EARLY ON IN my career, my roommate Tricia took me to a trendy bar in Manhattan, and a guy sporting Buddy Holly frames and electric blue Puma sneakers leaned over and asked what I did for a living.
“I’m a flight attendant,” I yelled over the pulsing beat of the music, and then I took a sip of my apple martini.
Buddy Holly straightened himself up and walked away. I watched in shock as he crossed the room and made a play for another blonde. I guess she had a more respectable job, since he spent the rest of the night conversing with her.
“Asshole!” Tricia exclaimed. A group of guys who’d gathered around vying for her attention laughed. I pretended to care less, but, really, I was pissed! If I had told him that I was a watch designer, would it have made a difference? Probably.
Being a quick learner, I told the next guy I worked for an airline. That’s it. End of story. When he pressed, I said I handled baggage. (Well, I do—during boarding!) Not only did he stick around, he bought me drinks. Unfortunately he turned out to be a FO-FO. This is what I call the first on, first off. FO-FOs are easy to spot. Like gate lice, they’ll line up against the wall in front of the boarding door in the airport terminal, impatiently waiting to get on a flight before the flight attendants have even had a chance to do so themselves. They’re also the ones that stand up before the seat belt sign is turned off in order to grab their bags out of the bin, crushing anyone who dares to get in their way as they sprint to the deplaning door. I hate to admit it, but I kind of like it when the captain slams on the breaks, sending a couple of FO-FOs stumbling down the aisle. Once I realized I was faced with a FO-FO, I did what any other flight attendant would do: I channeled my inner Buddy Holly guy and walked away, but not without politely excusing myself first.
People like Buddy have formed very strong opinions about flight attendants based on things we have zero control over, like a lack of drink choices or a used crossword puzzle inside the complimentary in flight airline magazine. Stuff like that can make some passengers nuts. Mix in a couple of hours with nothing to do but to sit and stew over the matter, and we’ve got a very unhappy passenger on our hands. And we’re not the Royal British Guard. Sometimes, every once in a while, a passenger pushes us too far and we react. This usually happens around day 4 of flying several days in a row after having to deal with the same complaints over and over again. One frustrated flight attendant I know finally exclaimed, “This is an airplane, not a 7-Eleven!” after a passenger became irate that the airline didn’t carry soy milk. Of course, it’s always the passenger with the problem who will have to be reminded later on in flight that the seat belt sign is on. These are the same passengers who will then come to the false conclusion that we’re picking on them. It never fails: whatever they ask for next, we won’t have, which will lead them to the false conclusion that we’re lying. It doesn’t matter how many great flight attendants this passenger may encounter on future flights, from here on out, we’re all liars and nothing we do or say will change that. If Buddy Holly was one of those, I guess I dodged a bullet.
The other danger of admitting you’re a flight attendant to a potential date is finding one who is now more interested in your job than you. You’ll be asking about them and all they’ll want is to hear about the mile-high club. (To be fair, many people who are not trying to take me home also want to know about the mile-high club.) The not so sexy answer to this is that most people eager to join the club usually fail, because it’s my job to stop it from happening as soon as I become aware of what’s going on. This usually happens after an impatient passenger has complained about waiting in line to use the lav for a long period of time.
“Did you knock?” we’ll ask. Nine times out of ten they’ll ask us to do it for them. I always hate doing this because not everyone tying up the loo is having sex. Some people really just need extra time. Like the woman who cracked open the door as she sat on the commode and asked me to “fetch” her a magazine because she was going to be a while. Trust me: if someone is taking that long in the lav, most of the time it’s just best to find another bathroom. Even if that means walking all the way to the back of the airplane. I’m talking to you, first class!
If there is something fishy going on inside the bathroom, flight attendants will order whomever is inside to come out (with their pants up), all the while praying they do as they’re told. The last thing we want is to have to take matters into our own hands and unlock the door for them, thereby getting a glimpse of something we never wanted to see in the first place.
The first couple I ever caught exiting the lav together (in the middle of an afternoon flight, mind you) were both well known in the music industry back in the mid-1990s. Think R&B. The most shocking thing about it for me was that they didn’t even attempt to hide it. Most people will take turns leaving the bathroom, mistakenly thinking that nobody waiting in line will notice the occupied sign immediately sliding back into place after one person exits. But not these two musical wonders. I guess when you perform on stage in front of thousands of adoring fans on a nightly basis, you don’t mind doing what should have been the walk of shame back to your first-class seats. I couldn’t believe it when the one with the killer voice didn’t at least try to fix her hair first.
Over the years I’ve caught red-handed a few other passengers who were trying to join the prestigious club, but membership has been waning in the last ten years. Maybe this is because people are so stressed out by traveling today that doing it at 35,000 feet is the last thing on their minds. Or maybe passengers, like flight attendants, have gotten bigger or have become overly germaphobic. Or perhaps membership only seems to be on the decline because I now have enough seniority to hold something other than the red-eye flights, which tend to be popular with those looking to join the club.
One trend I’ve noticed (and, again, maybe it’s the whole germaphobe thing) is that more and more mile-high members are avoiding the bathroom altogether, preferring to do the deed at their seat. They’ll use a blanket to cover up, giggling and wiggling in the process, making a big public spectacle of themselves. As soon as one of us is clued in to what might be going on, we’ll spread the word and each take turns slowly passing by their seat as we investigate the matter further. The couple will smile sheepishly, pretending they’re not doing what they’re oh-so-obviously doing. Or they might not even notice us at all until we stand at their row and loudly clear our throats. One flight attendant decided to make a couple’s initiation into the club a little uncomfortable by continuously walking up and down the aisle with an illuminated flashlight. It’s not actually illegal to engage in sexual activity on an airplane. But it is a federal offense not to comply with crew member instruction. What this means is if a flight attendant asks you to stop doing something, you need to stop doing it immediately or otherwise face the consequences, like authorities getting called to meet the flight. Imagine being in jail and having to tell your cell mate what you’re in for.
Not all passengers are looking to go all the way. A few are happy going just some of the way. I’m convinced that there’s a female exhibitionist flying on the loose after walking in on a woman inside an unlocked lav. She just stood there, totally naked, with a leg up on the counter. I can’t tell you how often people forget to lock the door, but normally they’re still wearing most of their clothes and they’re certainly not smiling when they’re barged in on. Three months later, on a different route, I noticed a flustered passenger running from the direction of the bathroom back to his seat. After inquiring, he told me he’d walked in on a naked woman. Is it a coincidence that she also had a leg up in the air?
A friend of mine chose to ignore a passenger who massaged his seatmate’s breast as he ordered lunch from a menu he held at chest level. What he didn’t realize is we may not be able to see through things but we can certainly see over them. That’s exactly what I told the man who tried to hide a pornographic magazine behind a safety briefing card. The two teenage girls snickering in the row behind him as they stood hovering over his shoulder were a dead giveaway. Later on in the flight I ran into the guy as he exited the lav, practically advertising what he’d been doing by carrying the same rolled-up magazine under his arm. Before I could avert my eyes from the disturbing evidence, he reached into a drawer of ice with what I hoped were clean hands and told me he worked as a producer on adult films. Handing me a business card, he wanted to know if I might be interested in getting involved in his next film—Pearl.
“What makes you think I’d be interested in doing something like that?!” I was shocked that he thought I was that kind of girl. Unable to make eye contact, but not wanting to seem overly prude, I busied myself with the cart and waited for an answer.
Smugly he smiled. “It pays five thousand dollars for a week’s worth of work.”
“That’s it?” I asked. Not that it mattered.
Dangling what must have been the golden carrot, he added, “We’re shooting it in Jamaica. Room and board is covered.”
I’ve heard rumors of flight attendants getting involved in this sort of thing on the side, but rest assured, they do not remain employed for long. As you may have noticed, flight attendants talk, and as soon as an airline catches wind of something like a burgeoning adult film career, that flight attendant will be fired. And none of us is willing to risk losing our travel benefits! That’s why most of us became flight attendants in the first place. Obviously Mr. Porn Producer had no idea that airline employees fly for free and get huge discounts on hotels and car rentals around the world—Jamaica included. And that’s not all. Besides deals on airport food, cell phone service, luggage, amusement parks, and SkyMall gifts, we also get discounts on all kinds of crazy things like pet sitters, noise cancellation headsets, trucks, kitchen appliances, flowers, and memberships at gyms and superstores. There are even doctors who give special rates to crew, particularly dentists, dermatologists, and plastic surgeons—and I’m not talking about the ones in Brazil. All because we’re free advertising and come into contact with a lot of people. Best of all, FedEx offers employees at my airline 75 percent off all our shipping needs, which comes in handy when we’re overseas and need to ship something like a piece of furniture back to the States. Betcha a porn star working in Jamaica can’t do that! Not to mention there’s that little thing called longevity, as well as medical and retirement benefits. So while we may not make the big bucks for a week’s worth of work, being a flight attendant does have its perks. And these perks certainly attract men.
Which brings me to the passes. I can always tell a man I’m dating is more interested in my travel perks than in me when he starts planning an extravagant trip on our first date to a place he’s been dreaming about for years. This is equivalent to women talking marriage and babies with men they’ve just met. Talk about a great way to run someone off. What’s worse is when a man tries to barter a room in his apartment for free flights. I’ve even had a woman jokingly ask if I’d be interested in polygamy just to get her hands on my passes. After we both stopped laughing, she inquired again. When people who are after my passes realize they’ve entered the point of no return and it’s not looking good, they might come clean with their intentions. One guy informed me that his college roommate’s mother had been a flight attendant, so he knew how the whole non-rev thing worked (wink wink). So as not to lose me, he then brought up how little I made as a flight attendant and said, “I can make it worth your while.” I’m not selling passes, I’m looking for love! This is my cue to down my drink and walk out, never to look back again. Sometimes I’ll even get the woe-is-me routine. One guy needed my passes because his sister was sick and she needed to see a doctor out of state. It’s not hard to tell when a man wants me for me or if he’s just looking to fly for free.
There’s a popular phrase, MARRY ME, FLY FREE! I bought a T-shirt with that written across its back when I was working with Sun Jet. The phrase has since been changed to MARRY ME, FLY STANDBY! but I’m thinking MARRY ME, GET 20% OFF AT THE APPLE STORE might be a better promise. Let me put it to you this way, Bob, the stylish pilot, actually saves his standby passes for people he hates. Then he can gleefully relish when they get stranded in Senegal for ten days.
Buddy passes bring out the worst in strangers. I’ve had all kinds of people I didn’t know hit me up for one: a mailman, a dental assistant, a lady working at a hardware store, a cabby with a wife still living in Pakistan, even a priest. Most people are surprised to learn that our buddy passes aren’t free. In fact, nowadays a buddy pass costs almost as much as a full-fare ticket, because we have to pay taxes and fees on them. If I were to fly a friend on a buddy pass across the country in economy class, it would cost me nearly $200! And the money is automatically docked from my paycheck. That might not sound like a lot to some, but that’s a new pair of work shoes for me. Anyway, would you trust a stranger to pay you back the money you need for the month’s rent, food, and gas? Well, I’m no different, even if the stranger is a rabbi.
Flight attendants at my airline only get so many passes a year to distribute to family and friends. We don’t just hand out tickets to anyone we want. We have to enter their names and Social Security numbers in a database. At my airline once a name is on the list it cannot be removed to make room for another name for twelve months. The only people who fly for free on a pass (or almost free, depending on the cabin they’re sitting in and where they’re going) are parents, spouses, and children under the age of eighteen, unless they’re in college and then they can fly until they’re twenty-one. Not even Grandma gets a break! And free applies only to coach seats on domestic flights, which are usually full, unless it’s January, February, September, or October. Don’t even think about traveling during a holiday or summer month. Even weekends are tough. If coach is full, even as an airline employee I have to pay to sit in first class. That’s about eighty bucks on a cross-country flight, which, while really inexpensive in comparison to what a first-class ticket costs, adds up. Keep in mind most airline employees’ midmonth check is about $500. We need that money to pay bills, not sip champagne.
Whether you’re a flight attendant or one of our friends, there are rules to be followed when traveling standby. The biggest rule is not to bother the gate agents. They are there to help paying passengers, not standby passengers. Take a seat and patiently wait until your name is called—hope your name is called, would be a better way to describe it—before approaching the desk, but do know that won’t happen until five minutes before the flight is to depart, which means by the time you hear your name only middle seats will be left and there will be no available space for your bag. Unless you’re traveling with a small child, don’t even think about trying to sit together. Or breaking the dress code while traveling on a pass. Shorts and flip-flops aren’t allowed in coach, while jeans and sneakers cannot be worn in first or business. When standby passengers don’t follow these rules, or try to argue about what they don’t understand, the flight attendant who issued them the pass could lose his or her flying privileges for good. If you’re a commuting flight attendant with no flying privileges, good luck!
Crazily enough, I’ve heard many times of spouses attempting to lay claim to the passes in a divorce settlement. In some cases courts have awarded it, but most airline policies won’t allow it, regardless of court rulings. I heard a story about a flight attendant who requested her husband meet her in another country owing to a medical emergency. Because she had been living and working out of the country she used her flight benefits to get him there. When he landed, instead of finding an ailing wife, he was served with notice that she was filing for divorce. As soon as he flew back home she yanked his flying benefits. He couldn’t fly back to South America on her passes to defend his property rights—or fight for the passes—because he couldn’t afford the full-fare ticket.
When it became apparent I wasn’t going to find what I was looking for in the cockpit or at a bar, I took my search for love online. Going by the name Skydoll, tag line “destination unknown,” I quickly found my inbox swamped with emails from would-be suitors. It didn’t take long to realize my profile—more specifically, my job—wasn’t just attracting Mr. Wrong, but also Mr. Never-in-a-Million-Years. This doesn’t seem to happen to pilots or male flight attendants. Or maybe it does and they just don’t care, which is why you’ll find so many of them posing in uniform in at least one of their profile pictures. One pilot turned out to be so successful at dating online he wound up getting hitched to a nurse and then starred in a nationwide Match.com television commercial with her. Female flight attendants, on the other hand, are a little less inclined to advertise the job because it turns out that a whole lot of guys have kinky ideas about the uniform. Don’t believe me? Go to eBay and plug in two words: “flight attendant.” There you’ll find all kinds of airline paraphernalia, including used undergarments and work shoes worn by “a real flight attendant.”
Genuine uniforms are not easy to come by. We are not allowed to give them away or even donate them to charity without first destroying any airline insignia on them. This way no one can impersonate us and do something crazy like, say, carry out a terrorist act! If a uniform item is stolen or goes missing, flight attendants are to file a police report, which is exactly what I did after I heard the door to my layover hotel room in Miami quietly shut and I awoke to find my closet door open and a uniform belt and vest missing. I’m not sure which disturbed me more; the fact that someone had come into my room while I slept or that someone wanted to wear my clothes.
A “full set” Japan Airlines vintage uniform (blouse, jacket, skirt, pumps, apron, nameplate, and stockings) can fetch as much as 280,000 yen (about $3,500), with well-worn items garnering premium prices. Female flight attendants from JAL are actually warned not to sell their outfits online to uniform fetish fans, and JAL requires flight attendants to return their uniforms at the end of their career. They even affix each one with a registration number inside, and it’s been rumored that they might take it a step further and follow All Nippon Airways’s footsteps by sewing microchips into uniform pieces. This all came about after some uniforms made their way into sex fetish clubs in Japan where people are willing to pay top dollar to live out a fantasy with an “entertainer” clad in an authentic airline uniform. Other than nurses, it’s tough to think of another profession with as much dedicated pornography, which just reinforces the way people think of flight attendants. It’s no wonder men have screwed up ideas about us—about me!
As soon as I realized how many men online were interested in me because of my job, I had no issue searching for hot jobs to date as well. Keywords like “doctor,” “lawyer” and “PhD” resulted in quite a few amazing dates with many interesting men. I really hit it off with SexyErDoc who raved so often about how great my medical insurance was at one point I thought he might be more interested in my health-care plan than in me. And then it happened. The inevitable. On our third date he requested I put on the uniform.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” I teased. I thought we were joking. But when I got to his apartment and he answered the door wearing a stethoscope and only the top portion of his scrubs, I knew we had a problem. The skinny pantless legs still give me nightmares.
To be honest, the last thing flight attendants want to do on a day off is role-play like we’re at work. Really, we don’t get off on telling people what to do all the time. It’s not fun having to remind passengers of the same things over and over again, like the electronic device policy before takeoff. Recently I had to tell sixteen passengers on a flight from Oklahoma to Chicago to turn their phones off, after having told them twice already! After a while it’s kind of nice for someone else to be in control and take charge of a situation. I imagine a lot of doctors may feel the exact same way because CelebrityDoc didn’t really seem all that interested in me until I told him off for yelling at a waitress who picked up his plate before he was finished. Everyone in the restaurant turned around to get a look at the ass across the table from me. I straightened myself up and in a quiet but stern voice told the doctor exactly how I felt about his poor behavior, but not without first demanding he apologize to the waitress or else have me make a scene as I stormed out. Surprisingly he did as he was told, and he did so rather jovially. The following morning he sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers. I guess we all want someone else in charge some of the time.
Still, he was hardly the strangest. For example, I had no idea there were actually people out there who loved to worship flight attendant feet after a hard day at work until I met the podiatrist. He didn’t tell me about his dirty little secret right away, but when he did it didn’t bother me. What’s the difference between that and butts or boobs? Nothing, that’s what! Not to mention that, while I don’t have big boobs, I do have nice feet. I couldn’t believe I was dating a doctor who loved shoes and foot massages just as much as I did! It seemed like a match made in heaven. But after a while, it did get weird. I couldn’t deal with the guy begging me to smash my pantyhosed feet into his contorted face after a long day at work every time I walked through the door. Everyone has their quirks, but that was just too much. Would you believe the podiatrist actually had the balls to ask me to refer my flight attendant friends to him after we broke up?
“You’re crazy!” I told him, and slammed down the phone.
He called back, sweetening the deal by offering my friends 80 percent off orthotics! Well, that changed everything. I left his card tacked to the wall in flight operations.
Everything happens for a reason. I truly believe that. Because if not for the podiatrist, I might have actually mailed my work shoes off to an engineer I met on a flight. He told me he was a shoe cobbler on the side after he noticed my Mary Janes were in need of mending and he’d be willing to make them look as good as new for free.
“Pack them up and mail them to the address on my card,” he said. He’d pay for shipping. Shoe cobbler, sure.
Eventually, I realized I might be better off meeting the man of my dreams on the plane instead of online. First class, business class, coach, I was an equal-opportunity dater. I didn’t care where they were sitting, just as long as they were sitting with their seat belts fastened, even when the seat belt sign was not on. Hey, what’s the big deal? I’ve seen enough TV to know that doctors date nurses, lawyers date court reporters, and the one with the corner office dates the one pouring the coffee. Where else was I going to meet men? On the airplane, flight attendants get to know people, really know them, when they’re completely unaware of it. We see people when they’re not dressed to impress or on their best behavior, and because we’re in control of their safety and comfort, we know how they react at their most vulnerable.
They say you can tell a lot about people by the way they treat their mother. Turns out you can tell even more about them based on how they treat a flight attendant. Do they make eye contact? Do they say please and thank you? Are they polite when I run out of the beverage of their choice? Do they move the newspaper out of the way when I place a drink on their tray? Do they remove their earphones when I ask a question? Do they show respect to those who serve them? Do they show respect to the passengers seated around them? If the answer is yes, they’re a winner! Major boyfriend potential.
“Whenever a passenger flirts with me, I just assume they want something for free: alcohol, headsets, whatever!” said a coworker after a super cute passenger slid me his number.
“Maybe they just want you,” I suggested.
My coworker pushed his long blond bangs behind his ear and sighed. “It would be nice to find a future ex-husband who could keep me in the lifestyle I’m unaccustomed to.” When I laughed, he snapped his sassy fingers. “Gurrrl, I may be blond but I’ve got dark roots.”
I pointed to my own dark roots. “I hear ya, sista!”
“And I’m not judging, sweetie.”
Thank God for that.
But judge people do, including me, which is how I came to chat with a friendly lady on a flight from San Diego to New York. I knew she was nice based on the way she exclaimed “Happy Tuesday!” before I could welcome her on board, and I knew she was fun as soon as I spotted the hot pink hat on her head. Later on in flight she came to the back galley and asked for a glass of water. I brought up the hat.
“You know, you’re the second person to compliment my hat today. A really nice guy standing in line at Starbucks said something to me about it and then he bought me a cup of coffee.”
“Coffee? Oh, he liked you!” I said.
“Ya think? Oh no. I don’t think so. Really?”
“Really. Listen, if there’s one thing I know, besides uncomfortable seats and bad food, it’s men. And strange men don’t buy random women coffee at the airport. And they certainly don’t notice cute hats. He just wanted to talk to you. Hey, is the guy on our flight?”
Pink Hat Lady wasn’t sure, so she took a quick walk up the aisle to check. “He’s in 22B.”
“Wait here, I’m going to go analyze him for you.” I picked up a plastic bag and walked to the front of the cabin, collecting garbage along the way.
Here’s what I learned in five seconds about 22B. He had nice manners because when I asked if he’d like a refill, he said “No, thank you.” Rarely does anyone say “please” and “thank you” anymore. He also made eye contact. A lot of passengers will just wave me away. This told me he had respect for people, regardless of what they did for a living. When he reached for his seatmate’s empty cup to dispose of it for her since her arms were too short to reach, I knew he was kind and helpful. Most passengers will ignore one another, even if one of them is struggling with something—namely a bag. When I asked if he wanted me to dispose of what looked like top secret papers exploding out of his seat back pocket, he responded with something witty right back. A quick-witted and fun personality is always a plus in a man. The book he was reading had something to do with human anatomy. I assumed he was either a student, a professor, or a health professional.
“I like him,” I told the Pink Hat Lady. “You two would make a good match.”
She wasn’t sure how to approach him, so I suggested that she walk over to him and thank him for the coffee this morning. Then I instructed her to tell him she’d like to reciprocate by buying him a beer or a snack, whichever he’d like. I was fairly certain he wouldn’t take her up on the offer. I just wanted her to put the ball back in his court. Ten minutes later she came back to report that they were going to meet up in the terminal after the flight. A few weeks later I got a letter from her saying that they’d been emailing and had plans to visit each other. Just goes to show love really is in the air. And I was more than ever bound and determined to find it for myself!