Galley Gossip: 5 reasons flight attendants don’t serve first class predeparture beverages

by Heather Poole on

You’ve boarded a flight and you’re feeling pretty relaxed sitting in that big comfy first class seat. Sucka, you think to yourself as a couple of passengers check you out on their way to coach. Glancing at your watch, you wonder where the heck the flight attendant is because you’re dying of thirst and shouldn’t she be offering drinks right about now!

Predepartures. That’s what flight attendants call the drinks that are served before takeoff to passengers seated in business and first class. If there’s time flight attendants will walk through the aisle and take individual orders, but time is the keyword here. With so many full flights staffed with minimum crew, there’s usually not enough time to check the emergency equipment, set up the galley, hang all the coats, get passengers situated AND serve predeparture beverages. This is why flight attendants might choose to do a one shot service and offer passengers Champagne (if we have it), orange juice, and water- or nothing at all. Because it’s more important to get flights out on time than it is to serve drinks before takeoff.

What most passengers don’t realize is that it’s against FAA regulations for an agent to shut an aircraft door until all the overhead bins have been closed. If the agent can’t close the aircraft door on time, the flight will be delayed. If the flight is delayed (even by a few minutes) someone will have to take the blame. This means someone will get written up. If an airline employee is written up too many times for causing a delayed departure they might very well lose their job. On time departures are a big deal in the airline industry. So that gin and tonic the passenger in 3A is crying about is not a concern if passenger 23D refuses to sit down and passenger 14E can’t get her suitcase inside an overhead bin and the flight attendant working in the back is calling up front to let someone know there are seven bags on their way up that need to be checked.

Here are a few other reasons flight attendants might not serve you a drink before takeoff….

1. DELAYED BOARDING: Boarding is even more chaotic when a flight is delayed. If passengers are blocking the aisles waiting to get to their seats, flight attendants aren’t going to jump over them in order to serve drinks.

2. NO CATERING: Everyone is seated and the flight attendants don’t look very busy. Why aren’t they serving drinks? If the catering truck hasn’t come to swap out the carts they have nothing to serve.

3. THE GALLEY ISN’T SET UP: The catering carts do not come on board ready to go. Flight attendants have to organize them first. If we don’t do this during boarding, the service during the flight will be delayed. Besides organizing the carts, we also have to break up several bags of ice, count the meals, load the ovens, and make sure we have everything we might need for the service in flight. The one time I didn’t do this we took off without dinner plates and I had to serve first class passengers their entrees on cookie plates.

4. MINIMUM CREW: Nowadays most narrowbody aircraft (one aisle) are staffed with minimum crew. This means if we’re not greeting passengers at the door, we’re busy setting up a galley. In the past we used to have extra flight attendants on board to lend a hand to passengers who might need it during boarding and help serve food and drinks in first class. Not the case anymore.

5. DRY FLIGHTS: Some countries do not allow flight attendants to unlock the liquor carts until after takeoff. There are even a few cities in the U.S. where it’s against the law to serve an adult beverage on Sunday before noon.

Photo courtesy of Kevin H

Daily Pampering: Three most luxurious first-class cabins

by Melanie Nayer on

America can learn a lot from the Far East in the way of air travel. We rounded up the three best first-class cabins for your flying pleasure. After all, if you’re going to travel around the world, you might as well do it in style.

Singapore Airlines: They call them SkySuites, we call them ‘heaven.’ There are only 12 on each plane and if you’re lucky enough to grab one you can expect luxury like never before. Sit down in your leather-upholstered, Burrwood-trimmed seat that fully reclines and comes complete with a turn-down service and down-filled mattress and duvet. The first-class meals are prepared by world-class chefs, and you can choose your meal before the flight. Enjoy some Dom Perignon and Krug while you fly through the skies.

Cathay Pacific: From the concierge-style service at check-in to the on-demand prepared food in-flight, Cathay Pacific is worthy of a ‘most luxurious’ status. Once you sit down, amenity kits with Acca Kappa Italian products and Shanghai Tang pajamas await. The seat is easily extendable into a full-length bed with pillows and duvets and, thanks to a privacy screen, the seat is transformed into a cozy bedroom. The first-class ‘bedrooms’ give a whole knew meaning to sleeping in the sky.

Emirates Airlines: The first class, fully-enclosed cabins are relatively new to Emirates, but a welcome amenity to first-class fliers. The doors to the cabins can be opened and closed at will, and like your hotel comes with ‘do not disturb’ signal. The best part? Tall passengers will appreciate the no overhead bin space, but don’t worry – there is plenty of space to stow your carry-on. Our favorite part? The personal mini-bar is your pod.

Want more? Get your daily dose of pampering right here.

Business travelers told to be logical with tickets

by Tom Johansmeyer on

In a move that’s shocking because it’s sensible, corporate travel managers are pushing business travelers to make decisions that aren’t stupid. In the past two years, 75 percent of companies in North America have changed their travel policies, with cost-cutting a major motivation. First and business class have become more and more elite in the white collar set, thanks to more restrictive policies, in an effort to put more business travelers in the sky at as low a cost as possible.

But, the need for cost containment isn’t resulting in idiocy. Rather, employees are being told to look for the “lowest logical fare.” Basically, this is “the lowest-priced fare that doesn’t cause travelers to take wildly circuitous routes, cause them to miss important engagements, incur an extra night in a hotel or lose productivity,” reports USA Today.

The report continues:

North American companies, which spent an estimated $48.7 billion on airline tickets in 2009, could save almost $30 billion combined annually if they instituted and enforced stricter travel policies that required non-refundable tickets or the lowest logical fare. That’s according to the survey’s publishers, Egencia and the National Business Travel Association Foundation.

Christophe Peymirat, vice president of global marketing at Egencia, Expedia‘s corporate travel arm, observes, “Based on our research, companies … can save as much as 38% by encouraging travelers to be flexible.” Departure times two hours before or after the desired flight and less-expensive connecting flights (rather than non-stop) are ways this could happen.

British Airways’ re-launched First is worth every mile

by George Hobica on

Recently, I spent $75 to get a seat in British Airways‘ new and improved first class cabin from New York to London, and although my original flight was ash-canned, I did eventually get there. And to paraphrase the Beatles, man, I did not have a dreadful flight.

To quickly explain: I signed up for a British Airways-branded Chase Visa Card ($75 annual fee) and was awarded 100,000 bonus frequent flyer miles, enough to cover the 75,000 (one-way) required for a ride way in BA’s newly-refreshed premier cabin. Heck, I don’t fly much these days, and my 56-year-old posterior isn’t as padded as it used to be, nor are my joints quite as supple, so $75 for a little comfort is just what the chiropractor ordered.

Had I actually bought that seat? Well, honestly, on my salary and at my pay grade, that would have been unlikely. It would have cost several thousand dollars-more if I paid full freight, less if I had bought a heavily discounted fare.

As it turned out, that Iceland volcano had other plans for me, and my flight was canceled. My hopes of attending a reunion at my Oxford college, where I was a graduate student 30 years earlier, were vaporized.

But last week, I was invited as a guest of BA, in my capacity as an airfare/airline pundit, to give First Class another shot.

Most air travel these days, whether to the former USSR or to Bangor, can be pretty dreadful. But not in seat 3K on a BA 777.

No one is quite sure who (Flaubert? Einstein?) first said that “God is in the details” (it’s also been said that the devil is in them too), but first class on most international airlines is already pretty fine, so the only way an airline can improve its premier product is by concentrating on the fine points.

And this, clearly, BA has done. The padding on the seats is plumper. The seats are 60 percent wider at the shoulders. The video screens are bigger. The cabin lighting is softer and prettier. The reading lights are brighter. The window shades are electronic. Each seat now comes with its own closet. The pillows are bigger. The bedsheets of a finer Egyptian cotton. The armrests disappear as the bed reclines to its fully-flat, fully-horizontal position, giving you even more room. The dedicated check-in areas are more exclusive-note the comfy easy chairs. The arrival and departure lounges are more luxurious. I particularly liked the terrace overlooking the bustle at Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

BA was in strike mode when I flew, so catering was a bit handicapped; thus I can’t say if they have improved the in-flight cuisine. I suspect they have, however (actually the substituted chicken tikka was quite good). I’ll have to wait for my next first class adventure to try the amuse bouche, and to find out if the 2004 Tattinger Champagne, normally served in First, is better chilled, or the caviar fresher.

After all, I still have those 100,000 miles burning a hole in my Executive Club account, and maybe I’ll be around for my 40th college reunion. By then that volcano will be extinct. I hope.

Luxury air travel not taking off

by Tom Johansmeyer on

While other areas in the travel industry are talking about a recovery, luxury travel remains in rough shape. In fact, it’s only on long-haul flights that the big spenders are even asking for upgrades, let alone chartering flights or firing up their own planes. According to Peter Yesawich, CEO of travel marketing firm Ypartnership, “Luxury air travel has essentially been grounded.”

Meanwhile, the airlines are struggling for ways to restore the revenue they used to be able to pull in from its top passengers. Notes Yesawich, “It’s said that real profit in any flight is front of plane. The rest covers the overhead.”

While Delta and British Airways are playing with in-flight amenities for first class passengers, such as showers, it doesn’t compare to the relatively blissful conditions offered on the likes of Eos, which no longer exists. People with private jets are buying airline tickets more often, it seems, though fractional jet ownership remains fairly popular among those with means to access it.

Despite the shift in conditions, one thing remains true, according to Mike Weingart of Travel Leaders: “The super rich fly anyway they want.”