“Working for an airline is almost like being in Scientology, because the language they use is one<br />that people don’t understand,” said Heather Poole, an American Airlines flight attendant and the author of the best-selling book “Cruising Attitude.” “I kind of wonder whether it was a way to keep passengers from understanding.”<br />It’s the kind of thing you don’t notice until you aim to notice.<br />“But I also think that airlines have allowed consideration of the question to take a back seat,” he said, “where they are too quick to tell people to call law enforcement<br />and don’t draw a line in the right place or invest enough in the customer-service element.”<br />The union president, Ms. Nelson, agrees with that last point.<br />“But that’s easy for me to say, because I’m not the one who has to get called in,”<br />Mr. Francis said, nursing a glass of tequila after our day with the court clerks.<br />“If someone is a jerk to me, I am probably not going to see them again the way I would if I worked in a bank and someone pinched me,” she said.
