by Mandy Smith
“It’s so awful, Mandy … what’s happened. And I can’t speak to my mum … or my boyfriend. I don’t have one of those phone cards – and the woman at reception said the lines are still down, anyway … and I can’t go out because of the hurricane … and …”
She shivered, caught her breath, “I just don’t know what to do …”
I left the tea to brew, sat next to her on the bed and gave her a cuddle.
“… and that tea’s shit, we can’t even have a proper cuppa,” I said, and Nicole laughed, just a little.
“Anyway,” I added, “I’ve got a phone card with loads of minutes still left on it. As soon as the lines are back up, you can use it – to call whoever you want.”
She rested her head on my shoulder. “Thanks Mandy, that means the world to me.”
And then, through more sniffles, she announced: “I can’t do this job anymore.”
“Yes, you can,” I insisted. “You’re just in shock. We’ll get through this, you’ll see.”
Another long day lay ahead of us at the Marriott Orlando Airport Hotel. At lunchtime we were called to a meeting in the conference room. The outlook was grim. “American airspace remains closed to all flights,” said one of the flight service managers. “And even if it reopens, the hurricane could also ground us. You’re all on standby every morning until 10am, when you’ll receive a wake-up call to your rooms. You’ll either be stood down or invited to a meeting for an update.”
The good news, however, was that the national phone lines were now up and running and contact had been made with our colleagues in New York. They were all safe and well. Although we were told some of them had witnessed some horrific sights after going to the scene of the atrocity to offer first-aid support.
We were stuck in Orlando for nine days in total, trapped in the hotel with those freaky kids, who seemed to pop up everywhere we went – the bar, pool, lobby, in the toilets “fixing” their hair and make-up – there was no escape from them. We couldn’t leave the hotel (because of the hurricane), although a few of our posse attempted to venture out to Denny’s for breakfast one morning, only to return five minutes later complaining of being hit by “flying shrubs”. We had no clean clothes because we’d anticipated staying for only one night, so the hotel staff let us use their laundry room, where us girls killed time painting our nails while watching our smalls spin round and round. The only other place to go was the restaurant, where the news had now turned to the clean-up operation in Manhattan: the brave firefighters, scenes of rubble and deformed steel girders and repeated messages of “God bless America” flashing up on the screen. And despite the pre-9/11 “batten down the hatches” warnings, the tornado had completely vanished from the news schedule.
Each day turned into a morbid drinking session after the ten o’clock stand-down call. There was nothing else to do. People began to niggle at one another – a combination of cabin fever and spending too much time together in such a fraught environment. The lack of communication with the outside world didn’t help either; back then there was no Facebook or Twitter and we rarely used our mobile phones abroad because it was too expensive or could get no signal. Only when the international phone lines resumed did the mood lighten. Nicole was delighted, but even after speaking to her parents she was still intent on giving up her job.
I also called home. Mum picked up on the second ring. I could tell she’d been crying.
“Mam?”
“Oh my God, baby. Have you seen what’s happened? You need to get home.”
“It’s okay, Mum,” I said, “I’m safe. I’m not in New York, I’m in Orlando – I swapped flights with someone – I left a message on the answerphone.”
I could hear Dad in the background, bombarding Mum with questions.
“She’s okay, James,” she told him. “She’s still in Florida but she’s safe – sounds like she’s just round the corner.”
“Florida? What’s she still doing in Florida?” I heard Dad ask. “When is she coming home? Ask her when she’s coming back.”
“I don’t know James, but she’s okay.”
This happens every time I call home – I get cut out of the conversation and end up just listening to Mum and Dad.
“Mum,” I said, “Are you still there?”
“I’m just letting your dad know you’re okay. He wants to know when you’re coming home.”
“Not sure, Mum,” I said. “There’s talk of all flights being grounded from here anyway because of the hurricane, and now this has happened I’m …”
“Hurricane?” She shrieked, “What hurricane?”
Dad grabbed the phone.
“Mandy,” he said, “For the love of God. Pack that bloody job up. Can’t you see what it’s doing to your mother? She’s worried sick about you.”
“Dad, it’s okay,” I assured him. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m safe.”
“Safe? Have you seen what’s just happened in New York, Mandy? How do you think we felt? We thought you were there – we watched those planes crashing into the towers and there was no mention of which airlines were involved and we hadn’t heard your voice message at that point and …” Dad paused.
“Dad, are you there?”
He continued: “I was watching the footage over and over on my laptop Mand … just zooming in to see if I could make out the name of the airline. Then Mum heard your message – we were going out of our minds with worry, pet. We thought you were …”
“I’m sorry, Dad, I tried to call you. I’m so sorry …” I said. “I’m in Florida and I’m fine. I just wanted to make sure you got my message, you don’t need to worry anymore.”
Dad sighed and cleared his throat. He could never stay upset with his little princess for long.
“Well you just look after yourself, Mandy. And no going outside in that hurricane. I’ve got enough grey hairs – I don’t need any more.” I could tell he was trying to make light of the situation so I didn’t feel as guilty for putting them through what must have been a horrible afternoon. So I played along.
“I will, I won’t,” I said. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you too, pet. Just … be careful, that’s all.”
I hung up and dialled my home number. No one picked up. I left a message for Jonathan, saying that I was safe and well and hoped to be home soon. He had been due to fly to Japan on September 11.
My next call was to Debbie’s hotel in New York. I was sure she’d mentioned that her boyfriend worked in the North Tower of the Trade Center.
Debbie answered the phone, her voice hoarse and small.
“Oh Mandy, it’s awful,” she said. “We didn’t even know what had happened. There was a blackout at the hotel so we had no access to the news. All we heard was that there had been some kind of accident at the Trade Center – so a few of us headed up there on spec.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, “Is Tom okay?”
“I’m fine, pretty shaken, but fine. Tom’s fine too – can you believe he’d booked the day off work? What if hadn’t? What if he’d been one of those …” Debbie started crying.
“I’m here for you, babe,” I said.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, Mandy. We went to the towers to help with first aid. There were people leaping from the buildings and dangling from windows, trucks rolling past loaded with dead bodies. Then the first tower collapsed and I couldn’t see a thing for the dust – people were running in all directions, screaming and crying. Those images will haunt me forever.”
We talked until my minutes ran out. I was paralysed with shock when I put the phone down. I couldn’t move; I just sat there staring at the phone, unable to comprehend anything Debbie had just told me.
The following day we got the all-clear to leave Orlando. Normally we’d be laughing and joking on the crew bus, recounting all the fun tales from our trip. This time we travelled in silence.
The night flight home was also a solemn affair. We were one of the first flights to leav
e and were only given basic supplies, just bottles of water and enough food for one meal service. The passengers appeared petrified, nervously scanning the cabin for would-be terrorists. I noticed that nobody was reading a newspaper, which was understandable given the circumstances. I recognised a few of the kids who had travelled on our flight out – children with life-threatening illnesses who had been sent out by the Make-a-Wish Foundation, a charity that grants the wishes of dying children – their wish was to visit Disney World and it broke my heart to see their sad little faces, knowing they’d probably not made it there. We’d had so much fun with them on the way out, running draw-your-favourite-crew competitions, handing out Disney toys and performing Mickey Mouse impersonations over the PA system. We had no idea of the terror that loomed ahead of us then.
There wasn’t much to do during the flight home. Most people slept or watched the in-flight entertainment. I was working in Economy with Nicole. I’d got to know her well over the last week, so it was nice to spend some extra time with her. We made ourselves comfy in the galley – well, as comfy as we could be sitting on empty bar boxes – we closed the curtains, huddled together and nattered all the way across the Atlantic.
“Are you sure you want to give all this up yet?” I asked her.
She nodded, tucking a stray wisp of blonde hair behind her ear. “It’s just not for me. I thought it was, but …” Her voice trailed off. “Wow,” she added, pointing at the window in the emergency exit door. “Look at the sky.”
We shifted our boxes closer to the door to admire the view: miles and miles of ruby sky, tinged with streaks of deep turquoise and violet.
“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?” I said. “We must be crossing the time zone – flying into dawn. We’ve got our own time machine.”
We sat for a while, transfixed by the ever-changing hues: ruby smudging into pink, orange, yellow. It truly was the most beautiful thing I’d seen all week.
I hugged Nicole goodbye at Gatwick. “Keep in touch,” I told her.
“I will,” she said. “And thanks for everything, Mandy.”
I never saw her again after that day.
Back home the headlines were still dominated by what was now being called 9/11. And when I saw the first mug shots of Osama bin Laden, I recognised him from some photographs we’d been shown during our Virgin security training at least a year prior to the terror attacks. “If you ever see this man boarding a flight, contact ground security immediately,” we’d been warned. How on earth had he slipped through the net for so long?
It also emerged that the Twin Towers hijacker pilots, Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, had attended the Huffman Aviation centre in 2000 to learn how to fly small aircraft. It was the same flying school that I’d stayed at with Jonathan just one month before the terror attacks.
About six weeks after 9/11, I took Mum and Dad to New York for some Christmas shopping, using my complimentary flights. We visited Ground Zero to pay our respects. The vastness of destruction was unbelievable – far worse than it had looked on television. The mountain of rubble that occupied the spot where the towers had stood had now been fenced off. There were photographs taped to the fences of missing people, along with notes saying, “Have you seen this person?” There were wreaths of flowers and American flags, photographs of dead fireman. And, disturbingly, there were people nearby who had set up stalls, flogging glossy Twin Tower souvenir brochures – among other tacky pieces of memorabilia. It felt more like a tourist attraction than a site of mass murder. That was the one and only time I went to Ground Zero.
Air travel changed dramatically following 9/11 and our cabin crew training manual was practically rewritten. We had to undergo an updated rigorous course of SAS-style security training and Virgin’s entire fleet was modified in line with heightened security rules. The flight decks were fitted with bulletproof doors, walls and security cameras. Security keypads were also added to the flight deck, the rotating entry code being revealed only to a select few staff per flight. There were armed marshals on board and the days of kids being able to visit the flight deck were well and truly over. We were taught code words and phrases that would be used in cases of emergency – secret messages that could be relayed to crew via the PA system if, for example, there was a terrorist on board.
The extra training paid off. In March 2002 – just three months after Richard Colvin Reid attempted to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with a shoe bomb – an incident happened at Heathrow on board a San Francisco–bound flight.
We were preparing for take-off. The cabin doors were closed and the safety demo was about to begin. But something was unnerving us. Two crew members and I had been watching two guys towards the rear of the cabin. One was sitting in the middle row of seats, the other in a window seat a few rows behind. A few things had triggered our curiosity, they looked rather shifty, very conspicuous – all jumpy and irritable and staring at other passengers. I alerted my flight service manager and checks were swiftly made with ground staff. Alarm bells started ringing when we discovered they’d booked their tickets on the same credit card but had chosen to sit separately. The jetway was reattached, police stormed the cabin and the two men were handcuffed and escorted off the plane. When we informed the passengers that they too would have to leave the aircraft, some of them went berserk, demanding compensation and threatening to complain to Richard Branson.
The sniffer dogs entered the cabin and headed directly for the suspects’ seats. It later transpired the two men in question were on the FBI’s most wanted list and were suspected sleeper terrorists, who apparently travelled on every airline, to suss out airline security measures. The plane was grounded. No compensation was paid.
The effects of 9/11 almost crippled Virgin Atlantic. There were loads of redundancies and cutbacks. Quite a few of the girls, including Nicole, quit altogether, many forced to leave because their partners or husbands thought their lives were at risk – and marriages fell apart for some who defied their husband’s wishes. Times were bleak, but I knew one thing for certain: this dolly wasn’t ready to hang up her red skirt.
CHAPTER 11
DUSK ’TIL DAWN
Hong Kong trips in those days were like mini holidays: five days and nights of sightseeing, sunbathing, eating, drinking and, most importantly, shopping. The dichotomies of Hong Kong Island have always fascinated me: gleaming steel skyscrapers leaning against lush green mountains; humble vendors serving up bowls of bird’s nest soup from rickety stalls next to a McDonald’s or Starbucks; and the sweet, musky fragrance of incense mingling with the sickly stench of durian fruit. It truly is a spectacular city.
Shopping in Hong Kong is a must; I never returned from a trip empty-handed, as there were too many bargains to be had. As well as the obvious shiny mile-high shopping malls lined with Clarins and Tiffany’s, there are whole shopping malls with only electrical shops over the causeway bay in Kowloon. Then there’s Ladies Market along Nathan Road, also in Kowloon, which is a girly shopper’s paradise, rammed with stalls selling anything from trinkets and CDs to replica designer handbags, sunglasses and jewellery. We girls went there so often we became known to most of the vendors. One of them, Jimmy – whom we nicknamed “Jimmy the Handbag Man” – made so much money from Virgin crew alone, he eventually quit his stall and set up a secret shop in his flat with daily pick-ups just for us.
Jimmy operated an efficient service: he had taped a Virgin duty-free carrier bag – with his phone number written on it – to the interior wall of a payphone near the market, and whenever we were in town, we’d call him. Within minutes he’d turn up and take us back to his huge, grey fortress of a flat for a shopping spree. The building was very basic, with concrete walls and metal grids shielding doors, while the lift that took us up to Jimmy’s thirtieth-floor “shop” was so small that only two people could fit inside at a time. The flat itself was an Aladdin’s cave of goodies and consisted of four rooms – all lined with shelves neatly loaded with fake designer handb
ags, purses and jewellery. There was no bathroom or kitchen, just a single mattress hidden behind a desk. Jimmy was great; he didn’t mind us browsing and his prices were good: a copied Rolex for £30, Chanel handbag for £20 – depending on its grading. Sometimes we’d spend a whole afternoon in his flat, trying on jewellery and prancing around, swinging handbags. Visiting Jimmy’s shop was the highlight of some of the Christmas trips, so we were gutted when Jimmy and his carrier bag vanished one day. We tried calling the various numbers he’d previously displayed but none of them worked. We could only presume he’d been busted.
Unfortunately, I also associate Hong Kong with a not so pleasant, humiliating experience, involving a first officer whom, until this trip, I’d considered to be a good friend of mine. His name was Tom, a giant two-metre man in his late thirties, with Tom Selleck looks: jet-black hair threaded with tinsel strands, coarse moustache and eyebrows, and dimpled cheeks.
I’d been on a few trips with Tom and had always enjoyed his company. Unlike some other first officers and captains, he wasn’t sleazy or arrogant. He was good fun, kind-natured and appeared to be happily married to his wife, Sophie, an attractive Virgin Atlantic flight service manager. In LA I’d once helped Tom shop for nappies for their newborn baby boy at an outlet store. He’d proudly shown me photographs of baby Jake: Jake sporting an all-in-one bear suit; Jake in the bath, his little pink head topped with foam; Jake sleeping in his pram; and Jake enjoying “snuggles” with Mummy, nanny Violet and a whole cast of other smiling relatives. “I tell you, Mandy,” Tom had said on that flight to LA, “Becoming a parent is the most wonderful experience. I only have to look at Jake and my eyes well up.”
“He’s adorable,” I’d said, thinking, Tom’s definitely one of the good guys. Although as it transpired, he wasn’t one of the good guys – not in the slightest. For on this Hong Kong trip, he turned into a lecherous, violent lunatic during a night out in the red-light district of Wan Chai.
It was the summer of 2003. By now I was a senior junior and climbing up the career ladder. I had been selected for promotion and was due to sit my senior exams, which, if I passed, would mean a fatter pay packet and the opportunity to work solely in Upper Class.
