Sophie's Diary: When politeness is out the window...

There’s never been any issues with delays, the in-flight meals are excellent and the attitude of all the staff is warm and friendly.

You can imagine how upset I was, then, when I watched a group of cabin crew receive a torrent of abuse from a number of customers while on my way to Turkey last week.

The flight was extremely busy and it was full of hungry customers. The cabin crew were completely rushed off their feet and, because of the high volume of customers ordering food, their stock fell to an absolute minimum.

This seemed to outrage a large number of passengers, particularly the family sitting in front of Nick and I, who were screaming abuse because they weren’t getting what they wanted.

The young girl serving them burst into tears while the team leader had to keep her cool and serve angry customers. To say I had to bite my tongue is an understatement. I couldn’t help but feel heartbroken not only for the young flight attendant but for the team as a whole.

When it came to our turn to be served, I made a (loud) point of telling the team leader they were all doing an amazing job. Watching the smile appear on her face was great but it didn’t stop the fact that they had a battle to continue fighting.

Flight attendants are the bread and butter of air travel. They can’t land a plane on the spot to fetch a few more cheese rolls because someone isn’t happy. They just have to battle on and keep working, sometimes around some of the most horrible, nasty, vile customers.

It costs absolutely nothing to be nice to others who are simply doing their jobs.

Cabin crew – I salute you!