Of all the weird encounters to have on an airplane, we never would have expected to have a flight attendant point out just how bad a full can of soda is for you. That’s what happened to Laura, though.
My experience with Southwest Airlines was a bit shocking. I was traveling from Denver to Baltimore on my first vacation in about a year.
When the flight attendant came around, asking what everyone would like to drink, I told her I would like a can of Coke. Southwest has been gracious in the past about offering a full can of a drink, if a passenger has requested it, and I have taken advantage of that policy from time to time.
When I asked for the can, the flight attendant gave me a weird look, almost as if she couldn’t believe I asked for the full can, but I nodded yes, and she walked away.
A few minutes later, this same flight attendant came over to me, gave me the can and flipped the can over to the nutritional information.
She used her finger to point out that the can had 39 grams of sugar in it, and went on to inform me that each gram is equivalent to a teaspoon of sugar, so in essence I’d be ingesting that much sugar if I drank the whole can.
I was incredibly humiliated and offended. Other passengers could hear her, and she did not offer the same sort of nutritional information to them. I believe she may have been singling me out for whatever reason she felt necessary. She made me feel like I wasn’t able to read, or that I was stupid as to what grams of sugar means. I am an intelligent person, but she certainly insulted that part of me.
Laura wrote a complaint to Southwest about the encounter—”If I wanted to talk about nutrition, I’d see a nutritionist,” she told us. Unfortunately—and this is the really annoying part—Southwest’s responses have been vague and generic. We think Laura has a legitimate complaint, which is that she felt she was treated inappropriately by an employee. The least Southwest could do is respond forthrightly to her complaint.
I have received a response from the company, but it was a general apology form letter. I was not happy with the response, and I emailed the company yet again to let them be aware that their reply was inadequate.
What is most frustrating about the email process is that when Southwest replies to complaints, they have a “no-reply” email address, so each time you want to refer to your original email, you have to go back to their main webpage and fill in your name, email, phone, address, flight number, destination city, original city, etc. I have asked to speak with a supervisor directly, but I have yet to hear from one. This whole process has taken almost a month.
A complaint should not take this long to be resolved. I feel like my issue was just swept under the rug. I was informed that my complaint would be given to senior leadership, and they meet once a month. What does this mean? Would I hear from senior leadership? Would I find out if the flight attendant was ever spoken to about her inappropriate behavior?
I am not thrilled with Southwest and how this one flight attendant spoke to me. Next time I will just have to handle it myself, in person, with the flight attendant, and risk being arrested at the gate, I suppose. (sarcasm)
My return flight was pretty relaxed. The flight attendants were giving out full cans of drinks to everyone, regardless of what they asked for. Now, that’s MUCH better service!
(Photo: i eated a cookie)
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39 gram of sugar in a can of Coke
1 gram = 1 teaspoon
A can of coke is 12 oz.
If this is true…
39 teaspoons is approximately 3/4 of a cup.
12 oz is 1 1/2 cups.
A can of coke is half sugar.
Does this sound unlikely to you as well? I call BS on the part of the flight attendant.
If you think this is bad, try Northwest. If you pay for coach, they treat you like dirt. I would have just told her that nobody asked her, making sure the rest of the passengers hear. Tough justice!
Though the action of the flight attendant is pretty reprehensible if this story is anywhere close to accurate, I’m curious why none of the actual letters are posted. How are we supposed to know if this is a legitimate complaint or if Laura just wrote a crazy, ranting letter that’s impossible to professionally respond to? How do we know the response was vague and generic? Are we supposed to assume that Laura is being completely objective in her judgment about SWA’s response?
C’mon Consumerist… if you have the letters and aren’t posting them (or at least excerpts of them), then you’re not really giving the full story. If you don’t have the letters, then you’re blindly taking the word of someone who sends you an email. I expect more from Consumerist, and I hope you’re not posting this stuff just for the shock value.
I am a flight attendant and sometimes cringe at morbidly obese people asking for multiple cans of soda and peanuts….then hang their fat out in the aisle because the seat they’re sitting in cannot accommodate their gluttony. Disgusting.
Perhaps this flight attendant simply had enough for one day and decided to make a positive difference in somebody’s life. Ever thought about that?
You have to ASK for the whole can of pop? Seriously?
My question is… who the heck cares? Wow, ONE employee made a comment. The company can’t control everything that their employees say. They can’t even verify that what the customer says is true.
Trust me, for every 1 bad employee, there are 10 crazy customers trying to get stuff for free.
Umm…so what?
What do you want them to do? Fire the attendant? Give you a free ticket? Give you a diet coke?
They’re not going to tell you if action was taken against one of their employees. Personnel issues are usually kept private.
Get over yourself. If this makes you “incredibly humiliated and offended,” time to toughen up for life…it’s gonna be a rough ride.
I have no idea what it is about food that makes everyone think they’re entitled to tell you want to eat or drink … but it seems to be a problem.
I’m on Weight Watchers (for 7 weeks, lost 22# so far). If I mention to anyone that I’m on a diet, the floodgates open to all sorts of eating advice that apparently people think I need, even when I tell them I’m on W.W. and I’m following that plan.
Why would I take someone’s unsolicited and non-professional diet advice, when I’m paying W.W. for theirs, which is (I assume) more reliable?
I suppose the advice would be welcome if W.W. wasn’t working for me and I had to do something else. But I don’t, because it is! Nevertheless, people seem to think they can do better.
It was only about 3 weeks into the diet that I learned to keep my trap shut. If I have to make a calorie-reducing request in a restaurant, for instance, I cannot qualify it with “I’m on a diet” because the unsolicited advice will ensue.
Giving a stranger unsolicited advice for anything is always a tough call. I never do it anymore. The last time I did, the guy wanted to kill me (this guy with a lifted up F-150 had this nasty gash (several inches and deep) in his tire and didn’t want to hear about the safety factor, like that he could kill someone).
Anyway, a couple of thoughts:
(1) There’s only about 4 grams of sugar in a teaspoon of sugar.
(2) There’s a false implication that a sugary drink is less healthy than a sugarless one. I would agree that water is healthier than a Coke. But I would disagree that a Monsanto Diet Coke would be healthier than a regular Coke.
I would’ve ignored them, or maybe given them a look depending on my mood. You really have to feel sorry for these people though. They honestly think they’re making a difference, like a 2 year old playing pretend-super hero and saving the world.
The best thing you can do is regard them as you would a 2 year old, ignore them or else they’ll throw a tantrum. If they throw a tantrum indulge them in pretending you care about what they’re saying until they leave. Just be glad it’s not your job to have to babysit them.
Ask the stewardess if she’s aware of the negative health effects (increased radiation exposure for one) of flying in an airplane for a living.
I’ll take the Coke over that.
Chances are if she has done this to Laura then this is not the first nor the last time she will do this.
No it was not acceptable at all for the air hostess to do this.
I have to admit, I would have asked her point-blank if she was insinuating I was fat. Why bother going to the company over this matter, when it could have easily been handled directly between you and the stewardess?
It’s not really Southwest’s problem that the stewardess offended you by pointing out the sugar content of a can of soda. That’s not illegal, immoral, or necessarily poor service. Companies can’t regulate EVERYTHING their employees do, and if one went too far in her zealous service and offended you, it’s not like they can fire her or even reprimand her.
I’m curious as to whether the OP is obese. Certainly, unhealthy foods (like pop) contribute to all sorts of adverse medical conditions, and a lot of people don’t think about what they eat and drink from a health point of view. I think what the stewardess did was exactly right: if I order something unhealthy, she should warn me that it’s unhealthy, and then give it to me anyway if I still want it.
It would have been funny to tell her, “Oh! Is that all [the sugar] it has?! Well I’m going to need a second can!” I bet that would confound her.
If not for the confounded Partiot Act, I’d have asked Ms. Flying Waitress if she’d like 39 grams of my foot dead in her ass.
Well, one’s a unit of weight, and one’s a unit of volume. Using my kitchen scale, it looks like a teaspoon is 4 grams. So really, that can of Coke was about 10 teaspoons.
Anyway, she may have had some strange, but altruistic reason for her comment. My family has a history of diabetes, my grandmother would have my blood sugar checked EVERY time I saw a doctor. If I scraped my knee, she’d say diabetes. To this day if I sneeze, she wants to pull out the glucose meter. (We have no need for one, when they went on the public market she insisted we get one.) My 78 year old grandfather was diagnosed with type II last week. Now she’s constantly got that “I told you so” attitude.
I never faked being sick when I was little for fear of the lancet at the doctor’s office. Back then they needed more blood, so the lancet was HUGE!
I probably would’ve asked the attendant if they had any sugar packets to mix in with it…