WHAT REALLY ANNOYS CABIN CREW
By a former, senior British Airways flight attendant
■ FOLDING your coat and placing it in an empty overhead locker then closing it. Trust me — that space will be needed for other passengers’ bags.
■ SAYING: ‘You must love Venice/ Dubrovnik/Barcelona’, or wherever it is we’re going. Most days we don’t get off the plane before taking a new set of passengers home. So don’t rub it in.
■ WAITING till we get to you before asking indecisive children: ‘What do you want to drink?’ Parents who ask beforehand, tell us clearly, then let us move down the aisle fast are our favourites.
■ ORDERING from the in-flight menu then realising your wallet or purse is in the overhead locker. It’s a race to serve everyone as it is. Please don’t slow us down.
■ ASKING: ‘Will I make my connecting flight?’ Most days we can barely remember where we’re flying, let alone what time we’re due to land.
■ GETTING angry if we wake you on a night flight as we can’t see your seat belt. It’s a legal requirement to check in turbulence. Announcements tell you to put seat belts on top of blankets for a reason.
■ ASKING to look at something from the depths of the duty-free trolley. Then not buying it.
■ MOANING about the meals. It really wasn’t us that made the salad so small. Or picked those microscopic packets of pretzels.
■ STANDING up before the ‘fasten seat belt’ sign has been turned off.
We hate picking up the PA and telling everyone to stay seated — but we can be fired if we don’t.
■ SARCASTIC comments about delays when you get off the plane. Trust me, we want to get home or to our hotel just as much as you.
■ FORGETTING you’ve got noisecancelling headphones on when you tell us your meal choice. You didn’t realise it. But you were shouting really loudly.
■ SPENDING for ever in the loo just before landing. See that long line of other passengers queuing up? Your fault.