Go ahead and pick me apart then. I'm the one who expressed the idea originally, Travelpro is agreeing with me. You do seem to have some sort of a beef with travelpro, it's noticable to everyone else on here. Keep it cute. It's just the internet.
Trav is the type of F/A we need more of, that actually cares. We need MORE people "ranting."
It's pretty embarrassing that an 80 year old airline can't get it's act together to smoothly board a freaking 737. Every flight, 20 people in the aisle, four people with the same seat, families of 8 that "bought thier ticket 8 months ago and aren't seated together." The last 20 people sent down for 19 seats told open seating so plop down in a first class seat, prompting another in the back to come up and ask why he wasn't upgraded. No manifest to know who is supposed to be there anyway. Five people in the back galley with rollaboards, two that are awaiting seat dupe info, two that are on the wrong flight, and one that is extra. All that will now have to check thier bags, not before they personally insult a flight attendant or two. One flight attendant stuck in the middle of the cabin. The other pointlessly collecting boarding passes of the seat dupes. The lead is up in the flight deck trying to get them to call for an agent, pilot takes the opportunity to ask for a cup of coffee.
It's unacceptable. It's unprofessional, and it makes us look like a two-bit, fly-by-night, inexperienced discount charter airline- which we are fast becoming, or supposed to be aspiring to be, still don't quite get that.
Do I want to make agents lives harder? No. I am the first to offer agents a drink or a snack, or run down to the ramp with bottles of water for our-coworkers in the summer or coffee in the winter. I certainly do not want to delay our customers any more, but hey, I didn't choose a mickey mouse computer system or cheap out on the training, equipment, amd manpower needed to make this thing go. And yeah, I am frightfully underpaid and undervalued by a clueless company... I'm here to work and do my own job, not cover the holes in your "cheap at all costs" business plan over and over all day long, day in, day out.
Get a real res system. This one does not work for our network and I am not doing a computer's job for it. Get real ticket readers, when you fly most other carriers you put your boarding pass in a machine when you board, and it beeps if it is a dupe or the wrong flight. It also automatically 'on's the seat instead of relying on a poor agent to manually type in all of those seats. Get more manpower. There's not enough staffing in customer service for the operation even in perfect conditions.
When the company realizes it is in the customer service business and decides to provide the tools and run a consistent and reliable operation, I'll be more than happy to chip in where needed... but not every day because something is broken and they don't want to fix it. The more you cover up the company's failures, the more they rely on you to to do so, and the less chance we have of ever providing the service our customers deserve and we can be proud of.
Rant over, end scene.