[finnie]

As a more frquent traveler than I care to be, I have found it necessary to make a point that shouldn't need to be made.

I have witnessed with increasing frequency some real abuse of airline personnel by my fellow passengers. Most particularly, flight attendants being subjected to verbal and sometimes physical abuse, for simply doing their jobs or following company guidelines.

We might keep in mind that flight attendants' jobs are safety-related. They are there primarily for OUR safety. Imagine a fire on the airplane, a medical emergency onboard, or the need for immediate evacuation (like on the Hudson River, for example); These are the professionals that are capable of saving lives. They are certified by the FAA, and have extensive annual training. Please do not treat them as waitresses or butlers. After all, waitresses cannot save your life in an airplane emergency.

In any case it shows poor character to treat others with ridicule, impatience, and rudeness.

[Corbel]

i personally (as a flight attendant) would like to thank you for saying this. yes alot of airline employees (f/a's included) can get rude mean and down right ****** to passengers, but like everybody here i always say there are 2 sides to everystory. you may here a f/a yelling at a pax, but did they (the pax) start the arguement or the f/a. you only hear certain things. i cant tell you how many times i have been yelled at by passengers out of JFK because i had to stop serving them alcohol, and then i hear....you are here to serve me. i just think to myself, not really....thats only the second part. we are onboard, primarily for your safety. but i have also (as i said earlier) f/a's who can be very rude towards passengers for no reason at all

[airhead]

In any group of people, ie..the general public and professionals, one will find the sort I call Nuckleheads. They are the bad apple.

I may not have received adequate training when it came to tickets, customer service, company policies, and general operations but the federal government required that get a certain amount training in regard to safety. The training part was always exciting and to me the Hallmark of airline work.

[abutterfinger25]

Well Said Finnie.

Flight attendants and gate agents should not be verbally abused by passengers. But then again, it is a 2 way street and passeners should not be verbally abused by the employees. I have seen both sides.

[Butch Cassidy Slept Here]

It's my understanding most calls to the police, because of an in-flight incident, do NOT result in the flight attendant(s) initiating the call (via the cockpit) being questioned by the police. If this is an incorrect view I'd like to hear the denials--especially from those who do not have a pattern of pro-airline posts.

The questioning witnesses and alleged victims is fairly common in the vast majority of police call situations. Only when the incident involves something happening at an airport, or onboard an aircraft, does there appear to be a major exception. If a passenger is, truly, behaving inappropriately--drunk, refusing to be seated, physically assaultive, smoking, etc.--then the airline should be willing to add additional time to a crew member's rest period for the purpose of answering the questions of law enforcement officers. On the other hand crew members who have a pattern of chronically initiating police calls for bogus reasons would then find their rest periods penalized.

[The_Judge]

BCSH, I think most of the responses probably will come from airline people as the regular flyer would probably not have much of a chance to know if the questioning actually happened, unless he/she was the one the police were called to deal with.

I know you said you don't prefer to hear from airline people but I thought I'd speak up anyway, free country and all............of the times the police were asked to meet an arrival (when they decided to show up) every time the flight attendant was questioned. The number I was witness to is low, I would say less than 5 in 20 years. And in each event, the passenger was never ticketed or detained for any reason. One time was a fight between 2 passengers that had blood sprayed throughout the back of the aircraft. Another was smoking, which is supposedly a federal offense but no ticket, no nothing.

[airhead]

I am not sure if I consider myself pro or con airlines since I am most concerned with what is right or wrong..I suppose it depends on what side of the fence one sits with the experience.

But from my experience with the local police, when incidents do occur (which are minute compared to the rest of the population) the police generally only question the passenger. And 99% of those times, no ticket or arrest was issued. The two times (on my clock) a ticket WAS issued, I was questioned. The one time an arrest WAS made I was questioned. In all 3 cases, I was requestioned by my manager, who was not happy since she had to work and do some real paper work.

In conclusion it seems that if the police really had to enforce something, then my account of the situation was recorded. If a general disturbance of the peace is the issue, then the police have done a fine job keeping the peace and not creating more problems than necessary. I hope this helps.

[positivespace]

I am glad that a passenger decided to finally step up to the plate and make people aware of this. Although I do agree that some employees are very rude for no reason at all. Also with the whole police subject, I know of some employees that absolutely abuse the ability to call the police for a situation that does not need to be escalated. I myself have called the police on passengers twice in my airline career. Once because a passenger threw his cell phone at me and hit me in the head, and once because a passenger was sitting in the boarding gate talking about "a repeat of 9/11". To me those were situations that needed to invlolve the proper authorities. I do agree that employees that abuse this ability should be punished in some way. Calling the police everytime a passenger raises their voice is completely a waste of everyones time.