Originally Posted by
sailingfun
My understanding is that flight attendants are supposed to be proactive in assisting passengers and insuring the overhead bins are properly loaded. When we had song the flight attendants did this extremely well. The fact they were proactive in the loading insured that despite the 757's having more seats then the mainline we almost never had to check bags and the boarding process was much smoother. If however flight attendants are not supposed to assist the passengers or insure proper loading of the overhead bins then they should at least be capable of lifting their own bags into the overhead.
You can assist, which means the passenger does most of the work and you help them--not that they take their seat while you fumble with their 50 lb. oversized bag. Yes. we have to re-jigger the bins to ensure optimum room for every bag possible which sometimes involved turning the bag another way or removing smaller bags which should be placed under seats. Again, this isn't us being mean---it's preventing injury. Of course. common sense has to prevail and I would always do all the work for an elderly or disabled passenger...(even if it meant getting another FA to help me)