Flyer Beware

These little tidbits might fall more under “Oh no they didn’t” rather than “Oh no YOU didn’t,” but still need to be told to color in the full picture of a flight attendant’s life.

In my last post I referred to flying on the DC9s and DC8s back in the dark ages. Those older aircraft were real workhorses and did a lot of junkets to garden spots like Las Vegas and Miami, just packed to the gills with high rollers and revelers. Champagne would flow freely and I’m not sure who ever thought it was a great idea to allow intoxicated people to light little sticks on fire and wave them around, but the smoke would get so thick you could barely see. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues and I are paying the price years later, even though we never smoked, with a high incidence of lung diseases taking their toll. At the time it was more of a challenge to get them to put those things out when it was time to land than anything. Alcohol-fueled rights would emerge and some folks would put up quite a fight for their last few puffs. I had only been flying about 6 months when one disgruntled passenger decided to prove to me that he had extinguished his cigarette and stubbed it out on my hand. I am not the only one that happened to. Sadly that wasn’t my roughest initiation.

Just 3 months into my career a passenger that was displeased with how the service was going shoved me down in the aisle, kicked me and then punched me in the face. This was back in 1979. People were not prepared for this at all. Nobody moved. Everyone was in shock. Finally, an off-duty police officer identified himself, subdued him, put him at a window seat and sat next to him until we landed. Since I was fresh out of training (well admittedly, not trained for THAT) I smoothed my skirt, excused myself politely and went to the flight deck to report the incident. I bandaged my leg, then returned to assist my crew with the remainder of the service. That’s what you do right? I WAS trained to remain calm and carry on as normally as possible.

I was almost surprised when we landed in New York and authorities removed the gentleman, and me. I had to appear in court the next morning at the Port Authority. This was very big for me and I saw some things in that building I had not seen before. There were others being arraigned for things that I had only seen in movies or read about, if you know what I mean. And I looked odd to them, I suppose, at 5’2” and 105 lbs. in my little stewardess uniform and my huge eyes.

I had concerns because my trip was only a turn-around, or day trip and I did not have a clean blouse with me for my court appearance. I carefully washed my shirt in my hotel room and ironed it and hoped I would look respectable with my shiner and split shin. My blouse was soon forgotten as I marveled at the creative wardrobe choices of some of the other women in court that morning. Most of their outfits looked like they had not seen a washing machine in weeks and never been ironed. This was a new and enlightening up-close look at the real world for me.

I sat quietly (reads: stunned) in the courtroom waiting for my incident to be heard. There was no jury, just public defenders with colorful women and not-so-colorful men and myself. I seemed to have rather stacked the deck what with my entourage of 2 corporate attorneys, 2 FBI agents and a few officers from the Port Authority of New York. I felt very small and big at the same time.

Finally we heard a mournful singing coming down the hall from the holding cells. Everyone looked a little confused, but I knew exactly who it was. It was my turn. Sure enough, my passenger appeared and the brief discussion was on. It ended with the judge issuing a 30 day psychiatric hold to determine if he was fit to stand trial. Subsequently it was determined he was not deemed fit.

I left a lot out of the story about the incident itself because it was clear from the start that this person was working with some deep issues. That person deserves the respect and dignity to confront those issues on his terms, not in my blog. Just suffice it to say it was one of the experiences that shaped me and my career and deserves mention. I learned early on something that only became more evident as years wore on. Shutting people up in cylindrical tubes with a lot of people creates a pressurized situation that takes some finesse to manage. You can’t just open the door and air out like you might on the ground. As we crammed more seats into aircraft and packed more people in and decreased personal space and sense of personal control, these situations became almost common. Now they end up on video and online. Everyone can see and say for themselves:

“Oh yes they did!”