Cruising Attitude

by Heather Poole

  Most injured flight attendants at my airline who find themselves in Mary’s position aren’t so lucky in that they are too young to qualify for retiree benefits. It’s mind-boggling to me that I could be injured at work but the injury might not be classified as an IOD unless the captain loses control of the airplane or the airplane sustains structural damage. In either of those cases, the aircraft must be grounded and inspected. That’s lost revenue for the airline. No captain wants to be held accountable for that! I’m sure you can see the writing on the wall. A friend of mine who works closely with airline management said he’s never once seen a pilot label rough air as “severe turbulence.” So if you see flight attendants sitting in our jump seats when it starts to get bumpy, we’re just trying to make sure we’re not going to be forced into early retirement!

  If there’s mild turbulence and a nervous passenger questions flight attendant Beth on how she tolerates it, she’ll lighten the mood by telling them that in training we had to learn to walk on a tightrope to increase our balancing skills. Most of them actually believe her! Before my friend Vicki retired, she’d tell passengers she practiced her serving skills by jumping on a trampoline while holding a tray full of drinks. I’m probably the only person who believes her, but this is because I actually know her. In the past, I used to reassure fearful fliers that airplanes don’t just break in half. But then Air France Flight 447 did exactly that in 2009. It’s still unclear whether significant turbulence due to a series of storms in the area, a lightning strike, or something about frozen pilot tubes caused the airplane to “disappear.” So now I just tell passengers to keep their seat belts fastened and everything will be A-OK. Depending on the type of rapport we may have, I might add a very unusual but quite interesting fact I’ve heard about dying on an airplane. More people have been killed falling off donkeys than by dying in an airplane crash.

  What most nervous fliers don’t realize is, turbulence is normal and it can occur even when the sky appears clear. If you are a nervous flier, don’t be embarrassed to let the crew know during boarding. Flight attendants are trained professionals. If we know you’re scared we’ll go out of our way to be reassuring if the airplane does encounter a few bumps. I’ve gone so far as to sit in an empty seat beside someone and hold their hand. It’s better not to wait until you’re clutching the armrest for dear life and sweating profusely with each bump to let us know who you are. If there’s time during boarding we might be able to introduce you to the cockpit. Pilots are better able to calm nerves by letting passengers know what to expect in terms of when it will happen, why it happens, and for how long it’s scheduled to last. Aircraft fishtail during turbulence, making the back of the airplane much bumpier than the front, so one good trick is to book a seat as close to the cockpit as possible. If that’s not possible, get to the airport early so an agent can switch your seat to a more desirable location. Airlines block the best seats for frequent fliers. Frequent fliers use miles to upgrade and a lot of times their upgrades don’t go through until the last minute, so be patient with the agent if they ask you to have a seat in the terminal. If that doesn’t work, tell a flight attendant what’s wrong and we’ll try to move you. Also, don’t forget to count the number of rows from your seat to the closest exit door or window. If something does happen and it’s dark, you’ll be able to feel your way to safety.

  While passengers dread turbulence, what leaves flight attendants shaking are in-flight confrontations. It’s a really big deal for us to walk off a flight or even have a passenger removed. Really, we do not enjoy rocking the boat—or in this case, the plane—but sometimes we have to. There’s no calling the cops or the fire department or an ambulance at 35,000 feet, which is why we always try to take care of potential problems on the ground.

  Does it come as a surprise to learn intoxicated passengers have a tendency to turn into trouble after a few too many? The reason they seem tipsier in the air than on the ground is because of lower oxygen levels in the blood. The same amount of alcohol goes a lot further at 35,000 feet. While rarely a threat to the safety of the aircraft, unless of course they’re threatening to shoot the flight crew with a 9mm handgun like one drunken passenger did on a flight from Cuba, they do have a tendency to wreak havoc. I’m positive this is one reason why it’s against FAA regulations for an airline to board someone who appears to be intoxicated. If an airline gets caught knowingly doing so, they will be issued a fine.

  It’s not hard to spot inebriated passengers when they walk on board and announce, “Let’s party and have some drinks!” Those we know to keep an eye on. It’s the quiet ones we have to worry about, the ones who ask for a cup of ice, and that’s it. That’s a big red flag that there might be a little something-something hidden somewhere. Like bartenders, we’re responsible if anything bad happens to passengers who’ve had a few too many drinks after they leave our flight. That’s why we don’t allow passengers to bring their own booze on board, why we don’t automatically serve free drinks when there’s a delay, and why we’ll cut people off if we feel they’ve had enough.

  It’s not always possible for a few of us to keep tabs on so many of you, so some people do squeak by. For instance, after serving a very large first-class passenger not that many Jack and Cokes, we couldn’t stop him from coming into the galley and eating leftover shrimp tails (i.e., garbage) he picked off used passenger meal trays we were stacking back inside the carts after the dinner service. Then there was the elderly woman who drank four vodkas within an hour after takeoff. I had no idea my coworker had just served the sweet old lady a double when she flagged me down and asked for “two of those cute little bottles.” Once we realized our mistake, it was too late. Our crazy little granny with the thick Irish accent was attempting to christen the entire coach cabin with water from the lav on her dripping hands. When one of my colleagues tried to talk her into taking a seat (near the back of the cabin so we could keep an eye on her), she screamed something I will not repeat about my colleague being gay. I don’t know what surprised me more, Granny’s potty mouth or the fact that my coworker didn’t have the gay mafia waiting for her after our flight. I also always love the passengers who use their seat back pocket and/or that of their neighbor, as a barf bag. And the ones who lock themselves inside the one and only first-class lavatory—and never come out.

  One hot young thing, determined to talk a couple of male passengers into buying her drinks, once made the rounds on a flight overseas until one of my coworkers confronted the underage girl in the galley. The girl responded by punching my colleague in the face. Now, if that had been me I don’t know what I would have done, but my Puerto Rican coworker, a petite young thing herself, didn’t skip a beat. I can’t tell you what happened next, but I will say I just stood there stunned because girlfriend had just messed with the wrong flight attendant.

  But my all-time favorite was the sharply dressed man who took a seat in the exit row after staggering onto the airplane with an open container of alcohol. Of all the seats the guy could sit in . . . I asked him to hand it over, but instead of doing as told, he guzzled it down and burped in my face. Then he wanted to argue about why he couldn’t bring his own booze on board. As I was reminding him that most businesses do not allow open containers of liquor, he passed out, head smack against the tray table.

  Drunk passengers aren’t the only problem. In San Francisco, an agent was called to remove a passenger who was so out of it during boarding that she couldn’t even find her seat, let alone walk down the aisle without assistance from some lucky passenger who just happened to be standing in line behind her. The whacky behavior, I’m sure, had something to do with sleeping pills, since we were on a red-eye flight headed back to New York. But because passengers have to be conscious (and wearing shoes) when they come on board, the woman was taken off and rebooked on the next flight the following morning—that is, assuming she found her shoes. Smart passengers will wait until after takeoff before using sleeping aides. Flight attendants appreciate this because
there’s always a chance there will be a mechanical issue and we’ll have to go back to the gate and deplane. It’s hard enough waking someone who has chased down two Ambien with a shot of whatever they were drinking at the airport bar without having to explain to them where they are, again, and why they have to get off the airplane—again. If the backpacker who fell asleep during boarding hadn’t missed the captain’s announcement about the three-hour delay, he wouldn’t have been so confused when he finally came to and noticed we were at the gate—wow, so early! He assumed we had landed. I’m the one who had to break it to him at the aircraft door that we never even took off. Sighing, he went back to his seat and popped another pill. Flight attendants are capable of doing a lot of things, but during an emergency evacuation, there’s no way we’re going to be able to drag half a plane full of disoriented, limp noodles by the ankles through a smoke-filled cabin and down the slide. Hard to believe, I know.

  And then there are the limp noodles who eventually turn cold and gray and, well . . . if anyone asks, they’re just “resting.” I say this because no one officially dies on an airplane, no matter how dead they actually are. When a person passes away they’re still considered “incapacitated” until a doctor makes an official pronouncement. Thirty years ago, my friend Vicki, who had never had a passenger die during one of her flights, noticed a man who was clearly asleep (wink wink). So as not to distress the rest of the passengers, she placed a gin and tonic and an opened bag of nuts on his tray table. Knowing Vicki the way I do, she probably chatted him up a few times for appearances. Depending on who’s asking, she’ll even swear she saw him take a sip of that drink. That’s her story and she’s still sticking to it.

  Not everyone is as smooth as Vicki. During descent on a Sun Jet flight, one of my coworkers noticed a passenger with his seat all the way back. She asked him to put it up and quickly discovered he, well, couldn’t. Without hesitating, she dragged his lifeless body into the aisle, hiked up her tight skirt, straddled him in a way that would have made any living man envious, and started doing CPR. When paramedics came on board to take him off, she was still going at it. She couldn’t stop. Paramedics had to pull her off. Later on she got in trouble for not being in her jump seat during landing, an FAA regulation.

  My only close call with death happened on one of my first international trips. I don’t remember where we were flying to but, man oh man, the food looked delicious, so much better than it did on the domestic routes. In hindsight I realize I was probably just hungry as I was fairly new and broke at the time. But back then I honestly couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to miss out on something that looked so good, which is why I confidently tapped a sleeping woman on the shoulder to wake her up. When that didn’t work, I rubbed her arm. Then I lifted her hand and let it fall—that is, flop—down on her lap. Uh-oh. Nervously I glanced at my coworker. Based on the way his eyes were bugging out of his head, I knew he was thinking exactly what I was thinking. Silently he grabbed her by both arms and gave her a good shake. No response. Our facial expressions must have said it all, because that’s when the woman sitting next to her jumped up and started screaming, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  We checked for a pulse. We checked for breathing. We cleared the row of passengers and were just about to get her body flat on the ground when out of nowhere her husband, who unbeknown to us had been seated a few rows back, appeared and jabbed her in the neck with a knuckle—at least that’s what it looked like he did. At once her eyes popped open and upon seeing us all hovering over her she began to giggle uncontrollably. My heart was beating so fast I thought I might have a heart attack myself. It’s not every day you’re serving drinks and then have a dead lady on your hands. Nor is it every day you have a dead lady come back to life, then have to go right back to serving drinks—with a smile. Right then and there, I swore I’d never bother another sleeping passenger again! In coach, that is. I didn’t care how dead they looked.

  Most passengers prefer sleeping to eating, if they’re already asleep that is—until they come to and realize what they wanted to eat is no longer available. I’ve been scolded for waking passengers up. And I’ve been scolded for not waking them up. In coach, I’ll leave sleepers alone. The food, if there’s any on board, is not worth waking up for. But in first and business class it’s a different story. Not because the food is all that, but because they’ve paid a lot of money for a seat and have unrealistic expectations about the service. Now, if I’m the one taking meal preferences after takeoff, I’ll play it safe and gently touch their arm so later on, when they wake up and become upset because there’s nothing good left to eat, I can at least say that I tried. That said, I wasn’t quite sure what to do when I came upon one guy snoozing in business class. His black T-shirt had me confused because it had the word AWAKE printed in big, bold, white letters right across his chest. Pen and paper in hand, I stood there a good minute contemplating whether or not this was a personal message worn specifically for this moment so he wouldn’t miss out on the chicken or beef. And it’s because of that stupid shirt I came to the incorrect conclusion the guy had a sense of humor.

  “Can’t you see I’m sleeping!” he yelled.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just, well, normally I don’t wake people up, but your shirt . . .”

  He turned all the way around in the big, cushy, leather seat so I could read the back. Turns out, AWAKE was not a comment on his state of consciousness on the airplane but the title of a movie I’d never heard of.

  Most flight attendants love when passengers fall asleep, as a quiet cabin is a happy cabin. The exception to this rule is when a passenger falls asleep on the floor in the middle of the aisle. That can only mean one thing: medical emergency. Imagine my surprise when I walked out of the business-class galley with a couple of drinks on a silver linen-lined tray and noticed that every single passenger on my side of the cabin had turned all the way around in their seat and was now staring at me. No one moved a muscle. No one said a word. There were just fourteen pairs of eyes wide open. That’s when I noticed the woman on the floor. As I ran to her side, I ordered another flight attendant to page for a doctor.

  When it comes to medical emergencies, I’ve been pretty lucky in that there have always been a few medical professionals on board willing to volunteer their services. Whether they’re a group of doctors on their way to a medical convention or a couple of flight attendants who once worked in nursing or as EMTs, there’s usually someone, besides me, who can help. But this time I wasn’t so lucky. No one rang their call light. I asked the flight attendant to try again, and again, as some medical professionals will wait a few seconds in hopes that someone else will respond so they won’t have to.

  Thank God, I thought, when I heard not one, but two call lights ring. The man in the button-down shirt across the aisle turned out not to be a doctor, dammit! He wanted to know if he could get another gin and tonic. The woman sitting in first class also turned out not to be in the medical field, but just a concerned passenger, which would have been nice if what she cared about hadn’t been whether whatever was going on in the back would affect her connecting flight! In the meantime the unconscious woman came to, passed out again, and then came to again—and thankfully stayed that way. I learned she was an up-and-coming fashion designer who hadn’t eaten all week, so I handed her a wheat roll and went back to work. The most disturbing thing for me was not one person who had witnessed the event inquired about her well-being. They were more concerned about drink refills and whose tray I would take away first since they’d all been waiting a long time and needed to get back to work.

  Although I dread medical emergencies, I’ll take one any day over a New York–Miami flight. Demanding, ballbusting, ick, hellacious, unfrigginbelievable, avoid, and the F word are a few of the words my coworkers use to describe the route. Lycratubetop and Sickcall deserve an honorable mention. It’s one of the most, if not the most, difficult routes in the system. Flight attendant Sherly needs Prosac, Valium, and a shot of
vodka after just thinking about working the trip. The problem stems from combining passengers possessing two completely different yet very strong personalities. Mix them with the most junior flight attendants inside a confined space for two and a half hours, and you better believe there’s going to be drama!

  I make it a point to avoid the route altogether, but if I do get the city pairing on reserve, I try my best not to smile during boarding. It’s essential to set the tone for the flight. I don’t want anyone to come to the (correct) conclusion that I’m the one they can walk all over. These passengers seem to come with the mind-set of whoever yells the loudest wins. They think the nice one is the weak link, as well as the ticket to free booze, and depending on how badly they’ve abused the crew, sometimes they’re right. One New York–based crew fought back by refusing to work after passengers booed them in the terminal for arriving late to the gate. It wasn’t the crew’s fault their inbound flight had been delayed taking off from wherever they had flown in from, causing a domino effect for flights using the same equipment (and crew) later on in the day. Passengers sometimes mistakenly think there are extra airplanes lying around the airport waiting to be had when a situation like this occurs, but there aren’t, and the best you can do is just go with the flow and try to relax. Instead, this particular group of obnoxious passengers caused the crew to deem the environment too hostile to work. They walked off the airplane and refused to go back to work, forcing the airline to call out reserves to staff the trip, delaying the flight even longer. And that’s just one New York–Miami flight.