The passenger who changed how you do the job: the complaint that was right, the thank you that landed, the child
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#1 Virgin, fourteen years, purser, long haul lifer, and the crew room threads have the funny passengers and the celebrity ones and the scary flights. This one is for the passenger who changed how you do the job, the one you think about on the walk through the cabin years later. Mine first, and then yours, because every crew member has one and the new joiners should hear them.
The complaint that was right
Year three, a Los Angeles, a woman in economy who wrote to the airline that the crew had been efficient and cold, that nobody had looked at her, that she had been flying to her sister's funeral and had wanted one human moment and had got a tray. The letter came to the purser and the purser read it to us at the next briefing and I was ashamed because I remembered the flight and I remembered being efficient. I have looked at every passenger since. Not a long look. A look. The complaint was right and it made me a crew member instead of a server.
The thank you that landed
Year seven, a Johannesburg, an elderly man travelling alone to see his grandchildren for the first time, nervous, slow, embarrassed about the lavatory. I helped him without making it a thing and talked to him about the grandchildren and found him a better seat when one freed up. He wrote a card, by hand, and the airline forwarded it, and it said that I had made him feel like a person and not a problem. I keep it in my crew bag. It is the only thank you I keep because it named the thing I was trying to do.
The child
An unaccompanied minor on a Delhi, eight years old, who did not speak and did not eat and would not look at me for six hours, and in the seventh hour asked me if the aircraft could fall and I said no and explained the wings, badly, and she held my hand through the descent. I do the unaccompanied minors differently since: I sit with them before the door closes and I tell them the whole flight, the noises, the bumps, the time, and I ask them what they are worried about. The thread on the unaccompanied minors on this board has the job within the job. This was mine.
The one who was dying
A New York, a man in business class with his wife, going home for the last time, which the wife told me at the galley while he slept. We did not make it a thing. We made it a good flight: the meal he could eat, the blanket, the quiet, the wife's hand held in the galley for a moment while she cried where he could not see. He thanked us at the door and we knew and he knew we knew. I have never forgotten that the person in the seat is in the middle of a life and the flight is a chapter of it, and that the service is the least of what we are doing.
What I do differently since
The look. The sitting with the child. The wife at the galley. The assumption that every passenger is going somewhere for a reason I do not know and that the reason might be the funeral or the grandchildren or the last time. It made the job heavier and it made it matter, and the new joiners who learn it from a letter read at a briefing learn it the hard way. Learn it from this thread instead.
Yours
The passenger who changed how you do the job. One story, honest, no names. For the new joiners and for us.
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#2 BA, ten years, and mine was a woman on a Cape Town who told me at the galley that she had been crew thirty years ago and that we were kinder than her generation had been allowed to be, and that the kindness was the job. I have believed her since. Paul's four are the four every long haul crew member has a version of. The look. Yes.
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#3 Emirates from Nairobi, and mine was the Nairobi passenger, an older man, who recognised my accent and wept because he had not heard it in thirty years in Dubai, and I sat with him for the whole descent. The passenger is in the middle of a life and the flight is a chapter. Paul has written the thing the job is for.
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#4 American, fourteen years, and mine was the complaint that was right too: a man who wrote that I had been rude on a Dallas, and I had, because I was tired, and the supervisor's conversation was fair and I have not been tired at a passenger since. The complaints that are right are the ones that make the crew member. Honest thread, Paul.
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#5 JAL, purser, and mine was the elderly woman on a Honolulu who thanked me in the formal Japanese for making her feel she had not been a burden, and omotenashi became a person's face for me that day instead of a training module. The thank you that names the thing is the one to keep. Paul's card in the crew bag is the right thing to carry.
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#6 Air Canada Montreal, and mine was the unaccompanied minor too, a boy on a Paris who cried for the first hour and then asked me, in French, whether his mother would still love him in the new country, and I did not have the training for that and I had the time. I sit with them before the door closes since, exactly as Paul does. The job within the job.
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#7 SAS, twelve years, and mine was the man going home for the last time too, on a Chicago, with his daughter, and the service being the least of what we were doing is the sentence I have never had for it until now. Thank you Paul. The new joiners should read this before the first long haul.
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#8 Training week 3, Melbourne, and I am reading this at the training centre at 10pm and I will not forget it. The look. The sitting with the child. The assumption that every passenger is going somewhere for a reason I do not know. This is the thread I will carry onto the line. Thank you all.