I just can’t stop watching these videos, as they’re so good… or something.
In this post:
Fly High Institute Nagpur training videos
Fly High Institute seems to be some sort of a customer service training academy based in Nagpur, India, designed largely for people who want to become flight attendants. I’ll talk more about that in a bit, but first let me share what makes me so interested in this place.
Fly High Institute has a huge presence on Instagram, and has over 250K followers, with some of its videos getting well over 10 million views. Why are so many people interested? Well, the company posts all kinds of airplane training scenario videos, and they’re… very entertaining.
Essentially the students of Fly High Institute are supposed to show how they would resolve all kinds of customer disturbances.
For example, take a look at the below scenario where “an absent-minded old man forgets his phone at airport security,” and totally loses it.
This guy seems to be a problem passenger, because in another clip he demands a cup of water, and gets really angry when the flight attendant doesn’t bring it fast enough. This is captioned with “elderly passengers tend to have lower levels of patience.”
This man also apparently suffers from a low blood glucose level, because “people with low blood glucose levels are more likely to throw a tantrum.”
Then there’s this seat recline dispute, where one very self-important person is doing very important work on her laptop, and another very self-important person needs to rest because he has a very important meeting and didn’t sleep much the night before.
Then you have the lady who demands the crew immediately get out of her way so she can use the bathroom, then she sits in the flight attendant jumpseat and refuses to move, until the crew offers her a better seat.
Then you have a situation where there’s turbulence, so the crew advises passengers that they need to stay seated, and that hot drink and food service has been suspended. A man pushes the call button and demands a hot coffee and something to eat. He tells the crew to mind their own damn business about safety, and just focus on getting him his hot coffee.
This is an interesting approach to training
I often comment on how flight attendants in the United States are often very bad at deescalating situations, and immediately resort to threatening to have someone removed from a plane, calling the police, etc.
But my gosh, the scenarios here seem to have the opposite extreme, where the flight attendants just let passengers walk all over them and abuse them. It seems their deescalation method is to basically just let people continue being jerks and abuse them until they calm down.
These passengers are just absurdly hostile, and need to be put in their place. Is it just me? From watching these videos, my takeaway would be that the way to get what you want on an airline in India is to just be a complete jerk and keep yelling until they give in.
I’ve written in the past about the Pan Am training videos from back in the day, and I think those strike a much better balance between providing professional customer service and showing empathy while not being trampled all over.
Is this how flight attendant recruiting works in India?
Videos aside, I think this raises an interesting broader question about flight attendant recruiting in India. Here in the United States, if you want to become a flight attendant, you just apply directly with an airline. Customer service or airline experience is always a plus, but there’s no need to attend any sort of flight attendant training school. Rather all training is provided by the airline, once it’s decided that you’re the right candidate.
Fly High Institute has all kinds of videos of proud graduates, emphasizing how parents made big sacrifices for their kids to attend Fly High Institute, and get their dream job as a flight attendant. Fly High Institute’s website even claims that many airlines recruit from the institute, ranging from Air India, to IndiGo, to SpiceJet, to Vistara.
To those knowledgable about flight attendant recruiting in India, I’m curious, is this the standard? Do most people who want to become flight attendants first attend a for-profit flight attendant training school in hopes of being recruited by an airline? Is it hard to land a job as a flight attendant without attending one of these institutions?
Bottom line
If you’re an aviation geek, do yourself a favor and watch the training videos from Fly High Institute Nagpur, a customer service training school in India. I’m not sure what to make of all of this, other than that I can’t stop watching these videos…
What do you make of these Fly High Institute videos, and the approach to customer service displayed?
I have seen and heard of Indian flight attendants dealing with people like this in this manner. I lived in India for 4 years. I do believe a lot of the time customers have been trained to react in this way and flight attendants are not supposed to yell or put customers in their place because the customer is always right sort of thing. I could only watch one video because I was a bit triggered haha.
Flight attendant schools are common in East Asia. It's a high-status and competitive job in Japan, Korea and Singapore. There are academies that coach young women (you usually have to be unmarried and between 20 or 30 years old) how to stand, walk, bow and do your make-up and hair. Each airline supposedly has a different look and standard. Plus, you have to be proficient in English, which can be tough for some.
The concept of going to a specialist training school and then applying for a job based on your training is common in Europe also. Here in Finland there is a flight attendant training school and even the police service here works in the same way (you go to "police college" and once you graduate you apply for a job with a police force. Police forces themselves do not put people through basic training). The flaw...
The concept of going to a specialist training school and then applying for a job based on your training is common in Europe also. Here in Finland there is a flight attendant training school and even the police service here works in the same way (you go to "police college" and once you graduate you apply for a job with a police force. Police forces themselves do not put people through basic training). The flaw in this approach seems be that when you graduate you might find that nobody is recruiting!!
@Ben - very classy post… really tastefully written
Ok I get the general message that the way to deal with obnoxious pax is to accommodate them in an obsequious manner.
But what I want to know is:
- how did they chill the coffee so quickly?
- how are there so many open extra legroom seats?
- who are the extra staff that can pop out of nowhere to retrieve items from security?
I fly to India for when frequently. I also for frequently within India and my experience has generally been pleasant and uneventful, which is to say no different from anywhere else, with the exception that Indian airports tend to be on the warmer side. The aircraft are generally newer and the flights are nice, especially if flying Vistara, compared to the U.S. and Europe.
India is a complex country with cultural and socioeconomic diversity that...
I fly to India for when frequently. I also for frequently within India and my experience has generally been pleasant and uneventful, which is to say no different from anywhere else, with the exception that Indian airports tend to be on the warmer side. The aircraft are generally newer and the flights are nice, especially if flying Vistara, compared to the U.S. and Europe.
India is a complex country with cultural and socioeconomic diversity that us from the west can seldom grasp. The people are generally thick skinned and more resilient than us. What may seem unreasonable to our insular cultures is not taken to heart as much. Frankly, most Indians I’ve known don’t make a fuss of the small things like us. Human ingenuity and adaptation are revered over blinded adherence to rules and processes. I usually travel between the major cities where flying is as normal as riding in a cab. On the other spectrum, the experience can be new and scary for many from the smaller towns or rural areas. Realise that Unlike Americans, Indians migrate in vast numbers around the country for their career. In my company, almost every state is represented. Therefore the number of airline travelers are growing rapidly with their economy (unlike our pathetic situation). I assume such training is provided to accustom the candidates should a passenger become unreasonable. I wonder if we could benefit from such training in the states for our overly sensitive flight attendants instead of them going on a power rant over being asked to help with luggage.
Finally, one thing I love about Indians is their complete disregard for what foreigners think. As a friend of mine said only half jokingly, “Why do you come so often? Go back to your depressing and dull lives and let us enjoy ours.”
Indians don’t make a fuss. Lol. They are the worst clients I ever deal with. Complain about everything and are mostly obnoxious. Disregard about what foreigners think ?? That’s a joke.
I’m an Indian. Clearly you need to look closely at yourself. Been seeing your comments and can clearly assess that you have too much free time on your hands. Ever been to Europe and experienced riots over every simple thing? Indians are demanding and expect value for money so if you want to so business, do your work. I guess our lack of interest and adoration for you hurt your delicate sentiments.
Hey Icarus - Come to India. Give us your cash. Go home. There’s little that you have to offer other than your disposable income. Oh and do learn some basic courtesy and appropriate dressing habits while in India. Why do westerners in Asia look like homeless beggars?
Also your services are entirely replaceable so why don’t you choose your clients?
Also, stop bitching when we kill terrorists that you give refuge to.
Namaste.
These type of videos kind of explains why America is currently looking at putting in place laws around the caste system.
Damn - does that mean I can’t shout at my Mexican gardener anymore?
@LAXBrad - also don’t be shooting black people because they make you uncomfortable unless it’s in self defence.
@Lucky - such institutes exist all over Asia. Kind of surprised that you of all people didn’t know. India is a competitive society. Having a slight edge can make a difference in any role.
@AC please don’t mistake California with the entire US. California must have solved literally every other problem, including illegal immigration, racial intolerance, the opioid crisis, rising cost of living, and massive unemployment in the tech industry to have the time for assessing such useless bills.
Well, if it were the U.S., the passenger would have either shot the flight attendant or they would be lying in a pull of blood, the flight would be cancelled and everyone would have to wait for the next flight without compensation since it was not an operational delay.
*pool not pull
Nah - the average American passenger is an overly sweaty fat gut who takes up the entire row. Occasionally the same stinky man asks the flight attendant to wipe his ass as the only means for any sexual intimacy.
Just imagine saying to an AA FA, "Bring me a glass of water. And make it fast!"
> These passengers are just absurdly hostile, and need to be put in their place. Is it just me? From watching these videos, my takeaway would be that the way to get what you want on an airline in India is to just be a complete jerk and keep yelling until they give in.
This is Indian culture, flight attendants serve food/drink and are in charge of security, which is similar to maid and guard...
> These passengers are just absurdly hostile, and need to be put in their place. Is it just me? From watching these videos, my takeaway would be that the way to get what you want on an airline in India is to just be a complete jerk and keep yelling until they give in.
This is Indian culture, flight attendants serve food/drink and are in charge of security, which is similar to maid and guard professions in the country. Both of these jobs are low social status, which implies being treated a certain way (which by western standards looks bad) along with the increase in ego driven by both traveling by air (not train) and having paid a lot for tickets. Trains and busses are the common way to get around (unlike US where Air is primary) and India is culturally/business unified like the US so traveling outside of your own city for work would be considered a pretty good accomplishment
There's so many things I enjoy about India but flying is very low on the list. I'm not Indian myself and have observed flight crews, especially those from non-Asian countries, really despising working on these routes. On a 15 hour United flight once, they kept the lights and window shades closed for the majority(!) of the flight to reduce the amount of questions the flight attendants would receive. I have found myself genuinely curious why the ME big three don't staff these flights with male-only crew.
These academies are everywhere in India (and most of Africa too), and while the promises of jobs that they dangle are usually scams, they serve an important role in familiarising potential employees with the air travel system.
Traditionally airline employees (notably cabin crew but also ground staff to some extent) in India were recruited from the upper middle class. Those from lower middle class and especially those from smaller towns simply couldn't make the grade...
These academies are everywhere in India (and most of Africa too), and while the promises of jobs that they dangle are usually scams, they serve an important role in familiarising potential employees with the air travel system.
Traditionally airline employees (notably cabin crew but also ground staff to some extent) in India were recruited from the upper middle class. Those from lower middle class and especially those from smaller towns simply couldn't make the grade at interviews usually because they lacked any perspective about air travel. These courses, while pretty useless to anyone who has ever actually traveled by air, are invaluable to aspiring airline staff from these non-traditional backgrounds.
It's like watching Donald Trump having a tantrum on his used, faux-gilded, ancient cheap-ass 757. All that's missing is toilet paper on his shoe and demanding to have a diaper change.
It's like Dhar Mann videos, except the bad guy wins
I mean, they let people pee over others without any real repercussions, so I guess the training is accurate.
I've suspect that the reason why they think peeing over people and themselves is ok is an attempt to cover the curry smell that they often carry with them.
Well at least the ”curry” has a smell and taste unlike…
Nah - It’s to overcome the stench that idiots like you emit.
That old guy is a nightmare.