[biljack]

A few weeks ago, I was on a couple of Delta flights. When the announcement was made to prepare for landing, the flight attendant stopped to see that I was shutting down my computer. She was not particularly pleasant and stood there until my computer was shut down.

After she left, the gentleman next to me commented about her rudeness. My response was that she was probably just used to people being difficult about shutting down their electronics. He explained that he was an executive from Delta and had noticed this type of behavior as common with many of the flight attendants. It is something that Delta is looking into.
Upon further reflection, the interaction with the flight attendant did make me feel like a child being scolded for doing something wrong.

On my two return flights later in the week, I made a point of observing the flight attendants. Generally they are respectful, some more than others. On one of the flights, when the flight attendant made the announcement to prepare for landing, her tone of voice seemed fine until she got the the part about shutting down electronics. She switched over to a rude and accusatory pattern of speech. Even though all of the passengers around me were relatively quick in shutting everything down and nobody made a fuss, the flight attendants walked down the aisle scowling at everybody.
The passengers seemed to be on edge about being yelled at or threatened with arrest if they couldn't respond quickly enough.

It seems that because of the difficulty that they have experienced with some customers in the past they assume that every customer will be difficult and therefore treat everybody disrespectfully. This is terrible customer service and would not be acceptable in any other industry.