December 3, 2009

Coffee Capers

As a flight attendant, I've poured my fair share of tea and coffee. This in itself lends to some interesting observations about both passengers and crew.

1) If you say "tea?" they ask for coffee. If you say "Coffee?", they inevitably ask for tea. Whatever it is that you are NOT carrying, is what you will be asked for.

2) One can go the entire cabin without actually speaking the words 'tea' and 'coffee', but merely miming them, because most people are wearing headphones anyway. No-one has ever noticed! :)

3) If you are sitting in the aisle seat, and are not having coffee/tea, please lean back so that we may pass the hot beverage to the person in the window without risk of dropping it on you! The same goes for when working on laptops- please do not hold your cup over the laptop because I'll just have to ask you to move it anyway while I pour.

4) When I bring the extra milk that you asked for, please don't then tell me you also want more sugar. As much as I love exercise, I really don't want to make thirty extra trips on a short flight. If you must, ask the next person for it & we will love you more... ;)

5) The fuller your cup, the more turbulence there will be.

6) if you want to have ten cups of coffee, by all means do so but it's probably not a good idea on a 40min flight... hehe... especially when trolleys are out and you can't get to the bathroom very easily.

Ok I know that was a quick post, so while you're here go say hi to Tam, a really cool blogger from Qatar Airways. She has a great blog with lots of interesting posts about training and layovers.

8 comments:

  1. I have great respect for FAs and their coffee pouring, I find it hard enough drinking it without spilling.

    Oh and while we are on the subject, those little cup things of water you always get on QF fligths, why do they always spurt water at me when I open them and no one else? What am I doing wrong?? Whoever I am travelling with always gets a good laugh.

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  2. Well Rob at one previous company we had the OJ ones, the trick is to peel the lid back towards you with the opening facing the side... so it squirts at your laughing travel companion- they won't be laughing for long! ;)

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  4. Why is it that on flights when I ask for "Cream" with my coffee I get the wierdest look, like did you not see the little milk cartons on your tray. (or whatever those little things are called). It's usually milk with tea and cream with coffee. And neither do I find the powdered cream sachets available. Milk with coffee just does not go!! However the looks from the FA really amuse me! Fortunately these past few months I've settled to drink black!

    I love the new layout, almost like the first divine command given "Let there be light". A big change from the darker layout, which was still a pleasure to view!

    PS:Sorry for the deleted post, I wanted to edit something and landed deleting it!

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  5. No problem! I've never even SEEN cream on any of my flights... it's not a very common thing down this end of the world, it seems...

    Not sure why you would get that response in Europe though, I thought lots of people drink cream in coffee up there? :D

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  6. bit trag if you splash the cafe all over a paxs notebook!

    which makes me wonder why most carriers don't do what sq and qf do - the pax puts their empty cup on a tray, the cafe gets poured well away from any pax, the tray gets handed back to the pax to pick up their cafe!

    soooo many times i have had pax tell me how good that system is when theyv'e always flown diff carriers (fly long haul qf)

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  7. Anonymous, great point. I've seen those trays you're talking about & I think they're brilliant. I do know that a couple of regional airlines in Oz have also started using them!

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  8. Hahaha! It's all so true. I love how people never want coffee during the breakfast services, but on Red Eyes or something where you don't even bother to put the pot on the trolley, everyone and their sister wants a cup!

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