THERE are certain times of the year when a flight attendant’s job becomes much more difficult and stressful.
Of all of them, the summer is by far the worst, with passengers seemingly doing all that they can to wind us up.
Flying during the summer holidays is always much worse than other times of the year
In this week’s blog for Sun Online Travel, I’ll reveal all the annoying things that people do when flying for their summer holidays, as well as the routes we hate flying on the most.
The main problem cabin crew encounter during the busy period is inexperience.
People who aren’t used to flying aren’t aware of the etiquette, or how they’re supposed to behave on planes.
They hold everyone up with simple mistakes in the airport, like packing too many liquids, or having things in their luggage that they shouldn’t.
This then has a knock on effect on how stressed everyone is when they come rushing to get on the plane last minute because they’ve spent ages arguing with staff at the security and check-in gates.
This is often much worse on the return leg of flights than it is going out, with families loading up on souvenirs and stuff they forgot to pack, again usually through inexperience.
Honestly, you’d be amazed at the amount of people who bring pool inflatables to the airport that they’ve picked up while on holiday, sometimes still inflated.
We get loads of those on flights from Spanish holiday resorts, where people are generally a little bit less easy to deal with during the summer months.
They’re one of the main routes that cabin crew members in the UK hate working on during the school holidays because people are overly excited and have strange expectations about flying.
Those routes will rarely have drinks included in the ticket price and some passengers get annoyed when they see that the cost of a beer in the air is more than it is on the ground.
Small things like that, people listening to music on speakers and starting their partying on the plane, all make for a very uncomfortable atmosphere.
Then there’s people sitting in the wrong seats, kids with fussy diets demanding we make them a whole new meal and various things that just make those flights a living hell to work on.
Other than those trips, we also hate flying to Florida and Paris, for one reason, Disney merch.
The amount of families flying to Disney World and Disneyland is staggering.
I’ve been doing this job for almost a decade now and it still startles me how many we get heading to Florida and Paris just for the theme parks.
On the way back, they usually have way more stuff than they left with and it’s a nightmare.
It makes the plane cabins much more crammed and squashed and means we always have to spend ages moving items around, making sure it all fits.
If you’re going to load up on merchandise, please fly out with space in your case and bring it back in the hold – it makes it much easier for you and for us and means we’re less likely to be delayed.
Similarly, we need you to read up on your luggage allowances and what you can and can’t pack in your bags to make sure you’re not holding up everyone at the airport as well.
We want you to have a good time on the plane and we love playing a part of your holiday, but we’re also there chiefly to make sure you get there safely.
It would be nice if you could think about how you could make our lives a bit easier as well.
Meanwhile, flight attendants also hate flying on these routes.
And these are some of the worst passenger shaming moments captured on flights.
AlamyPeople don’t expect to have to pay for drinks in the air[/caption] Read More