Galley Gossip: SFO airline museum, LAX airline show & a request for photos!

by Heather Poole on

Here are two different letters I recently received from two different guys named Ken concerning two different airline themed topics you may be interested in – the San Francisco airline museum and the airline show that is now on tour…

Heather,

Thanks so much for your blog and Galley Gossip, I’m a regular reader! As a matter of fact I gave your blog info to a pilot I met today (through my regular course of work) who actually has flown with and knows Kent Wien (and his brother) but was unaware of Kent’s Cockpit Chronicles on Gadling, which is where I found your site. Since you have a mini airline museum perhaps I will email you a few things from my Pan Am collection some day that would be suitable for framing! Don’t worry, no pictures of me! If you ever get a long layover in SFO check out the Airport Museum in the non-secure part of the International terminal. It’s pretty impressive and free!

All the best and I will continue to read and enjoy your work.

Warmest regards,

Ken A.

Ken A.

Thank you for reading my blog! And thank you, thank you, thank you, for telling me about the San Francisco airport museum located in the international terminal. I went to the website and found myself amazed. The museum is so cool, in fact, that I don’t know how it is I’ve never heard of this museum.

“I told you about that museum!” my husband exclaimed when I mentioned it in passing.

I looked at him like he was crazy. “You did?”

“Don’t you remember when I told your friend Stephen he should donate a couple uniforms from his collection to the museum?”

“Oh yeah!” I exclaimed. As for Stephen, he’s a flight attendant who has an amazing collection of flight attendant memorabilia that may just rival any museum in the world.

Anyway, next time I find myself at the San Francisco airport I will definitely make the extra effort to visit the exhibits on display. I’m bummed that I missed Take Your Seat, A History of Passenger Airline Seats, as well as Cathay Pacific Airways, Six Decades of Service, but I do hope to catch Cabin Comforts: Photographs of Airliner Interiors, which will be running until May 2009. And to think something so amazing is actually free!

Like you mentioned above, Ken, most airline enthusiasts have a mini airline museum of their own. I’d love to see your Pan Am collection. As you already know, I have my own collection of anything and everything airline related located in my guestroom closet. Gadling writer and pilot Kent Wien apparently has a pretty big collection, too, and my guess is a lot of his memorabilia has his name on it due to the fact that Wien Air, which folded in 1985, was the second oldest airline in the United States. So what do you say we – me, you, Kent, Stephen, and anyone else who has a collection – take photographs of our personal airline museums and share them here on Gadling? I’ll create the gallery. All you have to do is take a photo, just one photo, and email it to me at the address posted below.

Thanks for writing, Ken!

Heather Poole

Heather,

I just thought I’d let you know, that the airline memorabilia show will be held Sat. Jan.24th 9:00a-3:00p. It will be at the Hacienda Hotel on Sepulveda just south of LAX. I know you’re in NYC this month on reserve but i thought I’d let you know just the same. Hope you make it through reserve!!! UGH!!! Keep well. Fly Safe!!!!

Ken J.

Ken J.

Thank you for the reminder. I’ve been meaning to check out that airline show for two years now. After five scheduled days off, I’ll be on-call in New York on the 25th, so I’ll be commuting from Los Angeles to New York on the day of the show. Just my luck. But I did go to the website and saw that the show will be in New York at the LGA Marriott hotel on March 21st, so perhaps I’ll catch it then. Are you going to the show in Los Angeles? If so, let me know what it’s like, and more importantly, what is sold, because as you know I’m interested in anything with a flight attendant theme that I can add to my own airline museum, the one I will be photographing for the gallery I mentioned above. My husband recently boxed up my museum and put it in storage while I was away from home on a layover. Hey, that’s okay, just means I have more room for more stuff! Thanks again for the reminder.

Happy travels,

Heather Poole

Email photos to Skydoll123@yahoo.com

All photos courtesy of Telstar Logistics – flickr.com

Galley Gossip: A question about why I’m based in New York when I live in California

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather,

Reading your comments about being on reserve in New York made me wonder; why don’t you fly out of LAX? I know quite a few people at United who commute west coast to IAD, but that’s primarily because you can’t get the great international flying anywhere else in the system and their seniority goes a lot further.

John in MRY

Dear John,

Good question, John! In fact, it’s a question that my own family and friends have asked often. But first I’d like to address the airport / city codes you mentioned in your question for our readers who are not familiar with airline lingo…

Back in 1995, my classmates and I were offered several base choices prior to graduating from flight attendant training. Because the bases were rewarded by class seniority and class seniority was determined by age, which made me one of the more junior people in the class, I only had three real options – San Francisco, Miami, and New York. My plan was to eventually live at each and every base the airline offered. That’s why I took the job in the first place. To travel. To experience new things. To live in different places.

San Francisco: San Francisco would have been my first choice, except for the fact that the base was (and still is) one of the most senior bases in the system. When it comes to working for an airline seniority is everything. It determines what you fly, when you fly, and days off. Not to mention, the cost of living in California was (and still is) expensive for a flight attendant. A new hire back in 1995 only made a salary of $17,000 the first year. And because only a handful of people from my training class were going to San Francisco, all of whom were from San Francisco, I knew it wouldn’t be easy to find a couple of roommates to share a small place in the short four days the airline allotted before we were all off and flying our very first trip. Though I didn’t go to San Francisco, I knew that one day I would transfer there as soon as I acquired a little more seniority and my pay checks were just a wee bit bigger.

Miami: The majority of the people in my training class wanted to go to Miami, whether they had enough seniority to hold it or not, and most of them did not. The base was (and still is) the second most junior in the system. Of course the weather is always nice, the beaches are beautiful, single life, for me, would have probably been a lot of fun, and the cost of living in 1995 was not bad, not bad at all. I remember seeing an ad in the newspaper for a one bedroom apartment near the beach for $500 a month. It seemed like a dream, a dream that I could actually attain as a flight attendant. Miami was the base for me – but there was just one other place I wanted to go to first.

New York: An hour after my silver wings were pinned to my blue lapel, I was whisked away to the airport where I quickly boarded an airplane that flew to New York. At a window seat I sat, and I’ll never forget looking out of that window at all of those twinkling lights down below as we descended into La Guardia Airport. It was a beautiful sight. Nor will I forget freezing my you-know-what off as I stood outside the deserted airport in the middle of December, two large suitcases lying at my feet, with absolutely no idea what to do next. A not so beautiful sight. I chose New York because I just wanted to go to the one base I knew I’d like the least, just to experience it, and then transfer out as soon as possible. Since I knew most of my classmates would get stuck in New York, I figured it’d be fun to experience flying life with all my new friends. As bad as it seemed at the time having to share a small house in Queens with six other full-time flight attendants, two commuters, a Border Collie named Monica, and Boris, a Russian yellow cab driver who lived in the basement, those were some of the best days of my life.

It’s been fourteen years and I’m still based in New York, even though I live in Los Angeles. Here’s why…

Seniority: New York is the most junior base, yet we have, I think, the best flying. Now, fourteen years later, I’m holding pretty good trips, like transcons from New York to the west coast. That’s one long and easy flight. If I were based in LA, a very senior base, I’d be stuck working up and down the west coast, multiple legs a day, and because flight attendants don’t get paid until the aircraft pulls away from the gate, you do not want to spend very much time on the ground, which is exactly what happens when you work multiple legs a day – waiting in the airport between flights, boarding, deplaning, etc. A flight attendant can easily be on duty for twelve hours but only get paid for eight of those hours when working this type of trip. I work a reduced schedule, so I have to make the most of my days at work. That’s why it’s very important I hold good trips in order to be able to drop them.

Reserve: Reserve, to put it quite simply, is hell. There’s is not one flight attendant I know who enjoys being on reserve. When on reserve, except for a few scheduled days off, you are on-call to the company for a month. Because New York is a junior base, my chances of holding off reserve are good. In fact, I’ve actually held off for a year until this month, and now I am just 15 people from holding off again. For me, it’s much easier to commute to work than to be on reserve, and I do hope to be off reserve again soon. Fingers crossed.

Because I love New York – There’s just something about the energy in New York City, an energy I can’t explain, that does not exist anywhere else. The moment I step off the airplane and walk into the JFK terminal, I feel alive, and creative, which is good when you write about what you do for a living. I love New York so much, in fact, that I even enjoy the brief drive through Manhattan in the dark on the way to Newark airport after being called out for a 5 a.m. sign-in on reserve, which has already happened twice this month – two days in a row. Let’s all pray it doesn’t happen again.

And that, John, is why I’m based in New York. Thanks for the question, and if you, or anyone else, have another question feel free to email me at Skydoll123@yahoo.com

Happy Travels,

Heather Poole

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Photos courtesy of (Vintage airline poster) www.allposters.com, (New York City) Morrissey

Galley Gossip: A question about being a flight attendant and having a young child at home

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather

You said your husband travels over 100,000 miles per year, and you are spending January away from home. Isn’t that hard on your child? I think I’d find a career that kept me home more often.

DJ

Dear DJ,

Two weeks ago I found myself commuting home in first class sitting next to a seventeen year-old boy on a flight from New York to Los Angeles. “Are you going to LA on vacation?” I asked him.

“No, I’m going to Sydney, Australia. I’m just connecting through Los Angeles,” he said as he took a bite of ice cream covered in hot fudge.

I looked around the cabin for his parents, but there were no parent-y looking people sitting nearby “Are you going there alone?”

“Yeah. I have friends there.”

“Wow,” I said, because not only had I never traveled overseas until I began working international routes in 1998 at the age of twenty-six, I still haven’t been to Australia, a place I’m dying to visit one day. “I’m really impressed,” I added.

He smiled. “My dad’s a Captain.”

And there you have it, ladies and gentleman, the benefits of being the child of an airline employee. Something tells me that the kid I sat next to in first class, the one eating an ice cream sundae who was on his way to meet friends in Australia is not complaining about the fact that his father worked a job that took him away from home. Though I could be wrong.

Even though my career does take me away from home when I’m working, I feel I have more quality time with my son than other parents who work a regular job who have limited time with their children in the evenings due to after school activities, chores, and parent fatigue. Because when I’m home, I’m home for days at a time. Sometimes even weeks at a time. Keep in mind that a typical flight attendant works twelve to sixteen days a month. Sure some flight attendants choose to work more hours, picking up extra trips on the side, while others work less – like me!

As you mentioned above, my husband does travel over 100,000 miles a year, but he leaves on the first flight of the day and usually makes it home by dinner time. Because we don’t have family nearby to help us with our two year-old son, I work a reduced schedule. On months that I can hold a line, I usually work three, two-day, trips, which totals to six days of work a month. That means I work one week and have three weeks off. Not bad, I say.

Because my husband travels often and I commute from Los Angeles (where I live) to New York (where I work), when I’m on reserve (which isn’t often) I bring my son along with me to New York. Though I am on call to the company 24 hours a day, I do have twelve schedule days off. That means I’ll be on-call for five to six days straight and then have three to four days off. This month while I’m on-call, my son is staying with his grandparents who live in Long Island, a twenty minute train ride away. On my days off we spend time together. Some months I’ll even fly him to Texas where he’ll spend four to five days with his other set of grandparents. You can bet they are all excited to have this time to bond with him. During the last week of the month, I will fly with my son back to Los Angeles where he will spend one week with his father who has been forbidden to travel while I finish out the month on reserve in New York. It’s during this time he gets to bond, really bond, with his father. And that works for our family.

While it’s not always easy for me to be away from my son during reserve months, he looks forward to seeing his grandparents and spending valuable time with them. In fact, the minute he got off the airplane last week he wanted to go to his grandparents house.

“Let’s go see grandma!” he kept saying, rolling his Mickey Mouse bag behind him through the JFK terminal.

In my book it’s because of my crazy schedule that he has become a very well rounded and well mannered child. Let’s face it, if it weren’t for my job, the one that takes me away from home, and the traveling benefits that come along with the job that takes me away from home, my son probably wouldn’t get a chance to get to know the people who love him so. And that, I think, is a good thing!

Photo courtesy of allposters.com

Flight attendant foils kidnappers with flight attendant training skills

by Jamie Rhein on

Heather Poole, Gadling’s very own flight attendant who knows the moves to take care of herself and everyone else on a loaded plane, brought this China Daily article to our attention. In China, a flight attendant who two guys had kidnapped, got away by using the anti-hijacking techniques she learned in flight attendant training.

The attendant, an employee of Shanghai Airlines, learned — in preparation for the Beijing Olympics — how to stay calm, act obedient, keep the kidnappers engaged, discretely untie a rope, and make a run for it when the kidnappers weren’t paying attention to her. According to the story, one of the men got into her car at a green light and forced her to pick up another man at a different location.

They took her bank card and her pin number. Her quick thinking probably saved her life. It turns out that, last July, these two guys killed a woman motorist they had kidnapped. This was discovered after she told the police what had happened and they were able to apprehend this pair.

As this story points out, one that is corroborated by Heather’s Galley Gossip post on recurrent flight attendant training, flight attendants know the moves that make a difference in air travel. Maybe their theme song ought to be “Kung Fu Fighting.” Everyone knows Kung Fu fighting, fast as lightning … although in this case, rope skills and calm were the key ingredients.


That flight attendant is something of a hero … something these women are definitely NOT. Click the pictures to find out what kinds of trouble they were getting to in the air.


Galley Gossip: Rock of Love – on the airplane!

by Heather Poole on

“When he walked aboard the flight the first thing I saw were the boots, and then the cool jeans and long blond hair. He didn’t wear any makeup and his skin was clear and soft, a beautiful complexion. Then I noticed the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. We were flying from Orlando to Los Angeles, I think,” said my mother, who is also a flight attendant for the same U.S airline that I work for.

“I remember thinking to myself when he walked past me to his first class seat, Oh no, this is going to be a difficult flight. Because of the rock-n-roll connection. I don’t like trouble on my flights,” my mother added rather sternly.

“How did you know it was him?” I asked as I plopped down beside her on the sofa in the crashpad. Together we sat side by side watching him, the guy wearing the cool jeans and the long blond hair, on television.

“I just knew. Maybe it was the bandanna,” she said.

My mother was talking about Bret Michaels, of course, star of the reality TV show Rock of Love Bus on VH1.

So what do two flight attendants who are both on reserve at the same time do when they’re waiting for crew schedule to call and send them who-knows-where at a moments notice? They watch TV, and I mean a lot of TV. Me, I like the reality shows. I’m not afraid to admit it. My mom, she likes to watch the weather channel and Fox news. So imagine my surprise when I came home from a horrendous two-day trip, a trip that I’ll be writing about soon, and found my mother – my mother! – sitting on the sofa and watching Rock of Love Bus.

“I don’t know how he can stand looking at all of them,” my mother said, not once peeling her eyes away from all of them, all of those scantily dressed women desperate to get Bret’s attention on the television show. “They all look the same, don’t they? I’m surprised he doesn’t go for a more classy type of girl, a Jacquelyn Kennedy type.”

I burst out laughing. I mean we were talking about Bret Michaels, were we not? Somehow I couldn’t imagine Jackie Kennedy on the bus, particularly that bus!

“I just think he deserves better than this!” She pointed at the television just as one of the female contestants began dancing around a pole. She shook her head. “He’s a smart guy. Believe me, there’s a lot more to him than this show and these goofy girls.”

As I watched the man being manhandled by several half naked women, I mumbled to myself, “I can’t remember which band was he in.”

“Poison,” my mother said matter of fact. I looked at her. She looked at me. “Oh wipe that stunned look off your face!”

Now flight attendants see celebrities sitting in first class all the time. In fact, on my very first flight back in 1995 I had Goldie Hawn onboard. Last night I saw Peter Greenberg and Kanye West. After awhile you just get used to seeing them. It’s no big deal. And while some celebrity passengers make good impressions, others don’t. I won’t be going there. But trust me when I tell you that flight attendants have all kinds of celebrity passenger stories to share. Only when it comes to celebrities on the airplane, my mother is the last person to get star struck. Except for the time she chatted with one of the lead singers in the band Air Supply and the time Al Gore said hello to her in the airport terminal, she rarely ever mentions famous people.

“Why do you like Bret Michaels so much,” I asked, because…well…I know why I like him. He has a great sense of humor! But my mother?

“He just made a very good impression,” she said. “Which is why I don’t get what exactly is going on with all these girls on this bus!”

So what was it, exactly, about Bret Michaels that made such an impression on this somewhat conservative woman, my mother?

“His manners,” she said. “That’s what really stood out about him.” A few seconds later she added,” As I was refilling beverages in the aisle, I noticed him having a long and friendly conversation with his seatmate, not a young hot bimbo, but an older conservatively dressed business man. They really seemed to be enjoying each others company. He seems to be the kind of guy who can get along with anyone and everyone, and he’s one of the most pleasant passengers I’ve ever encountered.”

Which just goes to show, you can’t judge a book by it’s cover – or bandanna. And that goes for passengers and flight attendants alike!

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Photos courtesy of (Rock of Love bus) Robot_Zombie_Monkey and (Rock of Love, the first season) Hortensia V