January 21, 2004
It's about time...
They've finally revised the Japanese Civil Aeronautics Law in an attempt to stop passengers flaunting (fairly serious) flight rules.
For the last 2 years I've been teaching Cabin Attendants, both domestic and international and have heard some extraordinary tales. The most demoralising was the story of one CA who refused to serve a drunk and aggressive male passenger. The passenger lost his temper and forced her to get down on her knees and kowtow to him for making him lose face.
These are highly educated (and in many cases, refreshingly outspoken) women, not doormats, but up to now, they have been legally powerless to punish passengers using cell-phones, smoking in the john and generally not obeying the CA's safety instructions. Although a CA's job is highly prized among the chicky-babes of this fair society, a lot of passengers still see them as waitresses and targets for their derision and harassment.
If a passenger is seriously abusive or drunk, they can strap him/her to the safety chair, but swearing and minor verbal/sexual harassment (pinching of bums, asking repeatedly for dates etc.) is desisted but goes largely unpunished. The company policy is; "Polite and deferential at all times. That is the service passengers are paying for."
A (foreign) colleague once complained that CAs get paid too much for being what they perceived as merely high-class waitresses. This couldn't be further from the truth. These girls are trained in serious damage control and must, at any potential moment, turn into firefighters, paramedics, psychologists, nurses, police and up til now, verbal punching bags.
As an example, one CA I trained was working on flight when a passenger committed suicide in the lavatory. The CAs had to clean up the mess and stop other passengers from using and thus discovering a messy and bloody body.
It's not an easy job. I hope now they exercise their legal power as much as they can.
Was this kind of deferential behaviour just obligatory for Japanese CA's or for CA's in general?
It is not far removed from the British Health Service. Although for the last couple of years, there have been posters in hospitals everywhere about 'Zero Violence Tolerance', explicitly stating that this includes verbal violence as well as physical violence and will result in the abusive person being asked to leave the premises, in reality patients can still be as abusive as they want without any consequences whatsoever for them. I don't want to give examples because I might be breaching confidentiality (oh, well, there I go again), but believe me, the story of the CA kow-towing to the drunken passenger does not amaze me in the least.
deferential behaviour..... I think in any service industry that exists to some degree, but the Japanese airlines have built their reputations on the extremely good customer service/politeness, more so than other airlines.
Not saying that other airlines' staff aren't polite of course, but the core Japanese way of doing things, the whole concept of going out of their way to help someone or provide exemplary service is, I think, drilled into them at birth. Also, the role of "women" in Japan is still a bit retarded in terms of equality, so there is still the "woman serves" mentality, which then leaves them open to abuse and disrespect on the flight.
They started employing male CAs last year, so hopefully this mentality will get stamped out eventually. I bloody hope so!
Man, that job sucks. I'll admit when I was about 8 to 10 years old there was nothing more I wanted than to be a hostie!!! Luckily I've never witnessed anyone being bastards to the CAs on my flights OR had anyone commit suicide. That REALLY sucks...
I think mostly people are decent, but you always get the occasional arsehole who thinks he/she can throw their weight around and just be a total selfish bitch/prick. Happens in every industry, of course, but 8,000 feet above sea-level is quite a nasty place for it indeed.