Confessions of an air steward

[stewy]

This topic is already being discussed on our BASSA union website, but I was wondering if any of our visitors from other UK airlines had any views on this "interesting" piece of trash tv journalism????

[Katie]

what an awful programme! images/icons/rolleyes.gif
And that annoyoing air hostess in the little red uniform...

but I did have a bit of a laugh.

However many people will believe in and cabin crew are back to being trolley dollies. ITV were rather insensitive to show it after the events of 9/11 images/icons/mad.gif

So how many of you have actually:
mixed gin in a babies bottle?
Turned off the IFE at certain seats?
Locked restroom doors?
Flew the plane?
Asked the pilot to make turbulance?
Spat etc in pax food?
and the list goes on

question: in an emergency evacuation would you try to help but at the end of the day would dave yourself?

Were the cabin crew actors or disgruntled ex-employees'? I know that one of the stewards is ex-Virgin and was in the infamous Cosmo magazine article 'Undercover with the air hostesses.' images/icons/rolleyes.gif

graemlins/windsockdown_smilie.gif

[lgw27]

katie i know for a fact that katy one of the girls on the program used to fly for cityflyer as i used to fly with her

[stewy]

Somebody on our union website has also said that they know for a fact that the one who was talking about the "supermodel and scones" was dismissed from Virgin, so does sour grapes feature in the equation?? I still haven't actually seen the program yet cos it is still at my girlfriends house on video as we were out, but there is still a lot of reaction to it in the crew community which is why I asked for comments. With regards to Katie's questions, I really can honestly say that in four years I have never seen anything like some of the stuff that seems to have been mentionned in others comments about the program. Sure I have heard about some of these things happening, but we all know how as crew stories become second and third hand a bit of elaboration goes on!! Sure we will stand in the galley and bitch about some passengers but at the end of the day those passengers we bitch about have given us cause to bitch. Passengers are going to get a very dim view of us from this program which is a shame because nine out of ten of us give our passengers the upmost courtesy and respect, and those passengers that feel others around them are getting a more polite attentive service should maybe stand back and think what they have said to us previously. At the end of the day it's a simple philosophy, if someone is going to speak to me like dirt and make my life difficult for ten hours, am I more likely to bend over backwards to his or her every need, or to the lovely little old lady sitting in front who is appreciative of everything I do for her????? As for the comments about pilots creating turbulence etc what a load of c**p!! Sometimes we will ask them to turn the seatbelt signs on if it is getting too chaotic down the back and we can't get up and down the aisles, but that is very rare!!
As for the evacuation procedures, no matter how many practise drills you go through in annual checks etc a real situation is never ever going to be text book. You as crew will do as much as you can until the point that your own life is in imminent danger. i.e if you have done a belly landing or the undercarriage has collapsed on landing and you have to evacuate then you will more than likely to be in the situation initially to help people and get them off first, however if you then feel a fire licking your behind then with all the good will in the world, you will be saving your own life! It would really depend on the situation and as I said the immediate threat to your own life in the particular situation.

[ 04-28-2002, 08:18 AM: Message edited by: stewy ]

[euroboy]

OK. I didn`t watch this load of cr*p, but have heard about it. So I guessed right it would be cr*p, and I went out of dinner. Now I`ve been flying since 1987, and I have NEVER heard of crew ever doing anything like these bunch of twats have said.
Me thinks sour grapes, just look what was on channel 4 a year or so ago.

[friendly_sky_friend]

What a load of media-cr*p!
I watched as these FORMER cabin-crew were talking about things I or most colleauges would never dream of doing!
Definately Sour-grpaes!

[AirBag]

*I* have never mixed gin in a baby's bottle (how many babies do you know who would like the taste?)

But a woman asked me to heat a bottle then asked for a miniature of brandy, tipped half into the babies bottle and walked away.

Whether this was a ploy to not let us know she was in fact the one drinking or not I don't know.

[Katharina]

I haven't seen this programme and I can only conclude from your posts what it was about. But I am regularly outraged at the cliched, negative representation of flight attendants in the media, and of course it's all the more humiliating to think that colleagues should cooperate in such rubbish to get their "fifteen minutes of fame".

Also, I've always been convinced that TV and press could have great viewer/reader success indeed if they ever thought of using the wealth of our experience in a publication that tidied up the myths and revealed us as the interesting, qualified, hard-working people we really are.

The German f/a union "UFO" recently had a marvellously cheeky idea and informed a TV show of a test flight for Lufthansa's new "improved" (lol!) economy class product (against which LH crews have been protesting passionately). The flight was filmed with hidden cameras and luckily turned out to be a prime example of the impossibility of this concept. First meal service (on a transatlantic flight) took 4,5 hours. At some point passengers unwilling to wait any longer for collection had piled up some 50 trays in the galley, and by the time of the second service one flight attendant worked barefeet because her feet hurt unbearably! Subsequently, a UFO spokesperson was interviewed. A scandal for Lufhansa management!!!

I'm relating this story to demonstrate how TV sensationalism CAN be constructively employed in the interests of respect for flight attendants. Why don't they use this potential more often?

But, hey, I did like the idea of gin in baby bottles. Anyone who's ever flown an India route will appreciate this "pacifying" recipe..... images/icons/smile.gif

Katharina

[Katie]

reply from the ITC...

"we did not regard this programme as very edifying but we are satisfied that our Code rules were observed."

63 viewers had complained.

"The fact that many of these complaints had common themes and terminiology and that many of the complainants annoucned themselves as serving or ex-flight crew(and knew that one of the steward witnesses in the programme had been dismissed for misconduct) suggests a complaint behind this unusually large postbag."

The report goes on for a while.

Conclusion: Not in breach of the ITC programme code.

KT

ps Nurses are also very annoyed at the Confessions of...doctors and nurses programme.