In all fairness, who on this board is a neutral, objective observer as far as customer service is involved? Certainly not any 121 pilots. Easy now, just hear me out.... As a passenger, you're more than likely singled out (as I would expect you to be) for extra attention and you may not experience what the rest of us coach passengers do.

To me, the front end of my customer service experience involves interaction with the check-in desk agents, the gate agents, and the flight attendants. As a military pilot, I always try to say "hello" to the pilot team on the way in and/or out, but I don't particularly interact or see their behavior or attitude displayed as they go about their job like I do with the other airline employees.

In the last two years, I have flown commercial fairly extensively both CONUS and overseas (Europe, Asia, Africa) as part of my additional duty for the AF. In my experiences, the overall employee attitude has dropped noticeably. It's clearly evident that airline employees across the board are not as happy as they once were and unfortunately this affects customer service. Again, please remember that I'm relating my overall experience. There have been some fantastic employees who went above and beyond the call to help me or other fellow passengers.

In addition, I would have to say that the decline in attitude and customer service is noticeably greater among US based carriers than overseas carriers. It's not huge, but it is noticeable.

Due to the amount of flying I've done, now I pretty much get to fly first class. I hate to admit it, but I dread ever having to go back to coach in these current times.

Don't be ****ed, I'm just offering my opinion based on my experiences. Take it for what it's worth or sh!tcan it if you want. Someday I hope to be sitting in the right or left seat with some of you guys/gals, but I'm really dismayed by what's happening to the whole industry. It's sad to me to see this and I hope for everyone's sake that things get better!