American Airlines Story

Wow, I really don’t like flying with these guys. This is gonna be a little negative, which is strange for me, being a zen positive guy that generally is not bothered by all the things that seem to bother other people.

When I go back and forth to New Zealand, I generally prefer Air New Zealand or Qantas. The planes are great and the service is even better.

I have a great travel agent that I love (hi Hans!) and sometimes I take a more inexpensive option to save money. That usually means I end up on American Airlines. This one was a business class seat, so one would not expect any complaints at all, but I’ll tell you two quick stories.

About halfway through the flight, I got up to use the restroom in the front. I walked past the flight attendant in the galley to go to see if the restroom was open. The pilot was there, and he looked like either he was hanging out or waiting on the restroom. Anyway, this flight attendant JUMPED in front of me very aggressively and said, “You are not allowed to be here while the pilots are swapping out. Use the other one!” My goodness. It was really crazy. Did she think I was about to put the pilot in a headlock and gouge out his eyes or something?

Are Americans now so full of fear that they institute these insane policies into their airlines? We all know airport security is mostly useless (I call it “security theatre”) and it’s mostly a big process to make people “feel” safe but it doesn’t actually do that much. Now I see the same policy happening on planes. Hey, what if I just wanted to talk to the pilot? I’m a great conversationalist. I’m sure he’s bored as hell. Anyway, I found this entire situation to be incredibly stupid,

Here’s the second story, although this one is a rather minor complaint.

I woke up with about 3 hours left in the flight. They were serving breakfast. This time it was another flight attendant that came by. She asked if I wanted coffee. I said yes, and I also wanted a bloody mary. International waters, and stuff, you know.

Anyway, she rolled her eyes and said, “Well, we’ve already locked the liquor cabinet.” I wanted to say, “Listen, lady, who are you? My mom? I’m a little hungover. Get me a bloody mary stat.” Anyway, I didn’t say that, but I gave a sheepish, “Please?” She gave a heavy exhale and went back to the galley to go through what must have been a tremendously exhausting experience to “unlock” this devilish den.

She finally brought it to me with the rather passive-aggressive comment, “I can do it this one time, but now everything is locked.” I was thinking… omg, I have to spend at least 2.5 more hours sober with this bitch.

So yeah, that’s kind of a mean thing to say, but it’s objectively true. I travel a lot internationally, and I’ve noticed many (but not all) flight attendants that fly for US-based airlines have a real attitude. They don’t really want to serve you and they clearly think of it as a “job”. Compared to Air New Zealand or many Asia based airlines, it’s the complete opposite. In those, the flight attendants are obviously enjoying serving people and they consider it a noble and proud thing to make people around them happy. Anyway, rant finished.