Every nation has its peculiar ways to behave, which distinguish everyone and makes the world a more colorful place. I only have limited experiences of flights out of Europe, so i was wondering how It is to be on a plane flying towards Asia or south America or Australia or whatever! Italians tend to clap right after touchdown, which I always find odd, as the pilot is just doing his job...you don't clap your hands when a barista gives you your coffee (I am not sayin that making a coffee is comparable to land a plane, it is just an example, but still..). So are there messier or noisier nationalities? Are there places and routes which are less desirable to fly for crews of big airlines serving throughout the world (I am thinking of airlines such as EK that has a broad network all over the planet) amy cool stories about flying in different parts of the world human experience-wise?
Thanks!

Well. I'm not going to make an overall judgment on particular cultures, but my experiences have been: 1) Japanese. Reserved. Polite. Couldn't be nicer. 2) Chinese. Pushy. Impolite. Unrefined (bringing you bodily fluids in a plastic bag. Sleeping on the floor. Again. Not all. But have seen that several times. 3) Brazilians. Very nice, laid back. 4) Argentinians. Tendency to be snobbish. 5) British. Polite and refined. 6) Chileans. Very nice and laid back.
I must say that I have noticed that other than wine, most of them don't drink much. The Japanese don't drink much of anything alcoholic. They are my favorite. Too bad our layover hotel in NRT is a dump. Those are the only places I have flown internationally. Most crews want to get the most flying hours in in the shortest period of time, so I think it's more that than avoiding or preferring a specific nationality. Let me emphasize again that these observations are particular flight experiences and are not meant to imply everyone in that country has those types of behavior.

ozark1 wrote:

5) British. Polite and refined.

Unless they are going on holiday.

I've heard many less than positive things about mainland Chinese people (mostly stemming from ignorance of typical airline etiquette, as many are very inexperienced flyers).

As a Mandarin-speaker I spent a LOT of time in China. It is only in about the last 10-15 years that a middle class has developed that gave them the income to travel. There are no instructions classes or books on inflight etiquette (hmmmm.....maybe I should write one) so you can't really blame them for what we perceive as crude behavior. Just explain things carefully, respectfully and politely and they will do whatever you want to do. Indians can be VERY demanding and require a touch more courtesy. Address them as sir or madam, bring a pitcher of hot milk with the tea and look them in the eye when you talk to them. Offer a compliment on some particular item of food or a city you have enjoyed and you will have friends for life. Swedes can be tough---major alcohol issues. Watch how much you serve and keep a close eye that any duty-free bottles are not being consumed. Japanese are the easiest passengers in the world--they can board a fully loaded 747 with NO questions, stow their bags properly and be seated with belts fastened in minutes. I wish the rest of the world could learn that. Americans can run the gamut from ignoring you totally to having a screaming fit because you ran out of chicken the row in front of them and you did it on purpose. Gotta handle them on a one-to-one basis. LOVE the Scottish! When I would pick up dinner trays these sweet little old ladies would apologize for not eating all their peas because they gave them gas. Always courteous and fun. The Dutch can be a little gruff but it is just the way they are. Chat with them a minute and they are fine. Central Africans are interesting---the ladies board wearing these incredibly beautiful outfits with matching headgear. Compliment them on their looks and they politely smile and nod to say thank you--with incredible dignity.

It is hard to generalize about any one group of people--at briefing I usually ask for a "cultural tip" from someone who has flown the route a lot and try to use it during the flight. Little stuff like never touch an Asian child's hair. Don't put soy sauce on white rice (VERY gauche!). For many Asian nations pointing the soles of your feet at someone is the height of rudeness--watch when you cross your legs. In Thailand if you drop a coin and it rolls across the floor NEVER stomp on it to catch it--the King is on each coin and they are grossly offended. That can actually get you arrested.

I would actually say this is determined by what kind of route it is. LCC for holiday destinations means some low class people. Long haul VFR/business? People are usually ok.

[quote="DTWPurserBoy"] Succintly put! I'm Indian and would agree with you.

arjunsarup wrote:

DTWPurserBoy wrote:

Succintly put! I'm Indian and would agree with you.

Thanks for the compliment. When we first started service to BOM we had Indian interpreters aboard and they were a wealth of cultural information. They stomped out more brush fires started by insensitive flight attendants. Gesture with your entire hand--never point with a finger. Use a "genuine" (as in NOT an "airplane" smile) and take an extra few seconds, acknowledging the entire family (especially the children). Pour tea (we used real Indian teas) carefully without slopping it. And carry LOTS of sugar--the real stuff.

In turn, you will be treated with the utmost courtesy in India. We stayed at a 5 star hotel overlooking the Arabian Sea and it was a pleasure to enjoy lunch, the hotel shops and venture out to some of the "best" stores (flight crews love to shop and word gets around quickly who is good and who is not). I still get a Christmas card every year from the man that made me an Air Force bomber jacket about ten years ago (I still wear it). Sure, there is a lot of poverty which is sad but people are friendly and welcoming and they can tell when you are really enjoying the country.

It's usually the Mainlanders with those poor mannerisms. Don't lump other ethnically Chinese with those.

DTWPurserBoy wrote:

As a Mandarin-speaker I spent a LOT of time in China. It is only in about the last 10-15 years that a middle class has developed that gave them the income to travel. There are no instructions classes or books on inflight etiquette (hmmmm.....maybe I should write one) so you can't really blame them for what we perceive as crude behavior. Just explain things carefully, respectfully and politely and they will do whatever you want to do. Indians can be VERY demanding and require a touch more courtesy. Address them as sir or madam, bring a pitcher of hot milk with the tea and look them in the eye when you talk to them. Offer a compliment on some particular item of food or a city you have enjoyed and you will have friends for life. Swedes can be tough---major alcohol issues. Watch how much you serve and keep a close eye that any duty-free bottles are not being consumed. Japanese are the easiest passengers in the world--they can board a fully loaded 747 with NO questions, stow their bags properly and be seated with belts fastened in minutes. I wish the rest of the world could learn that. Americans can run the gamut from ignoring you totally to having a screaming fit because you ran out of chicken the row in front of them and you did it on purpose. Gotta handle them on a one-to-one basis. LOVE the Scottish! When I would pick up dinner trays these sweet little old ladies would apologize for not eating all their peas because they gave them gas. Always courteous and fun. The Dutch can be a little gruff but it is just the way they are. Chat with them a minute and they are fine. Central Africans are interesting---the ladies board wearing these incredibly beautiful outfits with matching headgear. Compliment them on their looks and they politely smile and nod to say thank you--with incredible dignity.

It is hard to generalize about any one group of people--at briefing I usually ask for a "cultural tip" from someone who has flown the route a lot and try to use it during the flight. Little stuff like never touch an Asian child's hair. Don't put soy sauce on white rice (VERY gauche!). For many Asian nations pointing the soles of your feet at someone is the height of rudeness--watch when you cross your legs. In Thailand if you drop a coin and it rolls across the floor NEVER stomp on it to catch it--the King is on each coin and they are grossly offended. That can actually get you arrested.

Interesting post! Thanks for sharing your FA stories.

a380787 wrote:

It's usually the Mainlanders with those poor mannerisms. Don't lump other ethnically Chinese with those.

Easily there are equal proportion of other ethnic Chinese (and that includes Hong Kong or Macau or Taiwan or autonomous region) who are just are poor in manners, some perhaps worse than others. I wonder how many years of your life you have spent in China and travelled here?

As a Mandarin-speaker I spent a LOT of time in China. It is only in about the last 10-15 years that a middle class has developed that gave them the income to travel. There are no instructions classes or books on inflight etiquette (hmmmm.....maybe I should write one) so you can't really blame them for what we perceive as crude behavior. Just explain things carefully, respectfully and politely and they will do whatever you want to do

That is just hilarious. You can write exactly how the perfect passenger should behave and no one would read it. There are far too many people in the population and we know that in many cases when we don't rush we don't get what we want. It is something that affect the population entirely and only now with etiquette becoming important is there a slow shift in this paradigm. The next generation of Chinese will bring that forward and it is a process through time.

Every culture and every country will have its fair share of idiots that can spoil any flight. Rather than generalise we can work with people to make them better and educate them in a way that is socially acceptable which is what we see today.

DTWPurserBoy wrote:

Swedes can be tough---major alcohol issues. Watch how much you serve and keep a close eye that any duty-free bottles are not being consumed. Japanese are the easiest passengers in the world

Sounds like from the Finnair crews

Nordics and especially Russians: Alcohol issues, especially on the Thailand (and similar) routes, fortunately less so nowadays. Usually no problems with younger Nordics, older folk drinks more.
Japanese: Favourite passengers, even "too polite" sometimes. I saw some happy AY staff when they announced the fourth destination In Japan, Fukuoka.
Mainland Chinese: Expect surprises, once a FA found a happy Chinese gentleman in galley eating her crew meal. But usually minor issues only, I heard. They always have mixed Finnish/local Asian crews to Asia, that helps.

[quote="DTWPurserBoy"]As a Mandarin-speaker I spent a LOT of time in China. It is only in about the last 10-15 years that a middle class has developed that gave them the income to travel. There are no instructions classes or books on inflight etiquette (hmmmm.....maybe I should write one) so you can't really blame them for what we perceive as crude behavior. Just explain things carefully, respectfully and politely and they will do whatever you want to do. Indians can be VERY demanding and require a touch more courtesy. Address them as sir or madam, bring a pitcher of hot milk with the tea and look them in the eye when you talk to them. Offer a compliment on some particular item of food or a city you have enjoyed and you will have friends for life. Swedes can be tough---major alcohol issues. Watch how much you serve and keep a close eye that any duty-free bottles are not being consumed. Japanese are the easiest passengers in the world--they can board a fully loaded 747 with NO questions, stow their bags properly and be seated with belts fastened in minutes.

The comment about the Japanese is spot on. Flew my first domestic 777 in Japan earlier this year. Was amazed that they didn't start boarding until 20 minutes before scheduled departure. Then economy class started about 15 minutes prior. I thought we'd be late. Not to worry! Everyone got on, sat down, stowed their bags and we were off on time! As an American, it was a sight to see!

-Scandinavian pax on SAS; wow....so IKEA. Very civilized, polite and look alike.
-Ghana pax on DL to Accra: incredibly civilized, orderly.
and
-Once I saw a woman passenger buy a pair of earrings from the Duty Free cart for the woman FA on a DL flight to IST, for rewarding her good service

People from certain parts of India tend to speak in slight loud volumes, it's not intentional but that how the native language probably is. This might be annoying to some as people are settling in prior to departure.

Im born and raised in the UK with indian parents and yes they naturally have very loud voices and its especially noticeable on aircraft where they have their headsets on shouting at each other whilst everyone else is silent/asleep.

hmm well the most issues I have with American passengers is that their suitcase is to big for the overhead bin, the flight is full and they are unwilling to check it in, even for free of charge (I have had this happened twice on UA, and once on DL.)

Germans- Business Class passengers have been fairly rough and want to jump the gun and enter before F passengers. Which has always annoyed me and my carrier of choice is LH and sometimes LX. It always annoys me when flying out of the spoke destinations its almost a fight to get on the plane when I am allowed to board.
In Europe, Ive also recognised that people will easily put half of their leg onto the aisle, as the aircraft is too cramped(I tend to see it with men) pushing back before everyone is safely seated, and once on an AF flight i saw a woman keep her roll on hand luggage in her laps.
Arabic- always a queue issue, they have seem to get very in people's faces on ground staff. (I have seen this happen at Doha and Dubai)

and my people, the indians... well I have always found it then when I connect onto my flight to India, that most expat Indians lack western values, they do not fasten their seat belts when told too, annoy the flight attendants with requests, cannot stay seated until the aircraft has come to a full stop, and again queue issues, and Y passengers seem to want to disembark before premium passengers.

Maybe my perspective on flying etiquette is bit different because as a millennial while I appreciate and celebrate cultural differences, somethings should be global cultural standards like putting on deodorant,and following crew instructions (of course professional and regulatory ones) and being polite to fellow passengers.

TK787 wrote:

Once I saw a woman passenger buy a pair of earrings from the Duty Free cart for the woman FA on a DL flight to IST, for rewarding her good service

I'm not sure it's against the airlines' policy that flight attendant can accept pax's gift because it's expensive - hope that it's under $20. It would be better to write a letter to the airlines about her exceptional service.

From what I have heard from ex SQ cabin crew. That was very interesting story. She complained that lots of pax keep pressing cabin crew buttons for help while she was working as a SQ cabin crew to LHR from SIN. However, when she flew with BA as a pax (also same route SIN to LHR) she was surprised that NONE of the pax pressed the cabin crew buttons. She kept wondering why Singaporean/Asians respect western culture not their own culture. It doesn't make sense haha.

She also said that cabin crew don't like to fly to Australia because Australians can be tough as well---major alcohol issues.

Also...SQ has received lots of complaints between HKG and SIN - The highest number of complaints more than other SQ routes.

Another story - Austrian airlines hired some Japanese flight attendant. I met a newbie Japanese crew on my Austrian flight and she was really nice and calm. When a german/Austrian pax asked her for apple juice, she poured apple juice and water but her workmate told her to stop and told her to pour sparkling water not still water. German/Austrian prefer to drink apple juice with sparkling water.

I have lost count of the times in over 20 years that I have had Americans say "that's not how we do it back home, you must know" as if the only way of doing things is the American way!

Lofty wrote:

I have lost count of the times in over 20 years that I have had Americans say "that's not how we do it back home, you must know" as if the only way of doing things is the American way!

ha ha ha...
Same here, I mean NYC, we always say " I don't care how you do it in LA"...

PhoenixVIP wrote:

a380787 wrote:

It's usually the Mainlanders with those poor mannerisms. Don't lump other ethnically Chinese with those.

Easily there are equal proportion of other ethnic Chinese (and that includes Hong Kong or Macau or Taiwan or autonomous region) who are just are poor in manners, some perhaps worse than others. I wonder how many years of your life you have spent in China and travelled here?

As a Mandarin-speaker I spent a LOT of time in China. It is only in about the last 10-15 years that a middle class has developed that gave them the income to travel. There are no instructions classes or books on inflight etiquette (hmmmm.....maybe I should write one) so you can't really blame them for what we perceive as crude behavior. Just explain things carefully, respectfully and politely and they will do whatever you want to do

That is just hilarious. You can write exactly how the perfect passenger should behave and no one would read it. There are far too many people in the population and we know that in many cases when we don't rush we don't get what we want. It is something that affect the population entirely and only now with etiquette becoming important is there a slow shift in this paradigm. The next generation of Chinese will bring that forward and it is a process through time.

Every culture and every country will have its fair share of idiots that can spoil any flight. Rather than generalise we can work with people to make them better and educate them in a way that is socially acceptable which is what we see today.

Lived 13 years in hkg ... What's your point? There's a reason why the stereotype of bad mannerisms point to mainlanders specifically.

From what I remember as crew:
Spanish - mixed bag, sometimes very rude,sometimes very sweet!
Italians - just crazy. Smoking disembarking, no concept of hand luggage, we always ran out of space. Can't sit down and board on time. Also always standing up just after landing.
French - Usually ok.
Greek - like to stand up in the aisle for the whole flight and the only flight where I was asked to make iced coffee.
German - mixed bag again...sometimes rude...absolute chaos when our airline changed to assigned seating which I was really surprised about. Could get very drunk
Moroccan - CHAOS. But sometimes the people were very nice. One time a crew found a whole family strapped into the rear jump seats during boarding. Another guy opened the emergency exit to cool down...
British - love to drink and eat. Love to complain also. Good fun when they were in the right mood. Messy
Polish - very quiet, usually organised
Slovakian - again quiet and organised
Estonian - very interesting...loved to drink...first time I've ever been asked for a toilet brush on a plane. Not very organised
Swedish - demanding, love to eat and drink, sometimes condescending
Finnish - demanding only for food and drink, no bullshit with them
Danish - very organised and quiet, boarded with a slot in 9 minutes once!
Irish - always sold out tea. Sometimes messy bastards too. But always loved the Irish flights (slightly biased)
Dutch - demanding and a bit haughty.Organised

From what I remember as crew:
Spanish - mixed bag, sometimes very rude,sometimes very sweet!
Italians - just crazy. Smoking disembarking, no concept of hand luggage, we always ran out of space. Can't sit down and board on time. Also always standing up just after landing.
French - Usually ok.
Greek - like to stand up in the aisle for the whole flight and the only flight where I was asked to make iced coffee.
German - mixed bag again...sometimes rude...absolute chaos when our airline changed to assigned seating which I was really surprised about. Could get very drunk
Moroccan - CHAOS. But sometimes the people were very nice. One time a crew found a whole family strapped into the rear jump seats during boarding. Another guy opened the emergency exit to cool down...
British - love to drink and eat. Love to complain also. Good fun when they were in the right mood. Messy
Polish - very quiet, usually organised
Slovakian - again quiet and organised
Estonian - very interesting...loved to drink...first time I've ever been asked for a toilet brush on a plane. Not very organised
Swedish - demanding, love to eat and drink, sometimes condescending
Finnish - demanding only for food and drink, no bullshit with them
Danish - very organised and quiet, boarded with a slot in 9 minutes once!
Irish - always sold out tea. Sometimes messy bastards too. But always loved the Irish flights (slightly biased)
Dutch - demanding and a bit haughty.Organised

Lofty wrote:

I have lost count of the times in over 20 years that I have had Americans say "that's not how we do it back home, you must know" as if the only way of doing things is the American way!

As an American I can tell you that a lot of Americans think there are only two countries in the world:
1. The U.S.
2. Not the U.S.

One thing I've noticed when flying to India or on flights with a large Indian demographic, the meal-service is always going to be tough if you don't have it planned out.
Emirates has it down pat - they keep AVML as a standard item to avoid a situation where you need to serve 200 out of 300 passengers "special meals" and it is just served as part of the normal service (Protip - if you want chicken from the menu, better be seated up front - it goes pretty quickly).

I agree with DTWPurserBoy, it can be a seriously demanding flight and requires tons of patience. Boarding seems to take forever with many infants, kids & elderly passengers requiring wheelchairs. Also, flights in the subcontinent as well as Middle-East seem to have a higher occurrence of overhead baggage tetris.

I had a surprisingly good time on my flights to & within Iceland. The whole atmosphere was just so relaxed and casual. People were chatting and joking with one another - it made the whole experience really pleasant.

Flights from Saudi Arabia have so many kids! If you aren't on one of the corporate shuttles, its a veritable daycare center in the aircraft.

For non-ME3 airlines, if you are flying passengers to/from the ME, be prepared for questions about whether the food is Halal (in fact once, a passenger asked this on a QR flight even). Not everyone prepares for this in advance.

On the topic of different cultures (not too relevant for this thread though), I've noticed that when a flight has passengers who appear to be from Peshawar or Kabul (Pashtuns), I've noticed pretty awful service. Despite appearances, in most instances that I've seen, they are usually rather quiet and are not demanding at all. This doesn't prevent cabin crew from treating them like dirt though.

Ro

PS: From all the posts above, I really want to fly domestic in Japan - sounds like a wonderful experience.

DTWPurserBoy wrote:

arjunsarup wrote:

DTWPurserBoy wrote:

Succintly put! I'm Indian and would agree with you.

Thanks for the compliment. When we first started service to BOM we had Indian interpreters aboard and they were a wealth of cultural information. They stomped out more brush fires started by insensitive flight attendants. Gesture with your entire hand--never point with a finger. Use a "genuine" (as in NOT an "airplane" smile) and take an extra few seconds, acknowledging the entire family (especially the children). Pour tea (we used real Indian teas) carefully without slopping it. And carry LOTS of sugar--the real stuff.

In turn, you will be treated with the utmost courtesy in India. We stayed at a 5 star hotel overlooking the Arabian Sea and it was a pleasure to enjoy lunch, the hotel shops and venture out to some of the "best" stores (flight crews love to shop and word gets around quickly who is good and who is not). I still get a Christmas card every year from the man that made me an Air Force bomber jacket about ten years ago (I still wear it). Sure, there is a lot of poverty which is sad but people are friendly and welcoming and they can tell when you are really enjoying the country.

A flight Attendant who had a good experience in India?
Now that's something you don't read every- day. May you live long and prosper!!

My first experience flying short-haul in Europe was very different from flying in Canada and the US. Flying Vueling from Torino to BCN and there were people lining up at the gate almost an hour before the flight to wait for boarding. The inbound flight had just landed and everyone deplaning had to fight through the crowd of people who were waiting to get on the airplane. And then when we landed in BCN as soon as that seatbelt sign switched off the guy seated next to me in row 17 got up, dropped the shoulder and forged his way as far forward as he could to get off faster. I noticed this same behavior on my TAP flight to LIS and another Vueling flight to DUB. In North America, at least in my 20-25 flights per year experience, everyone gets off in an orderly fashion, from front to back and it is a lot less chaotic and a lot faster then everyone pushing and shoving to get off.

Even my return DUB-YYZ I was seated next to a pleasant Irishman and struck up quite the conversation for a good portion of the flight. Anyways we were in an Emergency Exit row on an A310 and as soon as the seatbelt sign switched off he sprung up, grabbed his bag and literally was the first person off the plane while the rest of us Canadians apologized for having to go ahead of the person in the aisle across from you Just my experience, I though it was quite funny, I'm perfectly content waiting my turn to get off the plane.

While de-boarding a Singapore 744 in Honk Kong as part of a stop on the way to Changi, virtually all of the Asians were pushing on the person in front of them (including me) to hurry up and move off the aircraft. I was a bit younger then and didn't take to being pushed on after a long flight from SFO (that included a fuel stop in Taipei) very kindly. I was probably tired from being squeezed in coach that long, but I don't take kindly to touched by strangers, especially when tired and wanting a fresh change of clothing.

Is this a Chinese custom, Asian, or that particular days flight? It didn't happen at Changi, or our final destination in Dhaka.

In all fairness nobody was particularly rude, and many of the people I encountered were far less vocally rude and entitled than some of my fellow Americans. Our fellow air travelers in our travels in Bangladesh were some of the most polite people I've traveled with to date. One of our seatmates from Singapore invited us to visit and stay in her home in Singapore if we got tired of hotel travel. What a kind gesture of hospitality I couldn't fathom encountering in the US, where you don't even trust your next door neighbor much of the time.

Cheers.

IAHWorldflyer wrote:

The comment about the Japanese is spot on. Flew my first domestic 777 in Japan earlier this year. Was amazed that they didn't start boarding until 20 minutes before scheduled departure. Then economy class started about 15 minutes prior. I thought we'd be late. Not to worry! Everyone got on, sat down, stowed their bags and we were off on time! As an American, it was a sight to see!

Yup. Boarded a 788 to and from SFO in ten minutes. It was incredible to be a part of it.

Other thing about Japanese: they seem to have this superpower on any form of mass transit (plane, train, boat) that they sit down and then konk off to sleep almost as if on command. Just before arrival, they all rouse as if there is an agreed-upon signal. I have no idea how it works.

I've spent quite a bit of time in China, including a continuous 14 months in the mid-oughts. I took a lot of domestic flights and long-distance trains and thought the Chinese passengers were invariably polite. On boarding, people would often smile and invite me to cut ahead of them (possibly because I was obviously Not From Around There). Eating on airliners, and especially trains, did demonstrate some cultural differences as East Asians tend more to the use of shared dishes.
Regarding other types of behavior, as a New Yorker, it was always a shock to see pedestrians paying attention to the Don't Walk signs. In fact, I used to be a deliberately bad influence and try to get my Chinese friends and co-workers to jaywalk, usually with minimal success. Another shock, after living in the NYC area - no cigarette butts on the ground. Statistics show that a much higher percentage of Chinese smoke than most populations, but, damn, I quickly lost my habit of putting out ciggies on the street out of embarrassment because NOBODY else was. (I've since stopped smoking entirely, but at least for the last few years I was neater about it.)