We’re used to seeing adjectives like “pretty” and “beautiful” used to describe cabin crew and flight attendants… But “handsome”? Well, that’s exactly how the cabin crew of TAP Air Portugal have been described – in fact, they’ve been named the world’s ‘Most Handsome Crew’ by the British trendsetting magazine Monocle.
What’s more, this isn’t the first time that the editors at Monocle have bestowed the award on TAP and it’s flight attendants.
The 3,000 crew at the Portuguese flag-carrier made the magazine’s annual Travel Top 50 list in part because they are “easy on the eye” (cringe) but also because they are friendly, professional and offer a warm welcome. Thankfully, Monocle hasn’t based its decision on youth – the magazine actually acknowledges that the average age of TAP cabin crew is 38-years old.
“They are not the youngest in the sky but perhaps this experience is one of the reasons that we consistently rank (them),” the magazine informs us.
The award has delighted the airline with hopes that it will further improve its Net Promoter Score (a measure of how likely a customer will recommend the airline to a friend or family member). The scoring system is widely used by companies around the world and it’s becoming a hot subject in the aviation industry of late.
Irish carrier, Aer Lingus said it would be measuring its performance almost entirely on NPS, while Air France-KLM chief executive Benjamin Smith has been talking up the improvement in NPS at Air France.
Cabin crew can be one of the biggest drivers of customer satisfaction – and for that matter, one of the biggest drivers for customer disappointment. No wonder, TAP says one of its NPS categories specifically looks at crew performance – the airline asks passengers whether the crew were caring, kind and made themselves available but thankfully doesn’t inquire if they were handsome.
Other winners in Monocle’s Top Travel 50 included Marianne Zumofen, a member of cabin crew at SWISS who won ‘Flight Attendant of the Year’. It’s not actually clear what Zumofen did to win the award, but she’s been flying for the airline (and its predecessor) since 1982 so she obviously knows her stuff!
Meanwhile, Lufthansa and Finnair came joint first place as the most consistent carrier, while Qantas scooped the award for the best Business Class.
