I never worked on the frontline, only below wing and the OCC, but I do have a few friends as agents and I've also overheard abusive conversations from pax. You are right, the trend seems to be getting worse, but is it due to overworked staff, reduced pay, fear of getting laid off, increased media negativity, stupid bandwagon know it all pax, congested airspace, uncontrollable wx IROPS etc etc.? Sometimes I do encounter a few disgruntled CSRs, lately DL when nonreving, who are very unwilling to help a fellow airline employee. Sometimes you will get a grumpy smart ass agent because they have had to put up with stupid ass passengers all day, who all know how an airline should operate. I swear, passengers are getting dumber and dumber. I have a lot of respect for those frontline agents who have to take a lot of crap from stubborn and irrate pax. They are the ones who have to explain why its delayed, cancelled etc, over and over again while maintaining a smile with the pax leaning over the counter ready to throw down. They are the ones trying to rebook pax one after the other while listening to them tell their bitch story. I feel kind of lucky and so should some pilots during IROPS, because I get to press a button and whamo, flight cancelled. One call to the station and that's it. Pilots, well they get to hide behind that door. Unfortunately the FA has to put up with the paxs' attitudes during flight and you(pilots) get to listen to it later on, during her/his bitch session, but that's a whole different story.
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Changes, Oh yeah!, like having each airline hold a mandatory orientation class for every passenger who flies on them. Then after initial indoctrination, they will then have to attend a recurrent class every year. Things taught could be; conditions and reasons for IROPs, GDP's, AFPs, airports to avoid, best time of day to fly, current economic status of the airline industry, how to talk respectfully to CSRs, how to read through the media's negative attitudes, how to pack lightly and how to beat down a terrorist amongst many, many other current or future issues. But most of all, which Kool-Aid flavor was voted best of the year.
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