8 Things People Expect Flight Attendants To Do That Aren’t Their Jobs

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass posted a photo that went viral on Twitter. In it, his two daughters were sitting on a plane, engrossed in their devices, and the floor around them was covered with popcorn. He said a flight attendant asked his wife, who was 22 weeks pregnant, to pick up the popcorn. “Are you kidding me?!?!” he wrote. 

Bass was furious, but Twitter wasn’t sure he was entitled to be. One Twitter user responded, “Won’t lie, the fact that the flight attendant had the guts to make the passenger clean up their own MESS kinda makes me wanna fly United more,” and another wrote, “‘My wife had to be a parent!’ That’s you right now.”

While the jury is still out in terms of who’s in the right here (people have a lot of opinions), we decided to ask flight attendants about things passengers expect them to do that aren’t their jobs. Here’s what they had to say. 

1. Put your bags in the overhead bin.

“Expecting your flight attendants to lift your luggage and put it in the overhead bin is one of the biggest misconceptions of the role of flight attendants. Asking us to do it is a quick way to present yourself as an entitled pain on the plane and start your flight out on the wrong side of the crew. Not only is lifting passenger luggage not our responsibility, but we are also instructed by the airlines not to do it, and if we are injured as a result of lifting luggage, we will not be protected by the company’s medical leave and injury pay protection. I have watched passengers leave their bags in the aisle and tell the flight attendants to deal with it.” — Jay Robert, a flight attendant and founder of A Fly Guy Travels

2. Fix flight delays.

“People think that all the crew has the ‘keys’ to the airplane. One time our flight got so delayed due to the airplane not arriving — apparently it got stuck in another city [due to] weather issues — that the crew and I decided to go get pizza and all the passengers were looking at us with daggers in the eyes. Like it was our choice, and we delayed it.” — Paola Quiroz, a flight attendant with Air France

3. Have an unlimited supply of the food you want.