I’m used to hearing flight attendants saying they’re ”here primarily for your safety” and referring to themselves as ”flight safety experts,” but today was a new one for me. The flight attendant ended her post-takeoff spiel with ”Ladies and gentlemen, it will be our pleasure serving all of your safety needs today. We wish you…
Continue reading: Darn, I feel safe!
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I understand they don't want to be viewed as flying waitresses, but "flight safety experts" come on. especially when the vast majority of them go through their careers without any instances what so ever. And how much could they really help me if there's acturally an emergency.
Where are your adventures in flight taking you today? I'm already on my second trip through SFO today, and waiting on my second delayed flight of the day... But i'm still having fun!
To Sam:
In my over 25 years of flying I've had to:
1. Evacuate a jet due to a hard rejected take off.
2. Administer CPR 3 times in my career.
3. Actually used the Defibrilator onboard.
4. Myself and one other cabin crew member had to to subdue a VERY
irratic customer in route from London to Las Vegas.
You THINK you know that most cabin crew never use their trained skills, it just it's not treated as news when we do; as it shouldn't because were just doing our job.
Don't be so smug, because one day you may very well find you need our professional safety services.
As for the announcement; that was ludicrous; I can't think of any FA I know that would even mention "safety services" as an arrival announcement.
Of COURSE flight attendants provide very valuable safety services, and all (reasonable) passengers are grateful and appreciative that trained, skilled professionals are there in case we need them. But these types of announcements are not about safety, they are simply code; code for: "Don't expect us to do anything nice for you, or even to treat you like fellow human beings... just sit there and shut up and leave us alone and don't expect too much."
Anyone who remembers the flight attendants who evacuated the plane in the Hudson River, or the Air France plane in Toronto, or heroes like Uli Derickson, and the cabin crew who thwarted Richard Reid, and dozens and dozens of others, can't fail to appreciate how important the cabin crew are to passenger safety. But safety is not decreased one tiny bit when flight attendants smile, too.
Dan described it very well.
United FAs used to say "We are here primarily for your safety" (often stated with a note of sarcasm) which I always thought should have been "Our most important role is safety." It's vital but we all hope that their safety work is infrequent and let's face it, customer service happens a lot more often. We are all in that plane together and a pax may save a FA.
Which is not to suggest that FAs are to be dumped on. Mutual respect is deserved on both sides.