Pilots and lovers of aviation,

I respectfully request your input on what pet peeves you have about flight attendants. What were some of the worst or best flight attendant experiences you have ever had?

Thanks!

Worst ever:

An America West flight landing at ORD; as we began taxiing to the gate the F/A announced "Welcome to Chicago International."

When they do the normal airline credit card announcement on initial descent (mostly AA or NK) and then you get the occasional flight attendant who likes hearing herself/himself speak and just ramble on and on and on about the card and its benefits and where you can go if you apply for it on this special flight that such a promotion is being offered. Especially annoying on red eye flights that land in the wee hours of the morning. Other than that, I have no other concerns because I've made friends with quite a few flight attendants.

One of the last times I flew AA, a flight attendant asked the man next to me if he'd like to move to the exit row for extra leg room. I'm 6 feet 4 inches tall, so naturally I was annoyed. I switched to DL and started ponying up for first class.

-Rowen

Get. off. the. damn. public. address. speaker.

jeffh747 wrote:

When they do the normal airline credit card announcement on initial descent (mostly AA or NK) and then you get the occasional flight attendant who likes hearing herself/himself speak and just ramble on and on and on about the card and its benefits and where you can go if you apply for it on this special flight that such a promotion is being offered. Especially annoying on red eye flights that land in the wee hours of the morning. Other than that, I have no other concerns because I've made friends with quite a few flight attendants.

Ha, ha...I had the exact same thing happen to me regarding a credit card offer on a recent flight from Cancun to MIA.

Thanks everyone!

So trivial, but probably when they make an announcement about "If you have any connections" late at night on regional flights that clearly are scheduled to terminate into airports that are really small and rarely if ever have connections.

My home airport is really small and people rarely ever connect even during the normal outbound hours of the East coast, yet there are times we will land on-time just prior to midnight and the FA will still recommend looking at the board for connections etc.

SpinOn2 wrote:

So trivial, but probably when they make an announcement about "If you have any connections" late at night on regional flights that clearly are scheduled to terminate into airports that are really small and rarely if ever have connections.

My home airport is really small and people rarely ever connect even during the normal outbound hours of the East coast, yet there are times we will land on-time just prior to midnight and the FA will still recommend looking at the board for connections etc.

Ha, that bothers me also. Most recently heard it in DLH where the plane just turns around and goes directly back to the hub.

1. Unnecessary/repetitive announcements over the PA
2. The over-use of the phrase "at this time" in said announcements

When I'm watching a movie in a longhaul flight and they keep stopping their own announcement because they forget what they're aying that pauses my movie 6 times.

TWA772LR wrote:

When I'm watching a movie in a longhaul flight and they keep stopping their own announcement because they forget what they're aying that pauses my movie 6 times.

Ah yes, or when they pause your show to make a 3 minute explanation of something over the PA in english, but then re-pause it again a min later to make the same 3 minute remark in whatever other language is primarily used for or from the destination.

Last time I was flying Ryanair, not too long ago, there was a flight attendant who couldn't hold his laugh each time he was speaking on the announcement speaker. On Ryanair that announcement speaker is used quite often to announce that they're coming by to sell all kind of stuff, so it was kind of annoying. Later on the flight another flight attendant took over, but then he was bugging it by turning the volume up and down. Also during the pre-recorded announcements there were some stutters and again he was standing there laughing. Obviously found himself funny, but the rest of the plane didn't see the fun of it.

Here you go:

1). American Airlines - flight attendants who do not greet the passengers as they board the airplane. I fly A.A. quite often and it seems like this is a regular occurrence.

2). Southwest Airlines - flight attendants who try to humor passengers on weekday business flights between DAL and HOU/AUS/SAT. Business people flying between those destinations do not need comedy acts on those flights. Keep the humor to weekend flights and those between vacation destinations.

I had one F/A purser on a flight to SLC over a year ago. Very junior, but obviously loved hearing the sound of his own voice. Every bump we had, he went on for 10 seconds on the whole "seat belts even when the sign is off blah blah blah" announcement. What made it worse is as we were taxing to the gate, he made an announcement of "your super duper, JFK based crew" that just about made everyone crawl in their skin after enduring the guy for three hours.

The WN flights as well where it's a stand-up comedy routine. The inside of a plane is possibly one of only a handful of times where I can enjoy some serenity and not be connected to anything. I take solace in it I think many of us don't want you to be running nails on a chalkboard. Luckily, many of the WN flights are barely an hour long; I like to think the comedic acts is the reasoning behind it for as illogical as it may sound

Another one is on carriers such as KL or LH where they continuously switch back and forth between English and their native language during the safety demonstration. They say one sentence in their native language, only to say the same thing in English immediately after and repeat that methodology throughout the entirety of the safety demo. I don't mind either language. I speak German almost fluently and understand a fair amount of Dutch. It's just frustrating to mentally switch back and forth between both languages repeatedly like that.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Last time I was flying Ryanair, not too long ago, there was a flight attendant who couldn't hold his laugh each time he was speaking on the announcement speaker. On Ryanair that announcement speaker is used quite often to announce that they're coming by to sell all kind of stuff, so it was kind of annoying. Later on the flight another flight attendant took over, but then he was bugging it by turning the volume up and down. Also during the pre-recorded announcements there were some stutters and again he was standing there laughing. Obviously found himself funny, but the rest of the plane didn't see the fun of it.

Absolutely well written and I have to agree with you 100%

I think this must be a Ryanair thing as I have experienced exactly the same as yourself on numerous flights with the airline (100+) and have put it down to their immaturity and god forbid what those supposedly experienced FA's would act like in an actual real time emergency.

I fly with British Airways the majority of the time and you definitely don't hear immature announcements over the PA system and definitely no one laughing whilst making them.

It is for this reason I dislike flying with Ryanair although I do occasionally fly with them I have to admit but the last time was two years ago and not since purely down to the continuous and immature announcements made onboard.

They may be cheap 'most of the time' but is that price worth paying when you have to put up with that every time plus that ridiculous ontime jingle!

Cunard wrote:

Absolutely well written and I have to agree with you 100%

I think this must be a Ryanair thing as I have experienced exactly the same as yourself on numerous flights with the airline (100+) and have put it down to their immaturity and god forbid what those supposedly experienced FA's would act like in an actual real time emergency.

I fly with British Airways the majority of the time and you definitely don't hear immature announcements over the PA system and definitely no one laughing whilst making them.

It is for this reason I dislike flying with Ryanair although I do occasionally fly with them I have to admit but the last time was two years ago and not since purely down to the continuous and immature announcements made onboard.

They may be cheap 'most of the time' but is that price worth paying when you have to put up with that every time plus that ridiculous ontime jingle!

Actually, out of the many times I've flown Ryanair this was the first time something like this happened. Usually I got nothing to complain about them. And if that on-time jingle needs to be played, so be it. As a matter of fact, that was one of the few pre-recorded announcements that worked flawlessly on that flight.

Certain WN flight attendants have a habit of singing stupid jingles and making fun of other airlines. It makes me cringe every time. Admittedly though this was way more prevalent in the late 90's and the early 2000's than it is today,

Nasty body language for asking them to do their job. I am about to pay your employer $7 for a can of beer they paid less than a $1 for, the least you could do is not act like this is the most painful thing you’ve ever had to do.

Not a flight attendant, but I'm not a fan of pilots that think they're tour guides either.

DTWorld wrote:

I had one F/A purser on a flight to SLC over a year ago. Very junior, but obviously loved hearing the sound of his own voice. Every bump we had, he went on for 10 seconds on the whole "seat belts even when the sign is off blah blah blah" announcement. What made it worse is as we were taxing to the gate, he made an announcement of "your super duper, JFK based crew" that just about made everyone crawl in their skin after enduring the guy for three hours.

The WN flights as well where it's a stand-up comedy routine. The inside of a plane is possibly one of only a handful of times where I can enjoy some serenity and not be connected to anything. I take solace in it I think many of us don't want you to be running nails on a chalkboard. Luckily, many of the WN flights are barely an hour long; I like to think the comedic acts is the reasoning behind it for as illogical as it may sound

Another one is on carriers such as KL or LH where they continuously switch back and forth between English and their native language during the safety demonstration. They say one sentence in their native language, only to say the same thing in English immediately after and repeat that methodology throughout the entirety of the safety demo. I don't mind either language. I speak German almost fluently and understand a fair amount of Dutch. It's just frustrating to mentally switch back and forth between both languages repeatedly like that.

KL only do the demo in English and the videos are with subtitles

SpinOn2 wrote:

So trivial, but probably when they make an announcement about "If you have any connections" late at night on regional flights that clearly are scheduled to terminate into airports that are really small and rarely if ever have connections.

My home airport is really small and people rarely ever connect even during the normal outbound hours of the East coast, yet there are times we will land on-time just prior to midnight and the FA will still recommend looking at the board for connections etc.

That's a Skywest-ism if I've ever heard it. Its hilarious they do this, but I wouldn't expect anything less from them.

I'm waiting for a thread asking us what are our peet peeves about passengers...

Flanker7 wrote:

DTWorld wrote:

I had one F/A purser on a flight to SLC over a year ago. Very junior, but obviously loved hearing the sound of his own voice. Every bump we had, he went on for 10 seconds on the whole "seat belts even when the sign is off blah blah blah" announcement. What made it worse is as we were taxing to the gate, he made an announcement of "your super duper, JFK based crew" that just about made everyone crawl in their skin after enduring the guy for three hours.

The WN flights as well where it's a stand-up comedy routine. The inside of a plane is possibly one of only a handful of times where I can enjoy some serenity and not be connected to anything. I take solace in it I think many of us don't want you to be running nails on a chalkboard. Luckily, many of the WN flights are barely an hour long; I like to think the comedic acts is the reasoning behind it for as illogical as it may sound

Another one is on carriers such as KL or LH where they continuously switch back and forth between English and their native language during the safety demonstration. They say one sentence in their native language, only to say the same thing in English immediately after and repeat that methodology throughout the entirety of the safety demo. I don't mind either language. I speak German almost fluently and understand a fair amount of Dutch. It's just frustrating to mentally switch back and forth between both languages repeatedly like that.

KL only do the demo in English and the videos are with subtitles

It was over 5 years ago, so I'm not surprised if anything changed.

Sitting down and reading a magazine for a really long time.

A few of the things that have bothered me on multiple flights. All of these were on non-US legacy carriers
- Unnecessary announcements on PA. This goes for Pilots too, as I don't want to hear from them, I just want them to stick to flying unless there are inflight ATC hold delays or safety issues. We have in-flight maps, we don't need to hear the sights from you. I also hate hearing nonstop humble-brags about awards you have won/bought. The fact I am onboard generally implies that I am aware.
- A crew that asks you to unplug your headphones from the in-seat plug for take-off and landing but don't mind if you use the airline supplied headphones.
- Cabin crew that walk too fast down the aisle with the coffee/wine service and walk past your row because they make no announcements nor do they make eye contact, and then get pissed off when you say "excuse me, I'd like some coffee, please" or when you have to ask is that tea or coffee:because they won't tell you first.
-The crew who linger in the galley and don't do regular water services long-haul and resent it when you have to resort to using the call button to order something because there is no crew presence in the cabin. This is why I am a big fan of the call/order via IFE option that NZ has. It saves the crew a walk out to switch the call button off, take your order and bring the item back. "26A Bourbon and Ginger" shows in the galley screen, then they make and deliver, Easy.

I don't think I'm too fussy about the FA's. Credit card ads and such are pretty annoying but I hardly think they have a choice in it.

About the only think I can think of that's particularly annoying is when they fly down the aisle collecting trash, and they're past you before you even know what happened. I haven't often experienced the same during food or drink service, but too many crew seem to rush through trash collection and then there's all sorts of crap left around after the flight.

PITingres wrote:

About the only think I can think of that's particularly annoying is when they fly down the aisle collecting trash, and they're past you before you even know what happened. I haven't often experienced the same during food or drink service, but too many crew seem to rush through trash collection and then there's all sorts of crap left around after the flight.

I did have that experience with food service on United circa 2005, right around the time they switched from complementary meals to buy on board. At that time they didn't come by with a cart with the BOB items on it, but handed out a menu and then came down the aisle taking orders. When it came time for them to take the orders the FA just rushed up the aisle asking "Buy on board? Buy on board?" I actually did want to purchase some food, but he went by so quickly I wasn't able to get his attention before he was gone.

DTWorld wrote:

Another one is on carriers such as KL or LH where they continuously switch back and forth between English and their native language during the safety demonstration. They say one sentence in their native language, only to say the same thing in English immediately after and repeat that methodology throughout the entirety of the safety demo. I don't mind either language. I speak German almost fluently and understand a fair amount of Dutch. It's just frustrating to mentally switch back and forth between both languages repeatedly like that.

I think the bigger issue here is safety.

On Wizzair recently they used the same method between English and Polish. The FA spoke so quickly and in such a monotone that you it took you a few seconds to realise what language he was speaking in before he'd already switched back to Polish, and so on. If I as a native English speaker didn't understand most of it then I doubt many of the non-Polish and non-native English speakers did.

aerorobnz wrote:

A crew that asks you to unplug your headphones from the in-seat plug for take-off and landing but don't mind if you use the airline supplied headphones.

Is there even a rationale for that? I can understand a requirement to not use your own media device during those phases of flight - because they can't be overriden by the PA - and also a requirement to not use any headphones during those phases if the socket for them is in the seatback in front of you - because this can impede an evacuation - but the type of headphone being the sole item of complaint?

Overuse of the phrase "Welcome Aboard". Seems like I hear this at the end of every single PA made prior to departure. I once even heard it after LANDING as we were on the way to the gate. She probably meant to give the whole "If you have connections" lecture but ended up saying "We want to be the first to welcome you to Rochester, welcome aboard".

The vast majority of complaints here seem to relate to US carriers... shock horror.

Mine are:

- overuse of the PA with lots of useless filler words filled and mental masturbation gymnastics
- failure to greet, or even acknowledge passengers during boarding
- poor grooming. I am not criticizing the physical beauty of an FA, I am referring to how they present themselves. Having 'just out of bed' hair and titanium-starched incorrectly sized uniforms does not give a good impression
- being rude/short (this goes both ways with pax/FAs)
- being lazy, doing the bare minimum and then hiding in the galley
- constantly interrupting the IFE with long winded announcements
- obnoxious peddling of their airline's credit cards (this one I can't fault the FAs as they're told to do this)

tan1mill wrote:

Overuse of the phrase "Welcome Aboard". Seems like I hear this at the end of every single PA made prior to departure. I once even heard it after LANDING as we were on the way to the gate. She probably meant to give the whole "If you have connections" lecture but ended up saying "We want to be the first to welcome you to Rochester, welcome aboard".

Another one I've heard (only on US carriers) is right before landing: "we'll be on the ground shortly" - really? I would certainly hope so!

PPVLC wrote:

I'm waiting for a thread asking us what are our peet peeves about passengers...

Please start one! I would lover to hear crews' views on passengers' behaviour.

One peeve I have about Crew is getting my name wrong. If you are going to come down and make a song and dance about my status, at least get my name right - it's written on your iPad (BA)/Credit Card machine thingy (AA). Surprisingly, I am often addressed with completely the wrong name - queue a confused look as the crew member looks at the iPad, realises their mistake then apologises. It happened on BA just this week.

On AA they can get it wrong if they are holding the Credit Card thingy upside down - it can be held both ways depending on if the crew member is facing towards the front of the aircraft, or towards the rear of the cabin. So that I get called by the name of the passenger in seat F instead of me in seat A (or vice-versa).

But it amazes me that crew do not realise in which seat I am seated. What I mean is, if the CSD, for whatever reason, has to go and address Mr Jones in seat 4F and me, Mr Evans in 4A, as these are indicated on their iPad. I cannot understand how when they approach me, I can be addressed as Mr Jones. Surely an experienced crew member knows seat 4A from 4F?

Cunard wrote:

...god forbid what those supposedly experienced FA's would act like in an actual real time emergency.

You might find the humorous announcements lame and annoying, and at times I'd agree, but do not make the mistake of thinking someone incompetent or incapable of switching into "business mode" when need be.

I'm a professional outdoor adventure guide, and it takes me about half a second to go from cracking jokes to doing CPR while simultaneously rigging ropes to evac you up a cliff.

I might choose another airline over FR for a lot of reasons, but I have as much faith in their crews as those of any other carrier.

SpinOn2 wrote:

So trivial, but probably when they make an announcement about "If you have any connections" late at night on regional flights that clearly are scheduled to terminate into airports that are really small and rarely if ever have connections.

Years ago I frequently took a WN flight that arrived into MDW a bit after 11pm and would always roll my eyes at that one. Once, though, the FA joked, "If you are connecting onto another Southwest flight... then you really need a new travel agent."

I appreciate a couple jokes inserted into the usual drivel, just don't turn it into a 20 minute lame comedy routine. Stuff like always referring to Las Vegas as "Lost Wages" or apologizing for a delay then thanking us for flying a competing carrier...this kind of thing I appreciate. I could do without the singing.

This may sound weird, but please don't wear a plastic smile. Just a slight upwards of the face is fine, but a wide plastic smile looks artificial and make you looks like a zombie.

Meanwhile this lady made everyone's day much better:
https://youtu.be/rwDlHJCRCjg
Oh yes, she's German....

These are all pretty minor (except the first one), for the most part I think FA's do a great and fairly thankless job.

1. Not picking up the trash. I hate when I have an empty cup sitting on my tray table for 45 minutes. This isn't all that common, but it drives me nuts.

Minor ones

2. The one mentioned above about making connections on outbound regional flights . Nobody connects at BMI at 10:00 pm at night.
3. Saying a flight is "very full". Full by definition means no empty seats, a flight can't be "very full"
4. The CC offers (I know they have to do this)
5. Parking the drink cart fight beside me (I know, they have to park it somewhere, but I am a big guy with broad shoulders )
6. Pickup up trash from back to front, so you don't know they are picking up trash until they are past you.

The OP asked about best FA stuff also (most of the thread is on bad). The best FA I had was AA SNA-DFW last year in F. In addition to very attentive service, she handed us a hand written note on napkin towards the end of the flight that thanked me for flying that day and had my connecting flight information on it.

I don’t really care for any songs or dumb jokes as others have said. Good, quick, and unique jokes are fun but anything else is too much. The trash thing also bothers me. I’m not really that demanding as a passenger but I do like to have my trash cleared promptly. Credit Card offers are my number one pet peeve. I understand these are required by the airline but WOW THEY BOTHER ME. My mother isn’t into aviation and hardly cares who we fly with and even she commented that the credit card offers really cheapen the AA experience.

Thank you all! The responses are great, and I hope they keep coming!

Thought of two more.

When the FA out of nowhere leans over to push the seat recline button and pull my seat up without any warning. This happens to me a lot on CRJ's as the seats are so small and I am a good sized guy, where somehow my leg hits the button and I didn't even realize I am reclined. I get they have to prepare the cabin for landing, but I would rather you tap me on the shoulder and remind me (usually because I don't even know my seat is reclined) than just do it for me while also lecturing me on needing my seat back up.

When an FA goes around questioning numerous people if they have their phone on airplane mode etc, then going to the jump seat and playing on their phone clearly without airplane mode on. That one is harder to prove, but weirdly you can sort of tell the difference, texting is pretty obvious.


Again all trivial things, just a few things I noticed that slightly annoy me. Not huge deals.

As long as they do not spill food or drink on me, I am fine.

Any flight attendant who publicly displays that they are superior to you. Had this on BA 5 yrs ago when travelling in First, this person clearly felt that I was NOT up to standard and deserving of their attention. After lunch service I spoke with the Cabin Service director and the person was not seen in the cabin for the last 4 hours of the flight.

AmricanShamrok wrote:

1. Unnecessary/repetitive announcements over the PA
2. The over-use of the phrase "at this time" in said announcements

Thank you! "At this time" is very much over-used; I used to think it was my carrier until I rode on others and it seems to be an industry wide problem. Further, is there some reason that "at this time" is preferred over the simpler and shorter, "now?"

Also, I cringe when flight attendants start an announcement without already knowing what they're going to say. I recall one lead f.a. who was so bad about this, that I just had to discuss it with him. To my surprise, he took my constructive criticism very well and commented that he hadn't been told that even in training (hard for me to believe, but he seemed sincere, so who knows?).

The varying degrees of hair/grooming standards in relation to food handling procedures concerning the meal/snack/beverage service onboard is my personal pet peeve.

+ In First, I found hair in the butterscotch sauce on my ice cream sundae onboard a DL CVG-LAX flight.

+ In Economy, I found hair on my Salisbury Steak Dinner onboard a CO IAH-IAD flight.

Just two examples, but two too many for my personal taste.

Please kindly trim or tie your hair so it is off and behind your face line when handling food and beverage.

That’s really it for me. =]

This is not a specific pet peeve, just an example of a flight attendant exercising their "authority." I am all for obeying instructions pertaining to the safe operation of the flight but my example is borderline absurd...whatever.

This past Sunday night I was on the evening flight...the American A330 from Charlotte to PHX. I was in the very back row and about 3/4 through the 4-hour flight I got up to snap a photo of the map display in the rear galley with my phone (my seat-back IFE wasn't working very well.) A male flight attendant was sort of blocking it and he kindly moved...I was waiting for the small display screen to cycle to the map when a somewhat "senior" female flight attendant said "you're not recording that are you?" I said "no, but I'd like to take a photo of it." She proceeded to tell me that wasn't allowed...that no photos of crew or interior of the airplane are allowed for safety (yes, safety) reasons. She said "In fact it says so in the American Way magazine." With that I simply returned to my seat. I didn't argue the point, and my intention was to simply snap a photo of where we were at that moment in the flight...something I could've easily done from my seat if the screen had been working properly.

BTW - there is good article on Mark Hamill in the December issue of American Way.