Tsk, Tsk, Southwest
My wife traveled to Las Vegas last Saturday and while she isn’t a hard core airliner fan like me, she knows her stuff from hanging out with me.
While on the aircraft, she noticed a no smoking symbol sign on her seat. Right above the ashtray. Being friendly, she asked the flight attendant why on earth would that aircraft have ashtrays when smoking has been banned for 20 years.
The flight attendant’s reply?
“This airplane was built in the 1950’s and they don’t want to spend the money to update it.”
Yes, seriously. No kidding. She said that.
Tsk, tsk, Southwest. Your flight attendants ought to know better than that.
I know the airline recently celebrated its 40th birthday (meaning it started in 1971), at least the flight attendant should have know that much. I don’t expect them to know about how the plane are retired etc. The oldest ones have registration in the N3xxSW range and entered service in the early 80s for the oldest ones.
Yes, that’s true, they’re 40 years old this year. It is also true that their oldest aircraft date to the late 1980’s. I’ll also point out that the 737 didn’t even exist in the 1970’s and barely so in the 1960’s. The flight attendant was effectively communicating that the aircraft they were on dated to the 1950’s. I don’t care what your seasoning is as a flight attendant, you should know enough about your aircraft not to say something like that.