taught in training and unlocked it from the outside. As she pushed open the door, a guy jumped five feet into the air, causing the needle shoved into his arm to pop out, blood splattering everywhere, including all over my colleague, who immediately ran off the airplane. I’m surprised she didn’t quit her job right then and there. The airplane got pulled out of service—and the passenger probably wound up enjoying a beer with the inbound crew, I’m sure.
A few days later, while helping to clean the airplane, a flight attendant stuck her hand deep inside a seat back pocket and discovered a used and haphazardly discarded needle. I shudder to think what would have happened if one of our unaccompanied minors had found it. I wondered if the needle had belonged to the infamous porn star who came on board scantily dressed with bruises all over her malnourished body, the one who had draped herself all over every overly excited male passenger who recognized her, and they all did, including the two old geezers in the cockpit who wouldn’t release her from their grip until she agreed to say “cheese” for their camera.
Drug addicts and porn stars weren’t our only problems. The elderly were out of control as well. While prepping the cabin for an emergency landing—
And then there was the eighty-something-year-old woman who decided to disrobe after takeoff because she “wanted to get off the bus.” I don’t make the connection, either. But she attempted to do this by wrapping her wrinkled fingers around an emergency exit door handle while screaming, “Let me off this thing!” I’m not sure which scared the passengers more, seeing someone so frail freaking out nekkid or watching a young male coworker wrap himself around her uncovered lady bits to try with all his might to unsuccessfully pry her fingers off the door—a door that cannot be opened in flight regardless of how badly an elderly nudist may want to get off.
After I grew accustomed to working with the traveling public, passengers became the least of my worries. Once, while taxiing to the gate, I’ll never forget how scared I felt as smoke began to fill the cabin. Passengers quickly grabbed their bags and managed to exit the aircraft without further incident. The smoke dissipated before maintenance arrived. They never did figure out what could have caused it. But they did a great job of giving up on solving a “problem” they couldn’t find.
“I am not flying a broken airplane!” the captain, an older guy with a couple of airlines under his belt, shouted to someone over the phone. Because he said it like he meant it, I gave him a thumbs-up. He gave me a wink. The company gave him an ultimatum. Cursing under his breath, he hung up the phone and growled, “Tell the agent we’re ready to board.” An hour later we were back in the air on our broken plane.
Things were run so badly at Sun Jet I’d actually get nervous when I didn’t hear the computerized voice in the cockpit calling out, “Terrain, Terrain, pull up, pull up!” from the other side of the door when I was strapped in my jump seat on approach. Once a jump seat fell off the wall during descent. The two flight attendants sitting beside the cockpit door followed procedures and moved the first row of passengers to the floor. There was nowhere else to put them. Surprisingly, and without argument, the passengers did exactly as they were told. They lay down flat on their backs. The crew placed their legs over the passengers and manned the exit doors from the closest passenger seats.
Each Tuesday at the Long Beach airport, our airplanes were greeted by a middle-aged man in a dark suit. For most airlines, FAA inspectors check employees’ flight manuals to make sure they’re up to date and dole out hefty fines if they’re not. At Sun Jet, we never once handed over our manuals; we usually handed over the plane. Well, just for a couple of hours until maintenance could come and change the white lights that led to red lights that did not lead to an emergency row, but instead led to a row two rows behind the exit.
The airline wasn’t always to blame. Half the time it was our passengers keeping the FAA on their toes. Ten life vests had to be replaced after a group of high school teenagers decided to inflate them midflight during spring break weekend. Then there were the passengers who liked to take home souvenirs from the flight, things like fire extinguishers, ashtrays, first-aid kits, whatever they could get their sticky fingers on. These are all considered “no- go items.” That means the flight cannot depart without them. Regular airlines might have replacements in stock. Not Sun Jet! We’d have to wait until one of the flights scheduled to land at midnight in Dallas could be sent to rescue us. At that point the drinking game would change. It became last flight back to Dallas wins.
But the craziest thing about working for Sun Jet had nothing to do with any of that. It wasn’t even the time I had several passengers light up cigarettes because they thought it might be their last flight. No, the craziest thing about working for a charter airline was that I enjoyed it. I did! What’s not to love about a job that allows you to sleep in every single morning? Who wouldn’t love working twelve days a month—if that? Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I
And that is how I came to walk into my third airline interview with grace and confidence, completely prepared for anything. I had experienced it all, and then some, in only three months at Sun Jet. My makeup had been professionally applied, my hair swept up into a conservative updo with absolutely no frizzies, a flight attendant no- no. During the group interview, I made sure to pepper my answers with the phrase “good customer service.” I threw in the word “flexible” as often as possible. And I stressed that I wanted a career, not just a job, with an airline I could be proud of. That got me a real smile, not once but twice. When they handed me a PA card and asked me to read it out loud, I didn’t for a moment remove what I imagined to be a first- and business-class smile. Then came The Question. Besides meeting new people and traveling, why did I want to become a flight attendant? I told them I found the flexible lifestyle appealing. When they asked how I prepared for the interview, I showed them my comfortable yet stylish navy blue heels and let them know where they could find them on sale. I even outwitted them with an answer to a trick question: “Answer the one question you thought we might ask but didn’t.”
One guy had actually confessed all his negative traits when posed the same question. Me, I said, “When can you start training is the question. The answer is today. But I’m flexible with whatever training date you have available.”
With an answer like that, how could they resist?
During the psychological evaluation, I made a point of describing my character on the front side of the page the exact same way my family and friends would describe me on the flip side, whether or not I agreed. My sister didn’t count. Seriously, besides her, I got along with everyone just fine!
Five minutes later I found myself sitting in an unmarked white van with two other wannabe flight attendants, currently a bartender and a nurse, all of us on our way to “medical” across the street. I knew for a fact that I had been hired.
“Medical” is the one and only word a hopeful flight attendant wants to hear at an airline interview. It means the airline is interested. It means there will be a scale to stand on in the near future. As long as the applicant can lift a required amount of weight, reach into an overhead bin to grab the emergency equipment, and pass an eye, ear, and drug test—and a background check—with flying colors, a training date will be assigned. Because of my brief experience at Sun Jet, I knew just how important it was to get the first training date possible.
At an airline, seniority is everything. Everything. It determines the type of trips you’ll get and whether you’ll be stuck on reserve or forced to work holidays for the rest of your life. It can make or break your career. And seniority is determined by class hire date, so it’s absolutely essential to accept the earliest flight attendant training class you’re offered. Unless the airline discovered something about me that I didn’t know—like my being a felon or an illegal alien—I left medical knowing I’d been accepted to training. What I didn’t know was when training would start. Most airlines will offer classes right away, with a new class starting each week. That’s why I planned to give Sun Jet one week’s notice. They weren’t thrilled. Three of us were leaving for the same reason.
Little did I know that less than a year later, ValuJet would crash into the Everglades causing the flying public to lose confidence in low-cost carriers. In 1998, Sun Jet entered bankruptcy court, only to reemerge briefly as Southeast before going out of business forever. At the time I was thankful to work for an airline I could be proud of with the firm and comforting knowledge that the open sky was just a fun and temporary pit stop on the way to a real career, something in… oh, I don’t know. I had a bachelor’s in psychology, after all. I could figure it out later!
