Small acts of crew kindness that passengers never know about: the collection
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#1 Manchester, and I had a week where three things happened on my flights that the passengers never saw and that made me proud of the crew, and I want to collect them, because the forum has the worst passenger thread and the medical thread and it should have this one.
Mine, this week
A crew member who noticed a woman crying quietly in 22C, found out from a gentle question that she was flying to a funeral, and, without saying anything to anyone, made sure her meal came first, her tea was hot, and the seat next to her stayed empty when it could have been filled from a broken seat elsewhere. The woman said thank you at the door and did not know for what, exactly.
A purser who had a child's birthday on the flight (the parent mentioned it at boarding), got the crew to sign a napkin, drew a cake on it with a pen, and delivered it with a cup of juice and a small PA that did not name the child. The child's face. The parents' faces.
A crew member who saw a very old man struggling with the toilet door lock, stood outside for four minutes so that nobody else could try it, and helped him out without a word to anyone. Nobody noticed. I noticed.
From other weeks
The crew who pooled their own snacks for a family who had not eaten because of a missed connection.
The crew member who sat with a frightened teenager flying to boarding school through the whole descent and then walked her to the gate agent.
The purser who found a passenger's lost wedding ring under a seat after the flight, on his hands and knees, and got it to the ground staff and the passenger's hotel.
Why it matters
Because the job is measured in complaints and sales and on time performance and none of these appear anywhere. And because the crew who do these things are the crew you want, and the new joiners should know what the job looks like when it is done right.
Yours. Anonymous. Small. The kind nobody knows about.
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#2 A colleague who learned three words of Amharic from her phone during a service so she could say 'you are welcome' to an Ethiopian grandmother who had thanked her in Amharic. The grandmother's face. Nobody else knew.
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#3 A crew member who realised a passenger had a peanut allergy and had not said, from the way she looked at the snack basket, and quietly did a PA about a passenger with an allergy without naming her. The passenger cried. The cabin did not know why.
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#4 The wedding ring on hands and knees is a purser I know and I can confirm it happened and I can confirm he will never say so.
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#5 JAL, and a crew member who folded an origami crane for a child who was frightened at take off, in the galley, in thirty seconds, and delivered it with no words. The child held it for eleven hours. We do this often. We do not talk about it.
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#7 PIA, and the Hajj flights are full of this: crew who help elderly pilgrims with everything, quietly, for hours, because it is the most important journey of their lives and the crew know it. Nobody writes about it. It is the best flying we do.