Galley Gossip: How flying standby can make you religious

by Heather Poole on
Dear Heather,
I read your post about flight attendant buddy passes and I think you forgot the best part about flying standby. You become a much more religious person. Why? Because when you fly standby you tend to pray a lot…
It all starts when your alarm goes off at 2 AM. “Please God let the loads on the aircraft be light and let me be the first on the stand by list.”
Then when you get to the airport and see your name on the list, you start the second round of prayers. “Please Lord let me make this flight, please!” Most likely you won’t make the flight, but you will get rolled over to the next flight, and so on and so on until you FINALLY hear what you’ve been wanting to hear all day…your name called! YES!
By this time it’s usually late in the afternoon. You’re given a boarding card and immediately start praying again, “Thank you Lord Jesus for this boarding pass.” You make a mental note to go to church more often!
While opening and shutting several full overhead bins, the flight attendant makes the PA that everyone must take a seat so the flight can depart on time. You begin to panic and pray for an empty bin, because as a non-rev you were the very last person to board and the flight is full, full, full. After you find a bin, and thank God, you take your seat, a middle seat located in the last row, and though you should be happy and jumping for joy, you’re not out of the woods just yet! In fact, as an experienced non-rev standby passenger you will not stop praying until that cabin door is closed!

Oh no! Now the gate agent is walking down the aircraft aisle. The praying and sweating are going into overdrive. You try not to make eye contact with the agent as he/she walks down the aisle. The praying continues at a furious pace, “Please don’t let the gate agent come to me, please God, please!”

Your heart is racing faster and faster as the agent gets closer and closer and that’s when it happens. He/she stops, looks you square in the eye, and says, “we have a revenue passenger that needs your seat. Please collect your belongings and follow me.”

Then it’s on to the next gate where the praying and waiting start all over again!

Mark, an optometrist / wannabe flight attendant

Dear Mark,

Holy Moley, Mark, I will pray that you never have to non-rev travel again! But you’re right, non-reving is a stressful experience, one I dread each and every month, which is why I almost always buy a seat whenever I travel with my three-year-old son.

Whenever people find out I’m a flight attendant and start hinting around for a buddy pass, I just shake my head and think to myself, are you crazy! Because seriously, it’s just crazy to non-rev when you can buy a ticket for cheap on-line for cheap these days. Especially if you prefer to actually arrive at your destination, not spend the entire day rolling from gate to gate.

And now a question for you, Mister Wannabe Flight Attendant, why, oh why, would you want to be a flight attendant? I know you’re crazy because you’ve been non-reving – by choice, but just how crazy are you? Please tell me this flight attendant thing is just a fantasy and not something you’d actually do, not when you’ve got a fantastic job already. I mean do you really want to wear the pin striped apron and serve chocolate chip cookies at 30,000 feet? Because honestly, I wouldn’t mind wearing the white robe with the thesescope while asking people to read the last line.

Hmmm…are you thinking what I’m thinking? Maybe, just maybe, we should get together (during Halloween of course!) and swap uniforms. Call me.

Thanks for the letter. I couldn’t have explained non-rev travel better.

Happy Travels,

Heather, a wannabe doctor who will be praying to get on a flight next week

Photo courtesy of (meditation) Joe Shlabotnik, (doctor) Curt

Blogger Kendra Bailey Morris

by Kendra Bailey Morris on

Where was your photo taken? At the 17th Street Farmer’s Market in my hometown of Richmond, Virginia. I’m a produce stand junkie. As soon as market season begins, you can find me sifting through piles of fresh veggies, meats and other locally made delicacies nearly every week.

Where do you live now? Richmond, Virginia, where I spend the majority of my days writing, cooking, and planning where to go next and what to eat.

Scariest airline flown? Can’t remember the airline, but you can bet I remember the flight. Went like this. Hopped a flight from Richmond to Newark. Plane takes off late at night. Enter massive Southern-style electrical thunderstorm. Plane gets tossed around like dice on a craps table. White knuckle it for about 10 minutes before huge lightning strike creates a power outage inside the plane. I begin bawling like an infant-complete with moments of hyperventilation. (I’ve never been a great flyer.) Plane finally lands. Exit aircraft, knees still knocking. Greeted by a cabbie, who takes me to a nearby bar, where I promptly buy a six-pack of Miller High Life and drink it in the backseat of the car. Note to self: check weather status before flying.

Favorite city/country/place. My grandmother’s kitchen in Bluefield, West Virginia.

Most remote corner of the globe visited. Spent the night on Arthur’s Seat, an extinct volcano which overlooks the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, with nothing but newspapers to sleep on, and a decent bottle of Scotch to keep warm. Woke up in the middle of the night to the distant sound of bagpipes and discovered a wild red fox sleeping next to me. Legend has it that Arthur’s Seat is the original home to Camelot, so to this day, I have always thought that fox was the ghost of some noble knight sent to protect me.

Favorite guidebook series. Been a big “Let’s Go” fan ever since college.

The most unusual food I’ve ever eaten is…raw monkfish liver. Tastes like a fishy foie gras.

When I’m not writing for Gadling, I’m…cooking, eating, or thinking about eating.

Favorite foreign dish? Restaurant? Poached beef marrow with coconut bread (served straight from the bone) at Poleng in San Francisco. Steak frites in Brussels. Doner kebab while walking the streets of London at 2 a.m. A bottle of cheap Bordeaux, a baguette and any park in Paris. Stewed Opihi’s (snails) at Paolo’s Bistro on the Big Island in Pahoa, Hawaii.

Favorite trip: Eloping to the Turks and Caicos to marry my husband, Tim, on Grace Bay in Provo, with an Italian couple and a handful of locals serving as our witnesses. Truly magical.

Galley Gossip: A question about dating pilots – gay pilots.

by Heather Poole on
Dear Heather,
I flew a MIA-JFK yesterday and thought of you. These were the highlights…
  • Family of 6 in first class made the purser cry
  • Customer service agent boarded the plane to calm passengers down which caused a late push back
  • Lady got dizzy and needed oxygen in economy
  • Lady ran from economy to first class lavatory seconds before take-off
  • We missed our roll
  • No kosher meal made a Jewish lady cry
  • Had to do a “go-round” at JFK
  • Late arrival
  • Missed international connections
  • More yelling passengers

It was a total scene! By the way, can you possibly find a nice pilot for me to date? He doesn’t have to be HOT, just cute enough, and nice…oh and a pilot. LOL

Ron

Dear Ron,

Thank you for thinking of me…I think. I mean that was a crazy flight you experienced and I’m not so sure I want to be connected to that kind of drama. Now if you’d said it was a great flight and you thought of me, I’d be thrilled. But a bad flight? Not good. And that’s exactly why I avoid the NY – Miami route at all costs. It’s always a tough trip to work.

As for finding you a cute pilot to date, I’ll definitely keep an eye out and I’ll pass the word along to my mother who is also a flight attendant. Though that might not be such a great idea, considering one of the worst pilot dates I ever had was a blind date my mother arranged with a 757 first officer from New York. Not that I can pick them any better. My friend Cady, on the other hand, always had good luck with pilots and even married one. Perhaps her husband, an international Airbus Captain based in Miami, can be of assistance.

I have yet to meet a gay pilot – that I know of. Now I know they’re out there because my friend Stephen is dating one. Not to mention, I’ve heard quite a few scandalous rumors in the galley, rumors I will not share with you here, only because they are just that – rumors. That said, I have met a couple transgender pilots and mechanics throughout the years who were more than happy to discuss their experiences, like Jamy Spradlin, who recently regained her wings after the Federal Aviation Administration delayed renewing her flying license for nearly a year as they analyzed her psyche for stability after she started hormone replacement therapy.

Recently I read an interesting book, Cockpit Confessions of an Airline Pilot, by Stephen Gary Keshner. Midway through Keshner discusses what it was like to be a Jewish pilot and why he hid his religion from his coworkers. If Keshner felt he had something to hide by poking fun of his own religion to throw his colleagues off, I can only imagine how gay pilots must feel when talk turns to dating and family. Take it from me, it’s not always easy working with such a diverse group of men and women. Half the time you’re meeting someone new on each and every trip, which means you’ve got to learn quickly how to work together, meshing different personalities in a confined metal tube for hours on end. At least I have the opportunity to escape a coworker I may not be getting along with by working in a different cabin. I can’t imagine what it must be like for pilots, especially gay pilots, who may not feel comfortable sharing details of their personal lives.

On a side note, The NPGA, National Gay Pilots Association, is an organization promoting aviation safety and equal treatment. They provide scholarships to help earn a degree in aviation and access to legal and medical assistance, as well as a social and professional network for gay and lesbian members of the aviation industry, from pilots and students to flight attendants, mechanics, and air traffic controllers.

Another way to find the pilot of your dreams, Ron, is to check out aviation dating web sites like Crewdating.com and Love-is-in-the-air.com. Personally, I’d skip the dating sites and just do what my friend Cady was doing when she met her husband – hang out at Starbuck’s in the airport. You’re bound to run into a ton of crew members grabbing a quick jolt of caffeine before a long flight. I know that’s exactly where I’m going to be before my flight to San Francisco departs tonight.

Good luck with your search and happy travels!

Heather Poole

Have a question? Email me! Skydoll123@yahoo.com

10 passengers we love to hate: Day 9 — passengers who try to convert you

by Sean McLachlan on

Here we are on the ninth day of the “passengers we love to hate” series. Today’s pick is the enthusiastic proselytizer who desperately wants to convert you to his or her religion. Far more than merely wasting the flight attendant’s time or hogging the baggage claim area, this brand of annoying passenger will question your morality, insist you are going to Hell (pictured here) and proudly proclaim they have all the answers.

Now let me just say that I feel everyone is entitled to their beliefs. Freedom of religion is a basic foundation of any decent society, but that also includes freedom from religion. You don’t know me, you don’t know what I believe, and you don’t have the right to harass me for an entire flight trying to convince me to change to your way of thinking.

I seemed plagued by this sort of passenger. At least once a year I’m stuck next to one of them, usually on a long international flight. Once I had an entire high school group of evangelicals who tag team preached to me all the way from the U.S. to Bulgaria.

My religious friends joke that maybe God is trying to tell me something. The problem with that theory is that these annoying fellow passengers come from all different religions. Maybe God is trying to tell me not to listen to people who claim to know what He wants.

Plus I think God would send some better emissaries. Every member of the Mile High Preaching Club I’ve had to deal with has been astonishingly ignorant about different faiths, and sometimes pretty shaky about their own. One of those high school evangelicals insisted the Bible was literally true and the only foundation for a proper life, then admitted he hadn’t read it all. Please do your homework, and if I want to talk to you about your religion, I’ll ask. If I don’t ask, read the inflight magazine and show me some respect.

Is that so hard? I have friends whose beliefs range from Orthodox Judaism to hardcore atheism, and not a single one of them tries to convert me, not even when we debate religion. They can disagree with me without calling me evil or ignorant or wrong. I don’t take kindly to that sort of treatment, especially when I have jet lag.

Judge not, lest ye be judged. (Matthew 7:1)

10 Passengers we love to, umm….not like as much as the others: Day 4 – The passenger who tries to score a free first class seat

by Heather Poole on

In Grant Martin’s post, The top 5 myth’s about getting an upgrade, he wrote…

Flight attendants have no control over who gets upgraded when there always might be one last business class passenger coming down the jet bridge right before departure, so they can’t give away a seat. After the boarding door is closed? Maybe if you’re discreet, but with everyone watching, the flight attendant will most definitely say no.

Now I don’t know if Grant was ever a flight attendant, dated a flight attendant, or spends a lot of time in the galley talking to flight attendants, but he’s absolutely right! Flight attendants do not have upgrading powers. But agents do, so make sure to talk to one before you board. That said, the only passengers I’ve ever seen upgraded for free after the door has been shut were uniformed military personel…and…well…they kind of deserve it, don’t ya think?

Below is a list of 10 types of passengers who don’t deserve an upgrade, but give it a shot anyway….

1. I-think-I’m-a-frequent-flier passenger – “I’m a frequent flier and…” That’s how it starts. First of all, I can spot a frequent flier a mile away, so please don’t tell me how many miles you’ve flown because that’s my first clue you haven’t flown as often as you think, not compared to our frequent fliers today. See those passengers sitting in the exit row, as well as the first three rows of coach? Those passengers are at the top of the upgrade list. The best seats on the airplane are held and/or blocked for passengers who fly tens of thousands of miles each year. Anyway, real frequent fliers know the drill, they know what to expect, and they know where, exactly, their name is on the upgrade list, which means I don’t have to tell them they won’t be getting an upgrade, the way I’m telling you, because they know, that I know, that they know exactly what’s going on.

2. The curious passenger – “Hmm…I was wondering…is first class available?” asks the passenger who has just sauntered very…slowly…down…the aisle, checking out all the empty seats in first and business class on their way to their seat in coach. The answer to this question is no. First class is almost always booked full, so just because you see a few open seats does not mean those seats are available. Many of our frequent fliers spend time relaxing in private airline clubs and often times will be last to board the flight. If for whatever reason Mr. First Class does not make the flight, Mr. Exit Row will be taking the seat before you.

3. The injured passenger – Comes on board limping, moaning and groaning as soon as he/she spots me standing at the aircraft door greeting passengers and immediately begins the old bad back and knee routine. There’s no way they’ll be able to endure an entire flight cramped in a coach seat, I’m told, even though they already knew this when they purchased their tickets in coach online months ago. Hey I feel your pain, I know flying is not easy, but that does not equate to a free upgrade. However, if I can find a few extra pillows and blankets (they’re not always on board), I’ll do whatever I can to make your flight more comfortable. Just keep in mind there’s only so much I can do.

4. The inconvenienced passenger – Either their headsets don’t work, the reading light is out, the seat doesn’t recline, I ran out of the beverage of their choice, or there’s a smelly person sitting beside them, whatever it is, and it’s always something, they believe they’re entitled to a first class seat because of the inconvenience. If there’s another seat available in coach, you’re more than welcome to it, but there’s no way I’m moving you from coach to first class when there are seats available. Click here to find out why.

5. The charming passenger – “Wow, what a great smile,” says the passenger who is now squinting at my gold plated name tag pinned to my blue lapel. “So how are you doing today, Heather?” Although this passenger is always nice and polite, my favorite kind of passenger, whenever someone uses my name the alarm in my brain automatically begins to ring – alert, alert, special request coming! Nine times out of ten this passenger works in sales and while they may be successful on the ground, they’re not so successful at 35,000 feet.

6. The ill passenger – I wrote about this passenger in great detail in the Galley Gossip post, The passenger didn’t ask for much. Oh you remember her, the passenger who asked for a first class seat, a business class mug, help to the bathroom, uncooked veggies and potatoes, and then had the nerve to tell me she would be deplaning first, even though she sat in coach. Look, I’m sorry you’re sick and I’ll bring you all the Ginger ale, hot tea, damp towels, and barf bags you need, but just because you don’t feel well does not give you the right to a first class seat, not when you should really be at home, not barfing all over our premium passengers.

7. The surprised passenger – This passenger seems genuinely shocked to learn you have to actually pay for a first class seat. I’ve seen this passenger wander on board and make themselves comfortable in a plush leather seat located in one of the first rows of the airplane, reclining the seat all the way back, propping their feet on the foot rest, and treating themselves to a glass of champagne. “I just thought you might be nice,” a passenger once said after I told her she and her husband could not stow away in first class, not when they paid for a seat in coach. While I am nice, I’m not that nice.

8. The honeymooning passenger – Whenever someone tells me it’s their honeymoon, I know exactly what they want, big time special treatment. And I give it to them. I ask about their wedding and talk to them about where they’re going and I might even make an announcement to congratulate the happy couple. But I don’t move them up to first class. Even when times were good and airlines weren’t furloughing employees and going into bankruptcy every other week, I didn’t upgrade honeymooners just because they decided to take their relationship to the next level and tie the knot.

9 The celebrity passenger – I’m a celebrity get me out of here! is not just a television show, because I’ve actually seen it happen on the airplane. Now I’m not naming names, but years ago I had a very famous singer known for his long blond locks who purchased a seat in coach and then demanded to be upgraded for free because he said he’d be “mobbed” in coach. All I can say is, my how times have changed. Because today I’m pretty sure that the singer who recently broke up with – I better not say – only wishes he could get mobbed in coach.

10. The combination passenger – This is the worst type of passenger, Pulling every trick in the book, this passenger has no shame and will stop at nothing in their quest for a free upgrade. Trust me when I tell you there’s always a multiple number of issues going on here. Like sometimes they’re honeymooning and inconvenienced, while other times they’re injured and also charming. It doesn’t matter what they are, they just are, and I’m the lucky one who gets to hear all about it until the end of the flight.

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