Have You Tipped Your Flight Attendant

“We appreciate the great work of our flight attendants..." Frontier spokesman Jonathan Freed said.

Frontier's flight attendants have been working without a contract for two years. Now, Frontier is trying to play the bleeding heart game to shift additional costs to passengers, rather than pay them directly.

Don't get me wrong, I think tipping flight attendants is a great idea. They have a wide range of critical duties that are often underappreciated. On a recent flight through Portugal, the flight attendants had a cup on their cart intended for tips -- and there was quite a bit of money in there.

But this comes off as cheap and tacky on Frontier's part. Just pay your employees' fair wages and let customers decide if they want to tip or not.

It's so passive aggressive on Frontier's part.

I knew it would come to this. How about tipping the pilots for an especially nice landing?

From my Facebook page: "The day I start tipping flight attendants is the day I rediscover Greyhound."

For the record, I'm not against tipping for good service per se, and am actually a quite generous tipper. But inventing yet another class of employees expecting a tip is ridiculous. It shouldn't be a surprise in this case, as Frontier is a champion of charging for everything from snacks to trips to the bathroom;)

And I get the economic model of these low cost carriers, though Frontier takes fees to a new level (such as in charging higher baggage and carryon fees simply for booking through a website other than theirs). I'm a pretty frugal guy, but you won't see me on one of their flights again unless I have no other option.

As the OP says, pay flight attendants a fair wage and obviate a "problem" (that doesn't really exist). Subtly encouraging passengers to pay a tip after being served an overpriced bottle of water isn't the way to go.

I have never tipped a flight attendant or any other airline employee (I never check bags so have never used the curb side baggage check, I would probably tip there if I used it). I have seen people attempt to tip and have the FA acted insulted. There were a few times during holidays when I had to fly I brought a bag of chocolates and gave it to the flight attendants, but never really thought of that as a tip.

In my earlier days of flying, the airlines paid their flight attendants a higher hourly wage than I made, significantly higher, and I never heard any one complain about not making enough money. Even Southwest, the grand daddy of discount airlines, always paid a proper wage. Now, it seems that after paying the CO and his buddies their must million dollar wage plus all of their bonuses and so on, the airlines no longer can find enough money to pay anyone else that works for them what they should be paid.

Frontier has made some really dumb business decisions since they went the super discount route. For example, they got rid of their toll free customer support lines. So now when you call them you pay long distance charges while you sit on hold for an hour just to have them hang up on you without providing any assistance (yes, I know, with cell phones the concept of long distance is no more, but it i the principle). I see this as just another dumb decision by management that has no clue how the real world works when you don't make a million dollar paycheck.

No, I have never tipped a flight attendant. I guess I would be willing to tip a flight attendant on a cheap-o airline if I purchased "extras".

As long as consumers continue to purchase tickets on low end airlines, they will continue to exist. I don't understand why people complain about them, you know what you are getting going in.

I don't fancy flying an airline where part of the crew are reduced to working for handouts. But if I have to tip the cabin crew, should I also tip the the ground crew for refuelling the aeroplane properly or the pilots for not steering into a mountaain?

Seriously, why don't these people go on strike until the capitalists give them a decent salary? I bet crew get a yellow vest as part of their uniform, time for them to put them on and force change.

Seriously...?? It would never occur to me to tip a FA. I seldom, if ever, buy anything onboard a flight, so I haven't seen any of the screens on the credit card machines the carriers use.

I would gladly give a tip to Air Canada flight personnel.. The tip would be
“try smiling once in a while.”

If flight attendants don't make a good enough salary to survive without tips then that's not the passenger's fault, it's the airline's fault. And, with the rates and fees they charge, there's not reason they can't change that. The tipping culture in America is already out of control, we don't need another group of employees begging for tips.

Tipping a FA? Never. Tipping is out of control in the U.S. as it is. I would think the FAs would be insulted.

Perhaps if people could behave themselves on planes; it might be the best “tip” of all.

On Frontier if the masks fall from the overhead, you need a credit card to turn on the oxygen.

Agreed. Tipping, in the USA, is out of control, and so is the attitude.

On a different note: On one BA flight I was on, there were a couple of passengers who were awful to the flight attendants. The FA's remained professional, calm and firm.

After we started to deplane, I stayed a bit until I could commend the FA's for their behavior - those passengers really tested them on that flight. They thanked me, smiled and nodded.

I always thank the pilots and FA's.

Cheapity cheapity cheap. That’s on Frontier.

If FAs are professionals then you don’t tip them.

I haven’t flown Frontier in years and this just cements it.

Frontier used to be a great airline. I lived in Denver 10+ years ago when it was a "regular", not discount airline and loved flying on them. Now that it is discount, it is The Worst. They go on the intercom and brag about how much money they just spent on new planes - "the most ever spent" - but yet you have to pay for a cup of water. I am sorry their FA's do not have a contract. I have never tipped a FA and it honestly never occurred to me. I assumed (wrongly?) they made a living wage, unlike restaurant workers who make a few dollars per hour and really do depend on tips - right or wrong, it is the reality of working in a restaurant in the US.