What Are the Chances?

September 2003

THE PLANE TRUTH: SHIFT HAPPENS AT 35,000 FEET comes out this month. If you haven't done so, order your copy from this website, amazon.com, or from the bookstores today.

Imagine if you will, hundreds of different people crammed together in a cylindrical metal tube, off to destinations of adventure, business, or personal matters. They cross a time zone or two, but first they must all pass the twilight zone. Through the years, I have come across some strange and interesting episodes, requests, and facts, which bring me to ask an important question: What exactly are the odds of the following events happening?

A man and his wife, two daughters, the husband of one of the daughters, and the grandmother, all flight attendants, worked a flight to Asia together. Their son was a pilot working as a first officer on that flight as well. Talk about a family affair.

Not knowing one another, a flight attendant based in New York and another based in Seattle worked a two-hour flight together in Economy. After the service they sat down and talked about everything from the airlines to families. Through their conversation, they discovered that they were actually mother and daughter. The mother, feeling she was too young to start a family, had given up her baby for adoption at birth. Both had no idea where the other one was, but each recently had expressed interest in locating the other.

We have all experienced the traditional sleeping nods of the head while dozing off sitting in an upright position. One man nodded so hard in-flight that he actually broke a vertebra his neck.

Not telling her husband that she was joining him on his European layover, the pilot’s wife took her seat at 1A in First Class as a romantic surprise. What she didn’t know was that sitting next to her at 1B was his mistress. After take-off, he found out, and you should have seen his expression. I heard the wife and the mistress became good friends. I also hear the pilot is paying a lot in alimony.

Upon hearing that I am a big fan of movies, a man in First Class asked me what was the worst movie I had ever seen. It was an easy question so I answered quickly. Confused by his cold response, I later discovered the passenger was actually the director of that movie.

I once flew with a 767 all male crew of nine flight attendants. Remarkably, all were heterosexual and married. What made this so odd was that both of the male pilots were gay. If you know the airline business you know that this is truly a one in a million chance.

Did you know that most of the onboard regular coffee is 85% decaffeinated? Which is odd because decaffeinated coffee is only 95% caffeine free. Now when you ask if it is regular or decaffeinated, and I respond with a “yes,” you’ll know why. The mystery of not getting that coffee buzz onboard is suddenly solved.

A burnt out purser concluded the flight’s farewell announcement with “Have a nice day.” Not realizing that he still had his finger on the broadcast button, he tried to impress his seat partner with “I am sorry that you are all too stupid to see what a screwed up airline we are.” Everyone listened in horror, including the CEO’s wife and children. Needless to say, the purser is no longer with that airline.

There was once a pilot who didn’t realize his conversation with the captain was being broadcast on channel nine of the passenger entertainment system. The conversation consisted of the detailed description of the sexual encounter between him and one of the flight attendants of that flight.

A flight attendant trying to avoid going to work that day called in a bomb threat from his cell phone. He got cut off the first time, so he tried again. He was apprehended 45 minutes later. Criminally stupid is no way to go through life.

A young Dutch man went to the lavatory in-flight, and instead of the lavatory door, he tried to open the plane’s exit door. Even though it is practically impossible to get it open in-flight, the handle rotated to the open position. How many bathrooms have you seen with a big metal handle and a window with the sky in the background?

Quite a few years back, before my time, a man shot his gun into the air signaling the end of duck season. The shot pierced a commercial airplane flying overhead, and some shrapnel hit a passenger in the bottom. The investigation revealed that the victim was, unbelievably, the brother of the man who fired the gun.

Here’s another statistic for you: 75% of all in-flight fights are a result of an Economy seat reclining issue. That personal space, albeit small, always seems to be a reason to pick a quarrel.

Ninety-nine percent of flight attendants who are handed a hundred-dollar bill for a four-dollar drink despise you and your attempt to get a free drink. Eight out of ten will actually try to collect the change, just to spite you. I now carry 97 one-dollar bills as a way of countering such attempts. Come on folks, we’re not stupid...Okay, most of us aren’t.

Most, if not all, flight attendants frown at passengers with oversized carry-on luggage. Fifty percent of the biggest offenders are flight crews on their off time.

“What can I get you to drink?” I asked. “A coke please,” the businessman responded. We no longer served coke and I was tired of the question, “Is Pepsi all right?” So I merely handed him a Pepsi. “I’m sorry, I asked for a Coke.” “Same thing,” I replied, trying to be cute. I couldn’t quite understand why this man went into a fit, until I found out that he was a vice-president of Coca Cola.

“Chicken or Beef,” I offered the middle-aged American woman on the aisle. “Chicken.” I handed her the meal and she replied, “Does this have meat in it?” I was a bit stunned. “Uh, yeah…it’s chicken.”

I was serving drinks from the bar cart, when a passenger asked for a mixed drink of tomato juice and Scotch. Even for me, an experienced drinker and bartender, this was a bit hard to stomach.

A man actually sued his airline for a bad-tasting in-flight meal. He claimed that the emotional trauma he suffered due to his dining experience lost him a very important client. The airline settled out of court for an undisclosed amount. Now that the airlines rarely feed their passengers, I guess he won’t have that problem again.

A flight attendant on his last flight decided he wasn’t going to take the normal passenger abuse. He was leaving the airline because he had gotten a once-in-a-lifetime career opportunity. The frequent flyer whom he decided to make an example of ended up as his future employer, or, I guess I should say, ex-future employer.

Two male pilots lost their jobs for flying naked. The flight attendant discovered them after they requested extra paper towels. I wouldn’t dare guess on what they were doing or thinking, but it does bring a different meaning to the word cockpit.

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