Okay, just my two cents worth..
I don't care if you are 22 years old, 66 years old, been here 45 years, or 20 years. You are a flight attendant, and there is no excuse to be rude and unprofessional.
Blame management????? NO! I don't think so..
There a lot of fa's that would love the opportunity to fly to Tel Aviv, London, maybe even Boise, IDAHO.
The point is, all pax should be treated nicely, respectfully, and have some sense of validation, and care from the flight attendant.
Doug Parker has you on the payroll, but bottom line, the CUSTOMER is PAYING YOUR SALARY!!! Yes the morale, our pay, schedules, all need major improvements. But taking it out on the flying public is not the answer.
I have bad days, believe me. If I have been unfriendly to a passenger, I always apologize, and let them know, I am human, I do get grumpy, and have longs days, etc. Sometimes, a little empathy, and just saying "sorry" go a long way to make the customer feel better. Especially a warm smile.
Bash me all you want, but I am sick of people blaming management for bad attitudes. We are in the customer service business, and are there for safety. If you can't handle being nice, retire, or move on to another field. JMHO.
While I would agree that people in direct contact with a customer should try to be polite and professional. The customer paying your salary is not quite correct though. They pay US Airways for a service contract for certain things. Namely to get you from point A to point B safely and in a reasonable amount of time. In turn, the the shopkeeper hired a few employees who they pay to perform this task. The PROBLEM is that the SHOPKEEPER has not been keeping shop! He has repeated several times in the public that customers expect too much. In private he has demoralized the people that work for him. There have been far more than just pay cuts since this shopkeeper took over the place. Taking on the public may not be the answer but in most regards it is the sole responsibility of the shopkeeper to to empower your employees with the right tools and attitudes to do the job.
I am very glad that you are able to be polite and apologize when you are angry with people. However, if you are saying that you should put on a happy face and pretend there is nothing amiss with your company then you are very wrong. Customers should indeed know what is going on internally so they can make informed decisions about their future travels. You do not have to be rude to do it either. You could say something like this. "I am sorry that this happened to you, I would like to say it is a rare event but unfortunately it is not". I am not naive, I know there are bad apples here. They are everywhere in every faucet of life. It is still management resposibility to manage the employees.
As far as Art giving his friends account as to what took place I will not doubt what happened. Art has always seemed sincere with his posts. He has in fact taken up his issues with the top brass with direct face to face meetings from what he has said. I will just say something in defense of flight attendants in general. I have an acquaintance that was formally involved in your company that delt with flight attendants. They said that over seventy-five percent of complaint letters end with the words, "And the flight attendants were rude". This complaint letter started back at the very beginning of the experience which was trying to use the wonderful and flawless website that your company offers. It took a wait of about an hour to a call center that is offshore to a non US Airways employee that can't do anything except put you on hold again so you can speak to someone who can. It just keeps unraveling from there. By the time they reach the aircraft their exerience has been a roller coaster ride. Now, they step on the plane and their seat barely reclines and their IFE does not work. So they ask the flight attendant to do something for which the flight attendant can do nothing. The complaint letter that follows is, "And the flight attendants were rude". The point I try to make is that it could have been a fact that they were indeed rude, or that they were merely perceived as rude because they could not fix any of the many issues they faced before even stepping foot on the aircraft.
The problem with all these problems is the fact that they happen over and over. These things can only be fixed by management who listens to both passengers and their employees. I have been a passenger on planes where the tray table was missing for over six months. I know because I was on the paticular plane more than once. I asked the flight attendant if they knew how long it had been like this. At first, she said probably not long. Then a few minutes later she had a booklet in her hand and she said it had been like this since September and this was now February. The printout she showed me said deferred due to no parts, parts on order. This is just one little issue on a plane I was on for less than an hour. However, I have been on planes that are going to the other coast and that is a true inconvenience. Can I make due? Sure I can. However, getting on the same plane months latter to find the same issue is a concern for me. This is again a result of a management issue of not watching the shop. This is, no matter how your management team sees it a customer service business first and foremost.
Start taking care of your employees and those smiles will be sincere! Start taking care of the passengers again and I will share more of my money with you. I fly on US for the same reason a lot of you do, I live in an area where it is pretty much the only game in town. Although that has been changing slowly.
