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Comment by legalcorrection | Hacker News Reader

Flight attendants and gate agents well on their way to being the most powerful petty dictators in America. Put that seat back forward, turn your cellphone off, and don't you dare hit that service button. Don't use the bathroom during takeoff and landing, shit your seat instead. Stuff your suit into your carry-on, I don't care if it gets wrinkled and if you were going to hang it as soon as you get on the plane. Give me any lip service, and you'll never fly again. Who are they gonna believe? I'm a 20-year-tenure unionized flight attendant whose lobbyists get a red carpet at the FAA. You're a nobody with a coach class plane ticket.

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If you ask nicely they usually have a closer where they'll hang your garment bag. But if you have the same kind of attitude as the woman who knocked out an FAs teeth because she was asked to wear a mask, they won't go out of their way to help you.

Yes, once you get on the plane. But every so often, the gate agent says that the suit counts as a third carry-on and makes me stuff it into my roller bag instead, even if I'm flying first class and going to hang it as soon as I got onto the plane (and even if not, it fits on top of roller bags in the overhead compartments). Just pure malice on their part.

Fwiw, I've almost always been allowed to hang it once I'm on the plane. And 90% of flight attendants are extremely pleasant. But there are also plenty of tyrannical ones who cherish every bit of authority they get. Between the unionization and lack of competition in the airline market, airlines feel it's worse for their bottom line to try to discipline bad flight attendants than to treat their customers well.

Them being wrong and petty does not give you the right to throw a tantrum.

Didn't say it did. But having a verbal disagreement with someone isn't a crime and is often warranted.

There's so much salt and entitlement in this comment. Woof.

Well, another hypothesis is that he's old enough to remember when flying on an airplane resembled a service where the company was trying to ensure that the customer was pleased about it. Like they still do on many non-US airlines.

Yes. Because humans, en masse, are unruly animals that need to be herded. And when you are herding 300 people into a tiny sealed metal tube for 6 hours, you have to have total authority. Just like the captain of a ship, you submit your personal agency to his authority the moment you step foot on that ship. The alternative is chaos and massive safety issues.

Oh my the persecution.

That's what makes it petty.

I think we have different ideas about which party is being petty.

lol, This is such a bizarre hill to die. There is no evidence in this article of them saying this for any reason other than the staff and business. Could you imagine arguing that restaurants should let patrons who spit on their staff continue to eat there? I dont see what the problem.

That all seems pretty reasonable.

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