allowed to talk about celebrities.
On the other hand, if we don’t mention them by name, we’re not really talking about them, right? So here’s the galley gossip. He was one of the biggest pop stars of our time, and while he wouldn’t breathe the air at 35,000 feet without wearing a face mask, he had no problem scarfing down two first-class meals. She has an A-list celebrity daughter and she once did three sets of sit-ups on the floor in the first row of first class. This actor known for having a thing for supermodels fell asleep with his hand down his pants in first class. A member of one of the most successful boy bands of the 1990s refused to buckle his belt while taxiing to the runway until the flight attendant threatened to have him removed from the flight. The comedian who got kicked off one of daytime TV’s hottest talk shows asked the pilot not to make any more announcements in flight because her baby was sleeping. A beautiful A-list actress bit her toenails in business class. This same actress had once been married to the actor who cut his omelet into bite-size pieces with a knife and fork and then proceeded to eat it with his hands. Let’s not forget the soulful singer who ordered the flight attendant not to talk to “her man” when all the flight attendant wanted to know was what he would like to drink. This long-haired singer of one of the most popular rock bands of the 1990s was way too old to be flirting with the captain’s sixteen-year-old daughter, who was non-reving in first class. Two has-been R&B singers who are now divorced once exited the lavatory together looking extremely disheveled. Known as the sexiest woman in the world, she’s also one of the nicest and most generous women in the world and tipped a gate agent $50 for letting her borrow a cell phone. The greatest R&B singer who ever lived was so afraid of flying he would only sit in the first row of first class. If that wasn’t available he’d go on standby for another flight. This talk show icon left such a mess in first class that both passengers and flight attendants were shocked. A solo artist who once belonged to one of the most famous girl groups in the world lectured a flight attendant on the importance of being nice to his mother. A rapper who has changed his name several times over the years got caught checking out the flight attendant’s you-know-what as she walked down the aisle. This young star sat in coach even though his movie was number one at the box office. A Canadian who shot to the top of the music charts with her scathing lyrics wouldn’t allow a passenger in the window seat to pass by her in order to use the lavatory until quietly meditating with her first.
Once I had a cabin full of Victoria’s Secret models and had no idea they were on my flight until one of my coworkers asked me how they were. Except for the fact that they ate lettuce without dressing and were super skinny and had smiles that practically wrapped around their face, they were just like anyone else traveling in first class on a red-eye flight. Many celebrities book full-fare business-class seats and then upgrade to first class, just like regular old passengers do. They, too, like a bargain. And when they don’t get an upgrade, they freak out just like normal passengers. Although normal passengers don’t often complain about being mobbed in coach when their upgrade doesn’t go through.
On one flight to Los Angeles, my roommate Jane found herself non-reving in first class with an entire cabin full of Hollywood bigwigs. Jennifer Lopez, then a Fly Girl, sat in front of her with her first husband, the waiter, who sat directly across from Harvey Keitel. Harvey kept standing up in front of the cabin and stretching his legs. From time to time he’d stare intently at Jane. “I’m not sure if he was trying to figure out if I was someone important or if he wanted to ask me out!” We quickly came to the conclusion he wanted to ask her out. Between renting movies starring Jane’s future boyfriend, we spent the next week trying to figure out how to contact him. Don’t laugh. These things happen. And we weren’t about to let a moment like this get away. Jane never did score a date with Harvey Keitel, but we sure had fun talking about it. This is why the job is so exciting. The possibilities are limitless. And just when you think you’ve experienced it all, something else wondrously amazing or far-out weird will happen.
Case in point, my mother started flying.
Large companies in any industry often engage in corporate upbeat talk about “being a family,” when in reality they couldn’t be any further from the kind. Then there are the rare corporations like Southwest Airlines that not only treat employees like family but actually employ married couples, parents, children, and even siblings. In 1989, Herb Kelleher, cofounder and CEO of Southwest Airlines, was quoted in
My mother had spent her entire life dreaming about becoming a flight attendant. I remember watching her over a bowl of Froot Loops at the kitchen table filling out applications to all the major carriers—American, Continental, Delta, Pan Am, TWA, United, Southwest—always tossing them out when they were complete. She realized she couldn’t follow through if she had to transfer to another base and leave me and my sister behind. Eventually she gave up the dream and became a hairdresser. But when a few of her clients who happened to be flight attendants found out that my mother had always dreamed of flying, they each brought her an application from their airline. While flattered, my mother insisted that her time had come and gone—after all, she was in her late forties! The flight attendants told her to stop being silly.
Back in the 1960s stewardesses had to follow strict height, weight, and age requirements. According to Wikipedia, they had to be
Today the minimum age requirement to become a flight attendant is between eighteen and twenty-one. There is no maximum age restriction. As long as flight attendants can pass a yearly recurrent training program, and don’t have any health or physical problems that would prevent them from flying, they can continue to work. Height requirements are for safety reasons only. Typically flight attendants range between five feet, three inches, and six feet, one inch. We must be tall enough to reach safety equipment stored overhead and short enough to avoid bumping our heads against the aircraft ceiling. (For this reason on some regional carriers using smaller aircraft equipment, maximum height requirement is five feet, ten inches.) In the 1990s weight requirements for flight attendants were dropped, but weight must be in proportion to height. If flight attendants cannot sit in the jump seat without an extended seat belt or fit through the emergency
The benefits of hiring older people who have already had a career is they tend to appreciate what being a flight attendant is all about, and that shows on the job. Younger flight attendants who have never worked a regular 9-to-5 job have no idea how good they have it. Hiring more-experienced people also helps the airlines save money when it comes to paying for benefits and retirement. Once, while I was explaining this to a passenger who couldn’t believe my mother was also a flight attendant, he informed me that he found it unsettling to stare at postmenopausal women pushing beverage carts for three hours. As if buying an airline ticket entitled him to eye candy. Of course, he wasn’t much to look at, either. Another passenger wished the airlines would hire nicer, better- looking flight attendants like Virgin, because the last thing he wanted was to be scolded in flight by someone’s grandmother or gay cousin. What’s amazing is how often passengers complaining about flight attendants being old and ugly are old and ugly themselves.
I don’t know what it is, but whenever it comes to flight attendants, people tend to forget that we have rights regardless of what we do for a living. What I find most unsettling is the number of passengers with ageist and sexist opinions about flight attendants who think it’s okay to not just have these outdated opinions, but to express them to the very group of people they’re talking about! I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but flight attendants are allowed to age and gain weight like the rest of society. One passenger had the nerve to complain about a “fat flight attendant” who ruined his flight because she kept waking him up whenever she passed down the aisle. I wanted to point out that if certain passengers weren’t spilling out into the aisle (cough, cough), “fat” flight attendants wouldn’t be knocking into them. Another passenger whacked me hard on the butt after she accused me of stepping on her toe. For the record, my height and weight are nicely proportional, but even I can’t walk down the aisle in a straight line without swinging my body from side to side because of all the heads, legs and feet hanging out into the aisle.
My mother, like Linda, my old roommate from training, started flying when most people her age begin
