Q: A few years ago, I was sitting in first class on a flight with an hour layover. During the layover, they picked up new attendants. One asked if there was room in first class; the answer was no. Then she said, loudly, “We have to go sit with the cattle,” meaning the passengers in coach. Is there a way I could have responded without antagonizing the attendants? A: Wow, that’s completely unprofessional.
I’m not sure publicly confronting the flight attendant about it would have done much good, though. If you happened to catch her eye right after she said it, you could have said “The cattle?” with mock surprise (thus giving her the opportunity to say she was joking and apologize). Otherwise, I think you could have just had a word with the head flight attendant as you left the plane: “I’m sure she was joking, but I heard a flight attendant refer to coach passengers as cattle. Thought you might want to know.”
Q: My infant son and I were waiting for my husband to pick us up at the airport. We had a lot of gear, and it was busy — there were several cars waiting at the arrivals curb. However, no one was getting in or out of those cars. I could see my husband, but it wouldn’t have been safe to walk back to where he was. I asked a driver to move so my husband could move up, but she refused. Was I being rude? I thought that’s why there’s a cell phone waiting lot.
A: Cell phone waiting lots are great, but not all airports have them. The basic idea is good — there’s a free parking area where a driver can wait for an arriving passenger. When passengers are totally ready to go — i.e., waiting outside with all their luggage — they call the driver, who then picks them up. If there is one at your airport, there’s no excuse for not using it.
However, if your airport just has a regular paid parking, and you get there early, you have two choices: park, even if it’s expensive and/or inconvenient; or keep driving around the airport until your arriving passenger is ready. Yes, both options are annoying, but the alternative — hanging out in the arrivals loading zone — is a huge inconvenience to other drivers. You weren’t rude to ask a driver who had been there a while without picking anyone up to move. She was the rude one.
