILL CHECK THEM. Also...if you are not sitting in First Class, do not be surprised if we tell you to NOT put YOUR bags there. These First Class folks have paid for those seats..they WILL get those overheads. Accept it. We realize that you do not want to pay to check your luggage. The reality is that the plane is only able to hold so many bags. Beyond that, they must be checked. Again, no magic wands.
2) Sorry. If you bought cheap tickets from a consolidator (HotWire, Travelocity, etc) and your family is all split up...PLEASE take it up with the Gate Agent. They WILL tell you that the Flight Attendants will take care of getting you together. NO. We can only ask others to move..but I promise, that is NO guarantee that they WILL. It is the GATE AGENTs responsibility. PLEASE ask THEM to take care of it. Cheap tickets ARE middle seats..HONESTLY..NO, people with window and asile seats DO NOT want to swap. I am just being honest. Asking them does NOT mean they WILL give up those seats. Would YOU???
3) We BEG you...please please PLEASE...do NOT use your seat back pocket as a garbage can. We make many announcements before landing to PLEASE pass any and ALL trash to us as we make our final round thru the cabin before landing. This means all trash...bottles, newspapers, magazines, coffee cups, etc. You may not know this but the Flight Attendants must clean the planes now. We are not paid for this duty. All you need to do is to take 20 seconds and see that, if you are NOT going to take your papers, trash, bottles, drink cups, coffee cups, etc...simply hand them to us as we make at LEAST 4 passes thru the cabin before landing. We would be so grateful to you for doing that.
4) If you have kids..honestly, we love them too. EXCEPT when they are kicking the seat in front of them, throwing their cookies/pretzles, etc on the floor. YES, we do understand that if you have a BABY (under 3) who cries that you may not be able to quiet them. Over 3, please do your absolute best.
5) We do not have a thing to do with recent changes in air travel. YES, the beer/wine/liquor is expensive. We do not like it either. But we do not control the prices. Yes, $7 for a beer or mini is high. However, it is what is its. We cant change it because you do not like the price. Same goes for food sold on our aircraft. We do NOT set the prices...however, we do our best to offer you whatever the company has to sell.
6) NO, the DO NOT ask the flight attendant to hold a flight because your flight is late. Honestly, we feel badly for you if you miss your flight. Please do not take it out on us if that happens. So if you are on a flight that has a connection, we will wish you good luck but the Flight Attendants CAN NOT call call the other gate and ask them to hold the flight.
7) YES, we know that SOME flight attendants are bitchy. We hate them as much as you do. I personally try to be cordial, friendly, accomodating, fun, cute..you name it. Please, understand that there is a difference in people.
those are some of the highlights of my life. NO, we won't make everyone's day. HONESTLY, at least I try to do that. We appreciate your business and hope to see you soon.
Location: The Raider Nation._ Our band kicks brass
1,853 posts, read 9,687,119 times
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Great points, especially number 3.
Not only do the flight attendants have to clean the seat pockets, I have to fix them. Those are spring loaded wires that hold the pocket tight. A plastic bottle ruins them every time. Your plane is flown on an average of 8 flights per day. That means if you ruin the pocket on the first flight of the day, seven other people are going to bang their knees into it, and then say what a crappy airplane they were riding in. If I do an overnight, the wheels and brakes get changed first. The plane can't legally fly in the morning without them. That means I most likely won't have time to change a seat pocket that you broke. Passengers have no idea what kind of important stuff gets fixed every night, but they do eyeball all of the cosmetics that don't mean a thing to safety. Driving up the cost of maintenance also drives up the price of a ticket.
The other thing I would add to the list is toilets.
Don't flush anything that you wouldn't flush down your own toilet at home. No diapers, bottles, underwear, wigs, or shoes. Put that stuff in the trash cans.
Good points. People seem to lose all manners when they fly. I'd like to add two:
1. There is no point in jumping up, grabbing your bags, standing impatiently as soon as landing, then pushing people to get going.
2. When boarding pay attention to when it is YOUR turn to get in the queue. I hate when everybody gets in the queue as soon as they call people with kids/disabled, 1st and business.
All good advice that I follow as a frequent flyer.
My comments however:
on # 1.) Totally agree. HOWEVER my additional comments. FA - do NOT ask a flyer (particularly an elite status flyer), who has graciously checked in all his bags, to remove his laptop case from the overheads to make room for the guy with the oversize bags. We did the right thing, the other guy didn't. I am not going to sacrifice my leg space for his benifit. Have him gate check it.
For people stuffing baggage in 1st class. No problem. When I get my upgrade and I see someone stuff his crap in my bins and walk to the back (a definite sign of a newbie traveler that has been reading all the wrong internet forum advice), I will take it out and thrown in the aisle myself, and they will get the embarrasing page "who's bag is this" and the gate check. No problem with that.
On #3) Also agree...BUT, don't go through the plane aisles with the garbage bag like you are doing the 100 yard dash. Usually by the time I see the FA with the bag and gather my garabage, she is gone past me. Give us a chance to throw the garbage away. Maybe do it more than once.
Here's a tip to avoid problem #2 as it took me a while to figure it out.
When you buy tickets, immediately go to the Airline's website, there will probably be at least two involved in your flight.
Get a frequent flyer account.
Then use your confirmation # from the cheap ticket site and 'find' your reservation on the airline's website.
Make sure you get your miles/points!
Then you can select your seats.
If you do it early enough you can get up front, window or aisle.
But if it's last minute travel you may get stuck with a middle seat.
AND don't forget-
every few days or a week (if you've booked in advance) go to the airline's website and go through your seat selection again...some new seats may have opened up so you can click your way to the front or window/aisle.
Then a day before you fly, go online and check seats again.
I've not ever been stuck in the middle by doing this and usually get within the first 10 rows so that I can be first off the plane.
As for #1)
when you enter the plane, start looking for overhead space BEFORE you get to your row. That way it won't be BEHIND you...and when people get off, you won't be able to move because you have to go BACK.
Put it up a few rows before your seat- if you can see your space overhead is full already.
I'd like to make a small rebuttal to point #1: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell the people at the check-in to stop passengers from trying to take these huge bags on board in the first place! I know it's all self-service now but there are always several clerks supervising the system and yet none of them ever makes a passenger check his or her clearly oversized bag! There's always that little gadget that people are supposed to use to make sure their bag fits inside and NOBODY polices that. I've never had someone tell me I have to put my bag inside to ensure it's the requisite size. The fact is, these passengers think they can get away with it because nobody bothers to tell them otherwise.
If you choose your seats when you book, like we do, you still need to go back and check that the seat hasn't changed. I discovered this recently when we checked in online and my seat had been changed to a middle seat. The flight was full and I couldn't change it. I HATE the middle seat.
I'd like to make a small rebuttal to point #1: PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell the people at the check-in to stop passengers from trying to take these huge bags on board in the first place! I know it's all self-service now but there are always several clerks supervising the system and yet none of them ever makes a passenger check his or her clearly oversized bag! There's always that little gadget that people are supposed to use to make sure their bag fits inside and NOBODY polices that. I've never had someone tell me I have to put my bag inside to ensure it's the requisite size. The fact is, these passengers think they can get away with it because nobody bothers to tell them otherwise.
Why do they have baggage size limits and no one bothers to stop these people Drives me nuts when people hog my overhead space with their huge bags.
Why do they have baggage size limits and no one bothers to stop these people Drives me nuts when people hog my overhead space with their huge bags.
I have a sinking feeling that the airlines will start enforcing it soon. Not only is it to a point where it is disrupting flights, but they are losing revenue (from checked in baggage).
The only question is how they enforce it, at the gate? at check-in? I am sure the airlines will solve it. I predict this by the end of the year.
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Drives me nuts when people hog my overhead space with their huge bags. 
