Cruising Attitude

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