Galley Gossip: Be kind to your fellow passengers. Yes, that does include the ones who are overweight!

by Heather Poole on

What I’ve learned about the world working at 35,000 feet is that you can’t please everyone, no matter how hard you try. Another thing I’ve learned is regardless of where people come from or where they are sitting on the airplane, most of them have one thing in common – lack of empathy for their fellow passengers. It seems as if a passenger is not experiencing (or has experienced) something first hand, they have little regard for what other passengers may be experiencing.

Take for instance the last row. It never fails, whenever I’m standing at the back of the airplane watching passengers board, I’ll notice a group of people getting closer and closer to me as they walk down the aisle squinting at the seat numbers on the armrests, and as they get closer and closer I can see the look of horror grow on their face as they realize just how close to the back of the aircraft their seats really are.

“We’re sitting in the last row! (Insert curse word here!)” That’s what I’ll usually hear as they sling their items into the empty overhead bin and slam the mother shut.

Hey, it’s not my fault! Anyways, someone has to sit there, why not you? I mean if it’s not you, who should it be? You do know that people are sitting there when you’re not there, right?

Passengers are always complaining about the bad attitudes of flight attendants, but what I’m sick and tired of are passengers with the same bad attitude. I’m not talking about the way they treat me, I’m talking about the way they treat each other! It’s gotten out of hand. For example, a lot has been written about overweight passengers on the airplane recently and what I find interesting are the comments people have made to these posts. They’re actually quite shocking. Seriously, what is it about the airplane that seems to bring out the worst in people?

One large passenger who is the inspiration behind this post wrote…

Hello,

I am one of those large passengers. I fly to Europe more than I fly on domestic flights. I fly in coach, usually. I have learned little lessons to try to fly more easily. I fly on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, when there will be a larger chance of there being at least one empty seat in coach. Anytime that I HAVE to go to Las Vegas, I purchase two tickets.

The flight attendants have always been very helpful. I have only had one awful experience. On a flight from Houston to Albuquerque, I was in the window seat up front and the person beside me insisted on sit with my right hip up. I did not fit. I was in pain for a couple of hours. I had a terrible, huge bruise on that hip by that evening. Yes, I know, many people look at me as just an “obese person,” but I am a kind, caring, intelligent (Masters Degree) person and I have feelings, too.

The best service and care I have ever received is with Lufthansa. As usual, I flew either a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. At the gate, the gate attendant would, without any request from me, block out three available seats. I know that is extremely unusual, but trust me, it was extremely appreciated.

On a flight from Cancun to Houston, the male supervisor at check in took my boarding pass from me. He could not explain what he was doing because he did not speak English and I did not speak Spanish. He fixed and gave me another boarding pass with a flourish and a big smile. I smiled back, not knowing what had just happened. When I
boarded, I found that I was sitting in first class. To you sir, whoever and where ever you are, GRACIAS, so very much. Random acts of kindness are greatly appreciated.

I hope that the normal sized or thin people who see a person like me will remember that we have feelings. If I am in a situation where I am intruding on another person’s space, I do feel embarrassed and I apologize. I cannot always afford to purchase two tickets. I try to drive rather than fly, if at all possible.

Jeannie

Can you imagine being the person who walks down the aisle that everyone is wishing not to sit next to? As they’re walking down the aisle, some of you are not even quiet about it! While I know it’s not comfortable traveling beside an overweight person, it’s not right to bash and judge them, just like it’s not right for me, your flight attendant, to bash and judge you in the galley with my fellow coworkers based on the way you travel. Everyone deserves a little kindness. Even on the airplane.

And now I’d like to leave you with a few kind words from Frank and Bob, two people I hope to find myself working with on an airplane one day soon…

Jeannie.

I realized many years ago that my uniform didn’t make me “human” to many passengers. And, at times have been treated as if I didn’t have feelings/emotions either. You are NOT the problem. A 17 inch seat can not accommodate a lot of passengers, yet that is what the airline sells to you, is the problem. First and business fares are astronomical. That’s not the solution. As I walk down the aisle and see passenger’s of size, I silently think to myself………..how hard it is for you to sit there so uncomfortable. You may be large, Jeannie, but you also have a BIG HEART. I’ll take
that any day, over the passenger with the inflated sense of self importance.

Frank,

***

Frank,

Thank you so much, Frank. You know, I have never treated flight attendants as though they have no feelings. I suppose that is because any flight attendants I have ever come into contact with have always been very pleasant, have smiled and have taken the time to say hello, have a good flight, etc. I would say that 99% are very thoughtful and proactive in being helpful to me (like getting the seat belt extender for me before I can even ask). As far as the issue of a person’s weight, the fact is people aren’t overweight because they want to be. Obesity isn’t a decision one makes for ones self. There are a lot of circumstances that contribute to a person being overweight or obese. This common idea that overweight or obese people simply don’t take care of themselves and constantly eat Burger King for dinner is absurd and proves ignorance in so many of us.

Jeannie

***

Jeannie & Frank,

In this day and age, when the average person needs or wants to get from point A to point B and there is great distance involved, we are going to have to stuff ourselves into the big metal tube with a lot of other people who are in the same situation. It is going to entail unusual closeness and maybe crying infants. I know that it is only going to be for a few hours and I try to make the best of it. It is much easier to do when flight attendants like you are on duty, Frank.

Bob, the singing pilot.

Galley Gossip: A question (and a poll) about breastfeeding on the airplane

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather,

Is it okay to breastfeed on the airplane–specifically take-off and landing. Do the flight attendants allow it? Do you need to cover up?

Maggie R.

Dear Maggie,

Of course it’s okay to breastfeed on the airplane! And if you are going to do it, take off and landing is the best time to do it. A constant swallowing motion will help ease those little ears in a pressurized cabin when a pacifier just won’t cut it.

While flight attendants do allow breastfeeding, there are always a few bad apples in the bunch who may throw a hissy fit if you are showing too much skin – or any skin at all. Therefore I suggest you cover up with a blanket you’ve brought from home. Don’t depend on the airline to provide you a blanket, since most airlines do not carry blankets anymore and some even charge for blankets. Not to mention the filth and bacteria that probably live on those synthetic blankets. Or just use whatever you want to keep those prying eyes off your chest. Trust me, you are not imagining those glares, and even worse, those who stare.

“A man can not not look at a breast. If I see a breast I have to look at it. It could be an eighty year-old woman, but if there’s a nipple involved I’m looking. I’m sorry, I can’t help it, a breast is a breast,” said the husband a man who prefers to remain anonymous.

Unfortunately (or would that be fortunately?) not everyone feels the same as the man above, especially when the breast in question belongs to a woman caring for a child. Sure it’s socially acceptable to come onboard scantily dressed (and whine about the airlines not having blankets) and flaunt it down the aisle, but to use that same breast to feed a hungry baby is still a tad bit controversial for some reason. STILL.

Your question, Maggie, reminds me of an incident I experienced aboard a flight from New York to Los Angeles just a few months ago…

I was sitting on the jumpseat chatting with a passenger, when another passenger came to the back of the airplane carrying an infant in her arm and holding hands with a little girl who looked to be about two or three. The young mother stood in front of the lavatory door squinting.

“It’s vacant,” I told her.

She blushed. “I need to breastfeed, so it may take awhile. Just knock if someone needs to use the bathroom and I’ll come out.”

I gave her a look, the are-you-crazy-look, because as a mother of a two year-old I know it’s not easy sharing that tiny space just to change a diaper, let alone sharing it with a toddler and an infant who needs to be fed. Seriously, no one should be stuck in that germ infested port-o-potty for any length of time, particularly a newborn!

“You don’t want to do it at your seat?” I asked the mother of two very quiet children, and when I asked this question I could feel the eyes of the other flight attendants glaring at me. I looked at them, smiled, and then looked back at the passenger. “Because you can do it at your seat. If you want. But if you don’t want to that’s fine also.”

“Well…there’s a little boy sitting beside me and…I don’t know…I’ll just go in here.”

“It’s up to you,” I said, and like that the lavatory door shut and the vacant sign changed to occupied.

I know a lot of people who are uncomfortable with the idea of a breastfeeding mother sitting next to them, or even near them, on the airplane. It’s normal to feel that way. But it’s also normal to breastfeed a baby! Even on the airplane.

“Yeah well I once had this woman on my flight pull down the top of her sundress and breastfeed a child that was big enough to sit in the seat. Right out in the open. She wasn’t hiding a thing. The kid looked to be about five or six years old!” my mother said when I told her about what I was writing.

Thankfully most mothers who breastfeed are usually very good about doing what needs to be done without anyone knowing it’s even happening. Sure there are a few mothers out there who are not discreet, who do not care to be discreet, mothers who make even me uncomfortable, especially when I have to reach over the boob to place a drink on the tray table, but the majority of mothers I come into contact with feel a little weird about breastfeeding on an airplane, just as weird as you do about seeing a baby being breastfed on the airplane. But a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do! Better a breastfed baby than a crying baby I say. So unless the kid is big enough to….well…you know, JUST BIG, as in real big, give the mom a break! It’s not easy traveling with a baby.

%Poll-23200%

Photo of mother and child courtesy of Bertabetti

The flight attendant who helped land a plane when co-pilot had an emotional melt down was a hero

by Jamie Rhein on

If you ever saw the movie Airplane, the spoof on airplane disaster movies, you probably still laugh out loud thinking about it. Remember the scene when Julie Hagerty took over for the co-pilot but had to fight off the automatic co-pilot who was a blow-up doll? She was trying to help Striker (Robert Hays) land the plane.

That was a spoof.

In a real life story, a female flight attendant recently came to the assistance of a Boeing 767 commander after the co-pilot had a mental meltdown. On an Air Canada flight from Toronto to London’s Heathrow, the co-pilot, who had shown up for the flight acting slightly flustered and on edge — not his usual outgoing, chipper self — lost most of his marbles over the Atlantic.

After the co-pilot became increasingly belligerent and erratic, and refused to move from his seat, the flight commander asked the crew to help remove the co-pilot from his seat.

Once the co-pilot was removed — into the capable hands of doctors who happened to be on board — the flight attendant took over the co-pilot’s job. She had a commercial pilot’s license, thus was a huge help to the commander. The flight was diverted to Shannon Airport in Ireland where she helped land the plane. Upon arrival, the co-pilot spent 11 days in a mental hospital before being transported back to Canada.

Although this real-life drama happened this past January, the investigation has just been completed. The commander and flight attendant were found to be heroes, although that term wasn’t used in the official report.

The official report is an interesting read about how decisions are made in the air to keep both passengers and crew safe. It’s a PDF file and was sent along by Gadling’s own Kent Wien who has the insider track to about everything.

These girls were not quite as helpful as that flight attendant. Why not? Click the images to find out!

“Is anyone sitting here?” Five steps to picking up the cute girl (or guy) on your flight

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Let’s face it: there’s not much to do on flights. Once you’ve browsed the absurdities in SkyMall, watched the first ten minutes of the in-flight screening of Norbit, and listened to all your mp3’s three times each– forwards and backwards– you sooner or later find yourself face-to-face with the chair in front of you. What to do?

Well, if you’re an unattached person on the prowl who’s smart enough to plan ahead, you chat up the cute girl or guy sitting next to you. Here are five not-so-easy steps for discovering inflight romance.

1. It all starts at the gate. The single most important choice you can make is where to sit in that mass of chairs at the airport gate. The unthinking person will simply plop down in the first available seat, but the would-be casanova knows better than that. Out of the dozens or even hundreds of passengers waiting to board their flight in this area, you can usually count on two or three to stand out from the rest. In order to have a chance, you’ll most likely need to sit by them and chat them up at the gate. But how?

2. Choose your seat wisely. If she’s the only one in six rows of chairs, walking up and sitting right next to her is just about the creepiest thing you can do. Instead, sit one or two seats down, putting your carry-on items on the seats between you. This keeps anyone from sitting between you two, and also allows her to see just how expensive your luggage is. (Note: Does not work with cheap luggage.)

3. Establish some common ground. Uh-oh, the talking part– but this doesn’t have to be scary. Take out a pack of gum nonchalantly, and offer her a piece. (If I know one thing about women, it’s that they love gum.) Then ask, for example, “So, where are you headed?” or if you have an especially dry sense of humor, “Excuse me, do you know if this is a non-smoking flight?” Please say this line with at least a half-smile, or she will think you’ve been in a coma since 1950. Ask what she’s reading. Tell her you liked that book but there weren’t enough pictures. Again, say this with a slight smile, or she’ll take you for an overgrown nine-year-old.

4. Try to sit near him/her on the flight. If the conversation allows it, ask where she’s sitting on the plane. If the gods are smiling down on you– as they were in a recent flight of mine– you’ll find yourself next to each other. But more often than not, she’s in 12J and you’re in 28A. Not exactly good flirting proximity. So you’ve got to make your own luck. Walk up to the airline counter– asking your new friend to watch your bags– and ask if it’s possible for you to switch seats to sit next to your friend. If the ticket agent says “no,” or “we’ll see,” by all means take that as a yes. Sit in the wrong seat– what’re they gonna do, arrest you?– until someone tells you to move. Yes, this takes a certain amount of guts, but the saying is not, “No guts, glory anyway.”

5. Look through, ugh, Skymall, then set up something for later. Sure, SkyMall contains a bunch of useless crap– though not all Gadling bloggers agree— but I will give the magazine credit for this: it is a great conversation starter. When the conversation eventually hits a lull, as is bound to happen with a complete stranger on a four-hour flight, grab SkyMall from the seat pocket in front of you. From pets to home and garden to sports and everything in between, SkyMall will help you learn more about a person than you ever wanted to know.

If the conversation goes well, mention to her that you’ve got a several hour layover, and wouldn’t it be nice if you could grab dinner or drinks at one of the airport’s “charming and reasonably-priced” establishments? (Note: Referring indirectly to the fact that you’ll be paying will increase her chances of acceptance considerably.)

If she says thanks-but-no-thanks to your date offer, what have you lost? You’ve merely been rejected by someone you’ll never see again, and as a bonus, you’ve made the flight go by a whole lot faster. To paraphrase Einstein, “Sit next to a smelly guy on a plane for ten minutes and it feels like four hours. Sit next to a pretty girl on a plane for four hours and it feels like ten minutes. That’s relativity.”

North America to (slowly) update Air Traffic Control

by Grant Martin on

The long and hard fought battle for landing slots rages on in New York and London, where airlines like Virgin Atlantic and British Airways squabble over who gets how many slots and when they’re allowed to leave and depart from their airports.

Landing and departure slots are tightly controlled at these airports, and the already high volume at New York is the cause of over 70% of delays in the United States. So it’s obviously a sore topic with consumers, politicians and carriers. Passengers and airlines want more departures, but the current infrastructure can’t handle it, resulting in the delays.

To exacerbate the problem, earlier this year, congress pushed through legislation capping the maximum number of departures from the New York airports, effectively requiring any airline that wanted extra permission to leave during peak periods to pay extra. Naturally, the airlines are up in arms, saying that they’re just reacting to passenger demand.

How does one thus fix the volume problem? Airlines and analysts alike agree that the solution is in a better air traffic control system. The current technology used only allows for simple control of surrounding aircraft — but advancing this technology would allow for better stacking and management of traffic. Problem is, all of the aircraft in the skies currently work on the antiquated system — so you can’t just switch everything over.

Slowly, however, we’re starting to make progress, starting with the lower volume system in Canada. Next year, small sections of the country will implement a new system called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast, or ADS-B, and if that’s successful the model will spread all over North America.

Don’t plan on the volume increasing at JFK any time soon though. With all of the equipment in the skies and in airports across the US, some predict that it could take another decade before everything is up to snuff.