Category: Let's talk
Hey anyof you who fly, do you feel that you have to tip the people who help you to and from the run ways, and getting your baggage?
yes. i feel they deserve something because after all they are doing something for us that we wouldn't be able to do because of our blindness
If they're helping me out with my baggage, sure. Who the heck wants to be lugging around my stuff for free anyway? But if they're just helping me get to where I need to be, then no. Heck no. There's no need. It'd be like tipping someone for giving you directions to some place. Blah.
I dunno, I've had weird skycap dudes take me too and from places, carrying my luggage and things, and no--I haven't thought about tipping them. Maybe it would help if it didn't take for freaking ever to get one of them in the first place, (it took about 20 minutes one time) I'd think about it... From my experience, I've had weird dudes, and they usually dont know too much English, and they're hard to understand, and I'm sorry--asking me if I'm married isn't cool, seriously!
Well I just flew this past Tuesday, and the guy that helped me had enough balls to say to me after I was trying to sit and get my coat off that he works for tips. I hadn't even got all the way seated or taken off my coat. I was very early and wasn't rushing for anyone that morning. He also got to see how much money I had in my pockets, cause the brain surgeons that work in Philly's airport pulled me and searched me. So had to rip everything out of my pockets, stand there with my arms out in the air, get patted down, used the wand, wiped my shoes and hands looking for chemicals on them, and finally had me loosen my belt so they could look behind it. After all of that the sky cap had enough time to look at what came out of my pockets. I just ripped a bill out of my pocket and told him there. So if the person is very helpful then yes tip them, but after that trip forget it. It wasn't like I wasn't going to give him shit, damn let me sit down for a second.
I try to pay people who help me out such as driving me around and so on and just jobs like that but they won't accept any money from me.
Troy
Do you not think it a matter of a reasonable accomadation, that the airport provide persons having disabilities a way to get around the airport? After all do you tip the person that helps you around the food store? Should I as a person who happens to have a disability, having no other choice but to use the sky caps service be harassed because they work off tips? A sighted person has a choice but I having a disability has not a choice. A sky cap could conceiveabily target people having disabilitys simpily because they have no choice.
Hmmm, now here's an interesting topic, seeing as I totalled at lest 30 flights (round trip) last year.
What I found out is that different air port have different policies regarding the sky cab services. Some get paid reasonably/hourly (like in Charlotte) but some basically live of tips (Detroit as an example) and, yes, sadly a lot of them don't even know English. Basically if an air port has a system in place for disabled passengers apparently you don't need to tip but if the person helping you is a sky cab that is using his/her time helping you instead of getting someone else's luggage I feel obliged to tip that person, after all the time he/she spent helping me is time he/she could've gotten money hauling bags for, say, 2 or 3 people so I tip between 2 and 3 dollars, but only if they're nice. I had the same guy walk me to and from the gate about 10 times and finally he got pissed and told me they worked for tips that's really the first time I thought about it, I somehow presumed they got paid by the air lines, so I've tried to be aware of it. But it's like everything else, if you feel you're getting good service why not tip the people after all sighted people often need to tip parking bus drivers e.g. ($2 per bag is a rule of thumb) for getting from the parking lot to the airport terminal, something we don't worry about that often. And fact is we can't demand everything, not unless there are concrete standards. Nowadays we want to pay hundreds of dollars less for flights and the low cost mentality is the norm and in those situations air lines are saving money and lowering our fares by cutting all possible costs and making any "optional" assistance cost. I don't see how paying $4 or $5 for a round trip to peoploe who are nice and help you out is going to hurt you that much financially (unless you travel virtually every weekend which is very uncommon) and I like to show my appreciation to people, it really does pay to be nice even if you sometimes have to pay to be nice <grin>.
Cheers
-B
I tend to agree with DF on this one. Tipping them for helping me get from point A to point B ... OK, maybe if I want to be nice, but some people are like, "I work for tips" like we're obligated to do it or whatever. Screw that. You ask me for it, then you ain't gettin' nothin'. Have the audacity to demand money from me ... that's just being rude, in my opinion.