Learning to love and loving to serve

“Delivering service with tact and elegance”, “exchanging, creating a bond, pleasing”, “personalizing contact”: luxury service is at the core of the new commercial strategy of a major airline to expand its upmarket offer and respond to the growing share of ultra-rich clients. Yet, the knowhow required to satisfy the demands of Premium clients – as much as the desire to serve in First class – are more the result of incorporated social dispositions than a specific business training. The analysis of the human resources files of the company, institutional archives and biographical interviews underlines that, over time, the diversification of recruitment that accompanied the expansion of the airline and the growth of air traffic has collided with this new upmarket strategy. While for female flight attendants of the older generation, serving in an airplane could constitute an extension of their domestic socialization (and rules of life prevailing there), the younger ones, originating from new salaried middle classes and more qualified, are more recalcitrant towards the forms of servility expected from them in First class.