Yesterday Scott gave us vintage airline commercials. Real commercials. Here is a video of what looks like a real vintage commercial, but it’s fake. You’ll figure it out in a second or two. As sexist as I think this is, and I do, I laughed. Perhaps, because it captured the tone of commercials and an earlier era–not that flight attendants have ever been this way.
It would be fun to see a commercial like this one where the women get the flight of their dreams. I wonder what that would look like?
Being a flight attendant may be a job that is getting harder, like Jeffery posted. After reading this article originally published in the St. Petersburg Times about flight attendant passenger altercations, it reminds me of what it is like in an unruly classroom of adolescent middle-schoolers. Instead of threatening people with a trip to the principal’s office for not staying in their seats, for example, the threat is criminal charges, usually made in a loud voice.
An aviation lawyer in Sarasota, Florida said that flight attendants are using the threat of criminal charges for passengers who are not behaving more often ever since 9/11. I wonder how much the threats are working? The article mentioned several of the altercations we’ve covered on Gadling.
With the news of poor behavior it makes me wonder, if there wasn’t the threat of criminal charges, would people act worse? Or, since threats with middle-schoolers often don’t work well, I wonder if threats by flight attendants like, “If you don’t stop that right now, you’ll be in serious trouble,” make people behave worse?
That day, September 11, 2001, was the day I landed in Zurich, Switzerland for a week long vacation with my mother who is also a flight attendant based in New York. That morning, the morning we sat on a strange bed in a hotel room far away from home, our eyes glued to the television, we watched in horror as it happened, as an airplane, one of our airplanes, carrying our fellow crew members, along with our passengers, crashed into the World Trade Center. Like you, we were stunned, and scared, and could not believe what we had just seen so far far away from home. Little did we know our lives had changed forever.
“Don’t even bother going to the airport until the 21st,” said an airline representative over the phone after I told her we were airline employees trying to use our flight passes to get out of Switzerland on a flight, any flight, to the United States.
“How much to purchase a ticket?” I asked.
“Let me see….the only seat available is on the 28th, in coach, and that costs…” I could hear her fingers clickity click click clicking, working their magic. I held my breath. “$8,000,” she finally said.
“Just keep going to the airport,” said a Delta Captain laying over at our hotel. We were in the lobby waiting to check in – again, when he spotted the red CREW bag tag wrapped around my suitcase. “We were able to get a few standbys out the other day.”
So that’s what we did, my mother and I, we woke up early each morning, checked out of the hotel, walked to the train station in a daze, our bags rolling behind us, where we boarded a train in the dark to go to the airport. Hours were spent waiting to get on one of two flights, the only two flights going to the United States. All other flights had been canceled. One flight departed early in the morning and another left later in the evening and we were number 800-and-something on the standby list. Yet we continued to go to the airport and wait it out every single day, just like thousands of other people desperate to get home to family and friends.
Eventually some passengers did leave. By car. A couple of them decided to drive to other airports in neighboring countries. A few days later they returned. My mother and I still sat waiting, waiting, waiting in the terminal with little hope of getting out any time soon.
When we did finally make it back to the United States, I found myself in Texas, where my parents live, and that’s where I decided to stay until October. The route I’d flown for two years straight, New York – Vancouver, had been wiped off my schedule the entire month of September – never to return again. Which left me with a little time off that many of my colleagues were not fortunate enough to experience. I was lucky and I knew it.
The most vivid memory I have of that time, my time in Texas, took place in a popular oyster bar. There I was catching up with an old college friend I had actually run into at the Chicago airport the day I flew to Zurich. He had been on his way to Japan. We sat at a small table discussing what had happened, and the days that followed, while the people around us ate and drank and laughed, having a grand ole time, as if nothing had happened, while a television above the bar rolled footage of the recovery process going on in New York, my crew base since 1995.
Eventually I did go back to work, back to New York, less than a month after that day in September. I’ll never forget the smell, as it lingered in the air, strange and unexplainable, for months. And whenever I’d return to my crash-pad in Queens after a flight, I’d step out of the car and onto the curb, only to be greeted by stacked cardboard moving boxes. Japan, several boxes were labeled one particular afternoon. Most likely belonging to the opera singer living at the end of my hall, because shortly after that, the hallway became eerily quiet. (I still miss her beautiful voice.) As people left New York in droves, and the odd smell refused to dissipate, my colleagues continued to go to work, back to the airport, back on the airplane, back to where it all started on that day in September.
“Remember the soot on our windows in the apartment when we got back to New York?” my mother said after I read the first part of this post to her over the phone. “And the memorials set up for our coworkers in Operations?”
As my mother reminded me of all I could not remember, of what I did not want to remember, a chill went down my spine. What I do remember was flying into New York, the airplane low over the city, the passengers glued to the windows as they looked out to where the Trade Center had been, a dark hole on the ground that continued to smolder for far too long.
“I often wondered if the pilots were tipping the wing of the airplane in the direction of where the Trade Center had been in respect to what had happened,” my mother said.
On the jump-seat I sat on my first trip back, minutes after takeoff, when the flight attendant sitting beside me asked, “What are you going to do if something happens?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing full well what he meant. It’s just I didn’t, at the time, have a plan. I mean I had a few ideas of what I could do, but I didn’t know exactly what I would do, if, in fact, it came to that. God how many times did I pray sitting on that jump-seat after takeoff that it would not come to that!
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” said the flight attendant as he motioned to the insert of soda sitting on the linoleum floor beside his jump-seat. He grabbed a can of Pepsi and made quick and aggressive throwing motions. “Bam! Bam! Bam!”
Soon after that, every flight attendant I met had some sort of plan, each plan more original and ingenious than the next. My weapon of choice, a can of soda inside a long sock that I would swing if anyone tried any funny business, I kept hidden behind the last row of seats in whatever cabin I happened to be working that day.
There were times, only a few, when strange things did happen on-board my flights, and I remember wondering if what had happened was really a “test run” for a future attack. And there were other times, only a few, when passengers would do things, very strange things, to take advantage of the situation that had developed on that horrible day. One of those times included an elderly gentleman, a Koran, a book of weapons, and an intense stare full of hatred. We, the crew, decided to ignore him.
One passenger we chose not to ignore walked on-board the aircraft – not a couple of years ago, but just last week, causing Heather, my coworker, to say, “There’s a guy seated in the first row of coach who gave me chills.” We were flying from Los Angeles to New York. “It looks like he might be traveling with three others because he keeps making eye contact with one in business class and one in the back of coach.”
Immediately I hopped off my jump-seat and made way up the aisle. The guy was young and…well…kind of odd looking and nervous acting. I asked him a random question, just to feel him out, and he answered in a way that left me feeling nothing – no chills, no sixth sense telling me to keep an eye on this guy. Who knows why Heather had felt the way she did about that guy during boarding, but for whatever reason, something made her feel that way, and I’m glad she did not discount that feeling. No one should.
Whenever I hear about an unfortunate accident involving an aircraft, I’m still taken back to that day in September. I can’t help it. Those were my airplanes. My crew members. My passengers. And yet I still go to work, because I want to go to work, because I love what I do, given all that’s changed since September 11, 2001.
The following is a quote from a flight attendant in the book, Reclaiming The Sky, by Tom Murphy, a quote I could have written myself. Reclaiming the Sky tells the personal story of several aviation employees – some who died, others whose job descriptions were transformed before their eyes, and countless more whose entire lives were forever altered on September 11th, 2001…
“It doesn’t sound like a big deal, balancing customer service and security, but the aircraft is full and people are crowding the aisle. You ask yourself, is the man lingering in the aisle suspect or merely inconsiderate? It’s two minutes to departure, we’re getting ready to close the door, and suddenly I’ll see we’re getting half a dozen late boardings – standbys and maybe a few wheelchairs. I’ll smile and find space for everyone, but over my shoulder I’ll see that passengers I’ve asked to turn off their electronic equipment continue making cell phone calls. Then someone will need to use the bathroom at the same moment an unescorted minor asks for their grandma, usually at the moment an overhead bin won’t close. Then comes an announcement from the cockpit and I’ll see the gate agent standing by the door ready to close it, with their foot tapping, which I can’t see, but I know it’s tapping…”
…And probably continues to tap, as passengers continue settling into their cramped seats, and the crew (minimum crew, mind you) continues to provide the best service they can with little to offer, and all the while fuel costs continue to rise, along with your ticket price. It’s not easy traveling today – for crew and passengers alike. Yet there we are, all of us in the flying tube together.
Tell us about your traveling experiences after 9/11, by Friday, September 12, 2008, by 5pm and you’ll have a chance to win a copy of the book Reclaiming The Sky, by Tom Murphy. Two winners will be chosen. Good luck!
This post has been dedicated to all the flight attendants who continued to work during uncertain times, flight attendants who reclaimed the sky, and to the flight attendants who lost their lives on 9/11. You are not forgotten…
Terry Thames, American Airlines pilot. This is the first AA flight returning to IAD (Washington Dulles) after the skies were reopened four days after 9/11.
Photo courtesy of Tom Murphy
“I feel sick,” I said to my mother, also a flight attendant, as we sped down the highway. Each mile brought us closer and closer to the training facility.
“Relax,” said my mother, a woman who does not know how to relax, especially when it comes to flight attendant training. Trust me. You should have heard her three months ago. “You’re going to do just fine.”
I always do just fine. I’ve had thirteen years of just fine. Even so, I still felt sick.
“Think you can slow down!” I exclaimed as I glanced at the speedometer. We were going way too fast! Okay fine, so we were only ten, maybe five, miles over the speed limit, but that’s too fast for a person who doesn’t want to be where they have to be any sooner than they have to be there.
Did I happen to mention I felt sick? It was that bad.
I don’t know what it is about recurrent training that makes me feel this way, but every month of August is spent dreading these two inevitable days. In fact, I don’t know a flight attendant out there who doesn’t get all worked up before entering the big building where it all began. Which makes me wonder, what the heck did they do to us during those initial seven and a half weeks of training thirteen years ago? Seriously.
My mother slowed the car and stopped beside a yellow curb. “‘You’re going to do great.”
I looked out the window at the the big building looming before us. “I don’t know about great,’ I said, and as I said this I could feel my heart beating, and my palms were sweating, as I kissed my sleeping son goodbye, grabbed my flight manual, and slowly walked up the stairs. One. Step. At. A. Time. Class didn’t start for another ten minutes, so there was no rush to get inside now was there?
When I walked through the double glass doors and stood in front of the giant swimming pool containing a bright yellow floating raft, a smiling training instructor greeted me by asking to see my three pound flight manual. She flipped through the pages, checking to see if thing was up to date, scratched my name off a long list, and then told me we’d be meeting in Room # 1.
“Up the stairs and down the hall,” the instructor said, still smiling, as she eyed another flight attendant walking through the glass doors.
I walked into the “Welcome to recurrent training” class and sat near the front of room (it was the only place left unoccupied), next to a very calm looking woman wearing spectacles and reading a paperback Grisham novel. Who can read at a time like this, I remember thinking to myself, as I looked around the room for someone, anyone, I knew, but I did not recognize a face. There were about forty of us in total. That’s when I heard the woman sitting directly behind me mumble, “I feel sick.”
Me, too!” I turned around to take a look at the woman who would become my new best friend for the next two days. There’s nothing like bonding over feelings of anxiety and stress.
“I used to know a girl who’d throw up right before training every year,” she added matter of fact.
The flight attendant reading the novel continued to read the novel (must have been a REALLY good book), as I turned all the way around in my plastic chair and introduced myself to Cynthia. Cynthia, like me, was a college graduate, only her major was in marketing, not psychology. Later on I would find out that Cynthia, like me, is also a writer, only she writes for a well known home and design magazine, not a blog.
Cynthia laughed as she said, “I never even got this worked up in college. Or with the magazine.”
“Tell me about it! My regular non-flying friends totally don’t understand.” Then I went on to tell her about my father, who, the night before, had the nerve to say half jokingly “What’s so stressful about making chocolate chip cookies?”
Chocolate chips cookies. He actually said that. My mother and I just glared at him and didn’t say a word.
“I’m joking!” said my dad, even though I’m not so sure he meant it.
The sad part is I’m pretty sure my father is not alone. I have a feeling a lot of people think all we do at “Barbie boot camp” is make chocolate chip cookies and serve drinks. Man oh man, I only wish it were that easy. Because if it were, I wouldn’t be freaking out now would I!
And so Cynthia and I began our two day “cookie making class” with a refresher course in fighting a fire at the fire pit by donning what looked like astronaut headgear and then we ended the day several exhausting hours later after evacuating passengers out window and door exits on six different aircraft, yelling and screaming our commands, popping open doors and inflating slides. Sorry, but I can’t tell you what, exactly, came in-between those two classes, but I can tell you it was intense, and at times stressful, and all of it highly classified, which involved airline safety and security. I can also tell you that Cynthia and I were more than happy when it finally came to an end. Together we left the training center, after exchanging email addresses, feeling relieved, yet confident and secure in the knowledge we had gained from our two days of training. Trust me when I tell you we, flight attendants, are prepared to handle just about anything. Even chocolate chip cookies.
In thirteen years of flying, I’ve only had a few medical emergencies on-board my flights, and thankfully each situation had a positive outcome. That’s because of the training the airline provided. So the next time you’re on a flight, crammed in the middle seat, take a look at the one working the drink cart in coach, or the one serving you freshly baked cookies and milk in first class, and remember they’re not just there to serve you, they’re actually there to save your life.
“There’s more to Miami than La Carreta,” said the well dressed passenger seated in 9D, the seat directly in front of my jump seat, as we slowly climbed to our cruising altitude.
“Oh I don’t know about that!” I laughed, as I loosened my seat belt so I could lean into the aisle and see why the woman three rows back kept waving her hands at me.
“The seat belt sign is on,” I told the woman as I pointed to the ceiling, at the illuminated seat belt sign, after she had asked if she could go to the restroom. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to get up.”
NOTE: If the flight attendant is still sitting in the jump seat, you should certainly be seated in your seat. It’s not safe to get up yet.
The passenger wearing the nice suit seated directly in front of me just shook his head. Then he looked at the handsome guy with the longish hair from Chile sitting beside him and said, “tell Heather there’s more to Miami than La Carreta!”
The Chilean just smiled at me sweetly, so I smiled back. I don’t think he even knew what we were talking about. But the father and son team from the Dominican Republic wearing matching New York Yankee ball caps across the aisle from the Chilean knew exactly what the stylish one and I were talking about, because in unison they cried, “there’s more to Miami!”
Now this conversation began right after the passenger, the well dressed one, had asked “Do you fly to Miami often?”
“No. Not really,” I said. “Not if I can help it. I can’t even remember the last time I had a layover in Miami.” Then I went on to explain why I’m not a fan of the New York – Miami trips, which had more to do with the Miami International Airport than Miami itself.
“I think you need to give Miami another shot. It’s a fantastic city!” he interrupted.
I’m sure it is. But how would I know? Long gone are the days when I can actually do something on my layover other than shower, eat, and sleep. You see my Miami is not his Miami – the sexy exciting international Miami. Oh no. My Miami is a four hour sit at the airport between flights. My Miami is wearing a navy blue polyester dress and sweating my you know what off as my hair begins to frizz because of the heat and humidity inside the airport terminal. My Miami is swarms of passengers carrying too much heavy luggage wrapped in plastic. My Miami is a plane full of scantily dressed passengers who get angry as soon as they realize we don’t have blankets on board. My Miami originates from New York. Enough said?
I explained this to the well dressed passenger after the flight attendant working in first class made the announcement that it was safe to use electronic devices. Of course the woman three rows back who had waved her hands at me earlier began waving the hands again.
“Not yet. Soon,” I told her as I pointed to the seat belt sign again.
The woman began to crawl over her seatmate anyway.
I shook my head and yanked on my own harness straps for emphasis. “I’ll come get you when it’s safe.”
She sat back down.
Turning my attention back to the well dressed one, I added that even though the New York – Miami route isn’t my favorite trip, I do get excited, probably a little too excited, about one thing – La Caretta.
La Caretta is a popular Cuban restaurant located in concourse D outside of security. Apparently, according to the well dressed one, La Carreta has several locations in the city of Miami, but, as you know, I only have time to go to the one located at the airport. Trust me, it’s worth leaving the secured area for the food at La Caretta, no matter how long the lines.
White rice and black beans with a sprinkling of onions and cilantro and a side of beef picadillo and plantains, that’s what I order each and every time I pass through town. The best part about La Carreta, besides the good food, are the reasonable prices. The large portions aren’t bad, either. Don’t you know I can eat it all – it’s that good!
Of course, after La Carreta it’s off to Versailles for a cafe con leche.
La Carreta is as close to the city of Miami as I get these days. And I imagine it will be a very long time before flight crews see long layovers again. So when someone tells me there’s more to Miami than La Carreta, I am forced to disagree. For me, and other flight attendants, La Carreta is the light at the end of the tunnel, especially when you’re working the New York – Miami route.