At the end of each month I´ll give you a small resume of my
top 5 and bottom 5 passengers’ nationalities to work with
1)
Indians: what is it with their
heads that when you talk to them they do this head gesture “small shake” that
is looks as if they were saying "no"? Is very difficult to understand what they
are trying to say when they get nervous but if you combine that with the head-gesture-small-shake it can get a little bit more complicated. Sometimes I have
no idea if they are saying “yes” or “no”, for example: “Sir would you like the rice
and chicken?” head-shake-gesture-response. I reply back: “Okay, we also
have pasta (pesto tortellini) option as you may see in the menu” head-shake-gesture once again. I showed the passenger the two options and he pointed out nervously
with his index finger into mid air without actually pointing any of the meals.
So I just placed the rice and chicken option on his tray table, poured a glass
of water and continued with the next passenger. All the time that takes me
to understand an Indian I could attend 3 passengers, problem: they take too
much of your time and sometimes it seems that they are playing with your patience. They continue
to be rude towards others passengers and crew, another example: while boarding
they may mash up or try to jump the queue in the intent to board the aircraft
first and sometimes they might get really annoyed (being a bit aggressive) when
a priority class passenger boards first (without doing the queue), as if they weren´t
able to understand directions provided by ground staff. Another issue is
personal hygiene: some men apparently just use hair gel but they don´t wash
their hair before applying it, so they might have a gel layer of 10 cms. thick over
their heads and its smells, it smells really bad. Or some woman who doesn´t
know what is to take care of themselves while having their period, so they have
another sort of smell that is worst.
2)
Chinese: they are too loud,
last flight Y class (economy) was more of a Chinese Tour Bus that an airplane
class in which one row in the middle of the aircraft talked
(screamed) to another group that was sitting way in the back. When they are
standing in the aisle talking to their group (literally blocking the aisle) and
you kindly ask them to step out so you can move they suddenly “don´t understand
what you are saying” so you smile and touch their shoulder and perform a diplomatic
dance of hand gestures: MOVE-OUT-OF-AISLE-PLEASE, but they still don´t
understand. In that case I just go back to the galley, grab a trolley and just
walk into the aisle pretending I'm driving a steam locomotive asking
gently while I walk through: "clear the aisle please", there they seem to understand. Also, they tend
to travel in this almost 80´s relax look with their over too big navy pants
over too wrapped onto their tummies, with the stripped navy shirt and their
brownish or bluish coat. But for some the fact of washing their travelling
outfit before travelling is an unknown “thing”, so that might be one of the
reasons why they don´t smell good. Women are sometimes a print copy of men with
longer hair and a fake Louis Vuitton bags and if they travel with children they
might be very tough when they handle their babies and kids. How tough? I´ve
seen more than once a 5 year old little girl being carried with one arm by
their mother flying from the ground from the moment they entered the plane till
the moment they sat, the child never cried.
3)
Nigerians: really money is
never showed but the issue is when they over show it. Not only they may treat
crew as if they were there modern slaves but they also don´t care much about
other passengers. One of the many experiences that we have to deal with was in
a New York flight where a Business passenger had a very strong flue so we
kindly ask passengers in that section to close their window blinds so this sick
passenger could travel more comfortable, everyone did it without any remorse except
the Nigerian passenger. When the Purser kindly asked the Nigerian passenger to
close the blind he replied in a very arrogant way that he didn´t care about the
other passenger problems; he paid for the seat and for the window and it was in
his choice to do whatever he wanted to do with it. Other passengers are very
uneducated so they might be really rude because of their lack of education. Some
don´t like to follow instructions provided by Crew and sometimes they might give
you “that look” (I want to punch you) if you insist with orders, an example: when
they are making queue for the bathroom and there is turbulence, you politely
tell them to go back to their seats, some go back others give you “the look”
and others just don´t pay you attention. In that case, male Crew explains that when there is turbulence for safety reasons they need to go back to their
seats, but they still ignore orders. If the Captain tell us “Crew to your
stations” (that means that there is going to be real turbulence), male Crew
have to tell the non complaint passengers: “the airplane is going to go
through an air pocket and we may fall several thousand feet, if you are
standing you are going to be pulled to the ceiling and you are really going to be injured, return to your seat at once”. If so, they might understand.
4)
Vietnamese: why do they turn on
their phones to make phone calls when we are taking off or landing? They tend not to follow rules, at all. If there is
turbulence, they are standing up; no electronic devices may be used during that
moment, they switch them on; bags must be removed from exits, they put their
bags there; while landing and speeding off they stand up to grab their bags from
the over head compartments. Is exhausting to be a kindergarten teacher with grownups.
Another fact soap and shampoo: an unknown product for many of them, so their
nails are all dirty, their breath might be quite strong (please-put-the-oxygen-mask-and-talk-to-me-while-you-wear-it-strong).
5)
British: grey zone.
When they are not drunk they are great passengers as they don´t like to be
bothered and they are very accurate when it comes to decisions: "what would you
like to have for dinner?" they know exactly what they want. Problem is
when they are drunk: they might be very loud and very aggressive. Also, when
they are pissed many Crew can´t understand what they are saying and many times
we have to guess their words and it feels like if we are playing the Russian Roulette.
If they said: "beer" some understand "pear" and if you take them a pear they might through the fruit to the floor and ask
once again for a beer. If we say "we don´t have pear in this flight", he may
start screaming that he saw a full stock of pear (beer) in the galley and then insults the Crew while demanding his drink. Once again, it depends how drunk and how they might behave
while being drunk that depends in attending a great passenger or fantasizing that you are ejecting him from the aircraft.
(I don´t own the above picture)
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario