I agree with Rich, but I think there’s a point that needs to be hammered home more: flying is awful. And, while there are more than a few true exceptions to the rule, one of the main reasons flying is awful is that the flight attendants make it awful. Yes, there’s a vicious cycle element to flying. The experience is so miserable it makes the passengers rude, the rude passengers make the flight attendants ruder, the rudeness of the flight attendants make the passengers even worse. The kill-or-be-killed atmosphere makes getting off a plane the equivalent of trying to merge lanes on the West Side Highway.

For the record, I like Jet Blue and try to use it whenever its routes work for me. And in my experience their attendants are better than most. Some airlines, because of cutbacks and layoffs, have had to fire all the younger attendants leaving only the older, near-retirement, ones who got to keep their jobs because of union seniority, but are nonetheless mighty peeved to be working routes they consider beneath them. But at the end of the day, the passengers are paying for a service and the flight attendants are being paid to provide one. That makes all the difference in the world.

Slater never made sense to me as a working-class hero because, first, it seemed pretty obvious to me from the beginning that he’s a jerk. Second, Jet Blue is a low-budget airline and this was a Pittsburgh to New York flight (not exactly like he was giving a Diva from Paris the what-for). And, third, fair or not, flight attendants are sort of like what used-car salesman and dog catchers used to be: one of those occupations that gets mocked in the popular culture (isn’t it amazing how dog catchers — thanks to cable animal shows — are now heroes?). Throw in the fact that his interests on his Facebook page include “fashion, interior decorating, spirituality and recovery,” and he hardly sounds like Kris Kristofferson in Convoy (Oh, how I used to love that movie!).