The Gulf Wars took their toll on the airline industry and the infrastructure was adjusted such that it was no longer easy to commute from Montana to Salt Lake City, so I finally bit the bullet and changed my base to Atlanta and headed south. In this way the aviation industry is a lot like the military. We stay flexible and go where the work is. I got a taste of international flying during the CRAF trips and I liked it. I wanted to explore the world and our Atlanta base had most of our international trips.
One of my first trips out of my new base was revealing, on so many levels. I was scheduled to fly to Johannesburg, South Africa from Atlanta. I was really looking forward to exploring the world now! At that time we were operating the trip on our extended range 767, so we had to make a tech stop in Dakar where there would be a crew exchange and the plane would refuel in normal operations. I had done the trip that way. This time would be different since there was going to be a major Islamic conference in the city and hotels were booked. We would stop out on the Cape Verde Islands instead. Well this sounded interesting. One of my good friends from my initial flight attendant class who wasn’t working the trip decided to tag along to check out the islands off of Africa for free. We were staying in an all-inclusive resort. Woohooooo!
By then I had been flying for over 25 years and I don’t know why I conjured up a picture of “Sandals” in my mind. I knew better.
We arrived on a small, scrub island and I was struck that the more places you go the more places you’ve been. By that I mean, I could have just landed in Aruba or Curacao. Same scrub and dry wind, different location. Off to our “resort” that had the most lovely decoration on the walls surrounding the property and each individual patio. Tall concrete walls painted a bright sunny mustard yellow with broken wine bottles on top. How creative and artistic, I chose to think.
We checked in and headed out to the beach area where we discovered that this was reportedly the wind surfing capital of the world. What a beautiful sight to watch all of the bright kites dotting the sky on a breezy day. I learned this is also where many of our hurricanes originate their trek towards us every Summer into Fall. It was easy to imagine.
As my friend and I headed back up for some dinner before the early flight to Johannesburg, we noticed a few of our younger crew mates heartily enjoying the all inclusive feature of the hotel by the pool and had a laugh. It was going to be an early morning for them, ahhhhh to be young.
The next morning I went in to grab a quick coffee in the dining room and there were still stragglers (hopefully not early risers?) at the 24/7 beer dispenser. I think I threw up a little in my mouth, but kept focused on the coffee and headed back out to the lobby to wait for the entire crew to appear for departure.
In aviation, 10 minutes early is on time. The Captain sets a departure time for the crew bus to leave for the airport and that means luggage and butt on the bus at that time. The wheels on the bus go round-and-round at that time for those who need that concept simplified. There is no fashionably late.
As we hit the 10 minute outer marker, we were still missing one crew member. This did not come as a complete surprise to many of us who had noticed that by late afternoon the day before her bikini top had become restrictive and she was entertaining some private jet pilots with her southern charm by the pool, quite unrestricted. Our crew leader, a rather strong man with a flamboyant flair called her room. No answer. We thought she must be on her way down. Nope.
He tried her cell phone. No answer. Well now we are worried about a fellow crew member in a foreign country etc., etc. so he headed up to her room to knock on her door.
When he returned a few minutes later he advised that she seemed to be under the weather. Actually, after much scuffling and mumbling behind the door, said door was thrown open and there she was wearing our coat-dress uniform, unbuttoned, which she proceeded to flash wide open and proclaim:
TA-DAAAAAAAAA!!!!
Not a stitch on under that dress of course. Our crew leader looked at the private pilot behind the door and told him to get her dressed and downstairs in 2 minutes.
We were just finishing loading up the bus and we senior crew members were huddling on options when that poor pilot dragged our colleague down to the bus. He tried to help her into the bus but she couldn’t handle the steps, so he propped her up at the door and brought her luggage to the back. You could have heard a pin drop. We had a situation. This was not the good old days. We could not put her in a seat and strap her in and get her to the next stop. We couldn’t even get her through the airport without CNN getting video of it. She had to stay. There were huge considerations involved with leaving her in Africa alone, but we had no choice. Fortunately, my friend could step in and take her place since the flights were full.
So this is flying international?? I thought. And they always made a big deal about how wayward we were in the bases out West. Pfffffft. That had us beat by a long shot! And my flying education continued.
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