kam sa ham ni da

As my shift winds down at the fire station (got to fly a whole hour this afternoon), I’ll make one more idle observation.

My frequent flyer miles are with Northwest, but they scheduled my flights on their partner, Korean Air. KE is not famous for being the world’s best airline, so I was a little unhappy about this arrangement, but was I ever wrong! While I can’t speak to the quality of their aircraft maintenance (the flat sky blue paint job makes every aircraft look unwashed and un-cared for), the quality of service in the cabin was fantastic. It has been many years since I’ve flown on an Asian airline, but the difference in service is remarkable.

I left LAX for Seoul shortly after midnight, traveling west and running away from the sunrise. It was a loooooong night. Before the first movie there was free drinks and a meal service handled with efficiency I don’t recall seeing on any full 747 ever. After lights out and the movies started, several of the stewardesses (all young and pretty) disappeared into crew quarters, but one stood guard next to the lavatories. After each time one was used, she would go in and clean it up. When the full 747 landed in Seoul after more than 12 hours, the bathrooms were as clean and fresh as at takeoff. The stewardesses were from all over Asia: Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, and India, but it was difficult to know who was from where as they were never still long enough to read their name tags.

I suspected that the airline was taking advantage of cheap labor and had a huge cabin crew, so I asked the purser on my way out how many were on the crew. Fourteen: the same as any 747 operated by any airline.

American airlines of course cannot restrict their hiring to just young and pretty stewardesses, though at one time that was the case. But efficient service with a smile is a matter of training and attitude, not age and gender.

Most Asian cockpit crews are trained in America, KE's just up the road near San Francisco. I submit that American cabin crews should be trained in Asia.