“My room was right near the lift for the second time in two weeks and the bed was only a king single! Its just ridiculous. Aren’t we entitled to a queen bed at the minimum? Who do we report this to?”
It’s no secret that crew complain. Sometimes its tongue in cheek, sometimes its to decompress after a hectic flight with feral passengers, and sometimes it’s about the most ridiculous things and said with a straight face. At my airline, are many crew who have been in the job for more than 30 years. They talk fondly about the good old days, when they had more crew on each flight, long layovers in Tahiti, epic trips to London and a time when they could get away with a lot more than they could now. As a relatively new crew it’s fascinating to hear the stories from a time when flying was definitely a lot more glamorous.
Obviously times change, and the world of work is not the same anywhere than what it was in the 80s or 90s. What used to ‘fly’ (pun intended) in the workplace, definitely would not be seen as appropriate today. Flying is no exception. As air travel has become more accessible and airfares lower, there’s definitely no surprise that airlines have had to make savings. I’ve heard older crew refer to the old days as ‘riding the gravy train.’ There’s no doubt in many senses it was but, in 2018, for most airlines, this train has well and truly left the station.
Problem is, some flight attendants feel like they should still be riding. It’s no doubt tough when you used to get something, and then it’s taken away or changed in some way. All you can see is what you used to have and when rules regarding staff travel change making it harder to get upgraded to business class, or the process for taking annual leave changes, or you have shorter slips in different ports, it undoubtedly hurts.
When We Have It Good, Do We Become Entitled?
All that said, as a relative newcomer, the perks of the job are more than the the other jobs I’ve had combined. As a flightie, the work I do is relatively painless, I don’t take any of it home with me, and when I think about what I DO get as part of the package, I consider myself very lucky indeed.
That’s not to say that we as flight attendants shouldn’t fight to get a better deal and to maintain or even improve our conditions. You can be sure that airlines are always looking for ways to save money, and of the allowances and benefits we do receive are hard fought.
But frankly, some flighties expect too much and take what they do have for granted. I’ve heard some of the most ridiculous complaints about the quality of the seats on the transport that takes us to our hotel, and the fact that they didn’t get a bathtub in their 5 star room. Some flight attendants at other airlines could only dream of the kind of conditions that we have.
Have Flight Attendants Become Institutionalised?
The thing is, I believe when you’ve been in a job for a long time, it’s very easy to lose perspective. The reality is that in 2018, good luck finding any job that’s going to pay you what you get paid for the kind of work that we ultimately do, and the actual hours that we work.
I know of so many people working full time jobs but end up doing more than 50 hours a week for no extra pay. Every minute of overtime we do, we get paid for at a higher rate. We even get paid for not working when we are on reserve.
Some crew, either by their nature to complain, or the fact that they’ve become institutionalised in the job really do need a reality check. I’d say to some of the worst offenders to go and work in the real world, for a smaller business that doesn’t have the money of an airline and then you’ll see how good we ultimately have it. My guess is, they’d probably want to come back to flying pretty quickly.
Even if working as a flight attendant has less frills than it used to, I still believe most crew understand, all things considered, it’s a pretty good deal. Still, it doesn’t stop us complaining from time to time, and I’m guilty of it myself. I guess that’s human nature. But the fact that so many flighties stay in the job for decades just goes to show it really can’t be too bad can it?
What do you think? Do crew protest too much? Why or why not and what things justify complaining about?
