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I held Global Services status for many years with United Airlines. Last year, I made the decision to move a lot of my flying to Delta Air Lines. I was frustrated with poor service, awful meals on board (see more here), and cuts both to the MileagePlus program and what was provided to Global Services members. As reported by Live and Let’s Fly and View From the Wing, United sent a memo to flight attendants asking them to bring out the “WOW factor” in flight.
Here are some of the ways that United recommends that flight attendants accomplish this:
- Offer a smile and a “greeter item” (I’m assuming this means a Clorox wipe)
- Offer to hang coats in premium cabins (I haven’t seen this in years)
- Create a relaxing atmosphere by minimizing galley noise (this would be nice as the constant chatting on long-haul flights gets old)
- Deliver pre-departure beverages to customers (I’d say I saw this on about 40% of flights and when it was offered, it was a choice of water, sparkling wine, or orange juice, regardless of the time of day)
- Thank customers for flying
It’s a bit sad that these even need to be outlined as these used to be the bare bones, minimum of service. I find all of these things are consistently done when flying Delta and have even seen some of these when flying Spirit Airlines (a greeting, a smile, and a thank you). It will be interesting to see if this memo resonates or falls on deaf ears.
Anthony’s Take: I have several United flights coming up and I will be curious to see if there is any difference in flight attendant behavior. I can’t blame the flight attendants fully for the need for this memo. In-flight service was stripped to embarrassing levels and flight attendants lost a lot of the tools they used to have to deliver good service and are doing so with less flight attendants on board.
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
