Originally Posted by
Arliss
Not actually true. Maybe in the past but not anymore. DAL mainline pilots and FAs stay at the same hotels, but the FAs have a different time trigger for going downtown (15 hours vs I think 12 for the pilots, except for NYC which was I think 14:30). Aside from that, exact same hotels. I rode the van many many times with pilots. I don't ever recall a situation where we went to different hotels for the same (long or short) overnight.
At mainline most of the people I worked with were college educated. Lots of very great and professional people from a whole myriad of different background. Regional FAs...that's a different story, though I've met some quality ones.
Unless it's a smaller station I have never seen DL pilots in our hotels (SYR, BHM) come to mind, the BHM hotel is actually very nice. Take RDU for example, DL FAs stay in the Indigo we stay in, I don't know where the pilots stay, but it's not there, I have never seen a DL pilot on our van. Nothing like riding in the van at 5am still half asleep having to listen to cackle from a senior DL FA about her daugther's boyfriend. Or ours that just expect you to hold their coffee for them so they can get in the van with giant heels they don't know how to walk in
But yes, I agree the mainline ones are a lot more professional looking and acting, I do have to give them that. It's easy to tell the difference between one of ours and mainlines in the terminal, even if the uniforms look somewhat similar. And yes, we do have some professional ones that do a good job are intelligent and I don't mind interacting with, but in NYC those are few and far between.