Smart Flight Attendants Avert a Food Disaster
We had not taken off yet because someone miscalculated. The jumbo jet was packed for the four and a half hour flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles but the pantry wasn’t. I overheard the buzz in the galley: not enough meals were delivered. It was suppertime and the hungry passengers were sounding cranky. How to creatively handle this challenge? Delay the flight while more meals were prepared? Hold a lottery to see who ate and who starved? Feed the women and children first? The Delta flight attendants huddled. The leader of the pack emerged, took the microphone and in an upbeat voice announced, “Supper tonight is tortellini. Unfortunately we don’t have enough tortellini for everybody, so, for those who do not like tortellini, I have an alternative — a free movie, free open bar, and all the free peanuts you care to eat. We’re hoping A LOT of you will find this appealing.” The passengers laughed. So did the flight attendant. “Please raise your hand if you’d like the alternative.” Lots of hands shot up and flight attendants stuck masking tape X’s on the tops of the seat backs. The passengers got to make choices, a crisis was skillfully averted and we took off on time. The flight attendants’ creative thinking created the atmosphere for a happy flight — a VERY happy flight!
The moral of this story is: by using creativity, problems become opportunities to shine.