7 things never to say to flight attendants

If the flight attendants on your last flight seemed a little snippy, please don't take it personally.

They have their reasons. It isn't just that most of the major airlines are broke, that employee pensions are being cut, or even canned, or that employee morale is in a tailspin.

No, that's just the half of it. They also have to put up with increasingly agitated passengers on increasingly full flights. For example, air travelers have done the following recently:

A flight was diverted because an unruly passenger lit a cigarette and urinated in the aisle.
An airline passenger bit a fellow passenger who tried to restrain him after he insisted on wanting to get off the plane before take off. The pilot decompressed the plane and the aircraft began taxiing back to the gate, but not before the wild passenger opened the plane's door and leapt many feet below to the tarmac. He was restrained by local authorities with a stun gun.
Another passenger threatened that he had a bomb, then fled the plane and was shot and killed by air marshals.

But it isn't just what passengers do that sets off the crew. It's what they say. When you aren't sure where your next paycheck is coming from, and your passengers are mouthing off to you like whiny preschoolers, it's enough to test the patience of even the most mild-mannered crewmember.

So in the interests of keeping the peace at 36,000 feet, here is a list of things that you should never, under any circumstances, say to a working flight attendant. Scratch that. Don't ever say it to a flight attendant:

1. "Hey, what happened to the food?" As if the flight attendants can do anything about that. "Also, don't bother complaining if the food is lousy, or if there isn't enough of it," says Sally Williams, a travel book author in Berkeley, Calif. "Or if they are charging for it, that it costs too much." If you're on a flight where food is served, you should probably shut up and be grateful. Most flights are food-free these days.

2. "Am I going to make my connection?" Admit it, you've wondered it many times. Maybe you've even asked an attendant. Please ask no more. Crewmembers don't know if you are going to make your connection (they do receive connecting gate information, but can't monitor every individual flight). What's more, inquiring if you'll make a flight is about as easy as predicting the future. And if flight attendants were any good at predicting the future, most of them wouldn't have become flight attendants in the first place.

3. "No wonder your airline is bankrupt." "That's so annoying," says one veteran flight attendant for a bankrupt airline. "It is just the kind of thing that a selfish, self-absorbed coach passenger would say when the service isn't up to snuff, or there isn't enough airline food." In fact, most flight attendants refuse to discuss their airline's precarious financial situation with customers — it's just a bad topic, period. Telling a crewmember that their company deserves to be bankrupt isn't going to win you any brownie points. You might even find that they run out of airline meals before they get to your seat with the meal cart. Sorry about that!

4. "I have a bad feeling about this flight." Leave your premonitions in the terminal, or better yet, don't travel at all. And if you do decide to fly, please don't share your misgivings with the crew. Truth is, many flight attendants have had a bad feeling about their flights for a while now — albeit a different kind of bad feeling. However, if crewmembers hear you mumbling about a bad omen, they're probably going to interpret it in the worst possible way. Maybe you know something they don't. Maybe the plane is going to go down. Then again, maybe you'll be escorted off the plane by police before takeoff.

5. "If your airline goes out of business, what will happen to my miles?" "That's a valid question," says James Wysong, a flight attendant for a major airline and author of "The Plane Truth: Shift Happens at 35,000 Feet." "But it should be directed to a proper source, like the specific mileage program's office. If you ask a flight attendant that, all she is thinking about is, 'How am I going to pay my mortgage?'."

6. "I have a bomb in my bag." If I have to explain why you shouldn't say this, then you probably shouldn't be let out of the house — let alone on a plane. "Since 9/11, I have become much more aware of the cabin environment," says a flight attendant for a big airline. "I constantly scan the cabin during the boarding process as well as the deplaning process at the end of a flight. I closely listen to comments made by passengers. The safety of my fellow crew members and those passengers aboard any of my flights are first and foremost and of paramount concern to me." In other words, your bomb jokes are definitely going to . . . bomb.

7. "Hey, stewardess!" The term "stewardess" and "steward" are widely considered to be archaic, if not derogatory. They are especially offensive if they're used while, at the same time, you repeatedly press the flight attendant "call" button over your seat. Flight attendants are not airborne waiters. They are bona fide crewmembers who have undergone many hours of safety training. Yeah, they serve drinks — but if the plane goes down, they can also save your butt.

Now perhaps more than ever, you have to watch what you say on a flight. The skies aren't so friendly, for a variety of reasons — of which passengers are one.

"No one likes to be yelled at, spoken down to, bossed around, mocked or ridiculed," says Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants. "But if you speak to us in a polite manner — like you would if talking with a friend or coworker — you will find that we are pleasant as well."