Flight attendant’s tell-all releases cabin pressure
by Jayne Clark, USA TODAY
The rude inquiries. (“Is that your natural hair color?”) The stupid questions. (“What river is that?”) The outrageous requests. (“Can you take this diaper?”)
What’s a beleaguered flight attendant to do? This one wrote a book.
Around the World in a Bad Mood! Confessions of a Flight Attendant (Hyperion, $12.95) is Rene Foss’ funny send-up of 16 years of working aloft. The book, an extension of her musical revue of the same name (which is performed periodically at the New York cabaret Rose’s Turn), revolves around the fictional We Apologize for this Inconvenience Airlines. But the content is grounded in reality, as any frequent flier will recognize.
Says Foss of her decision to put her stories on paper, “What else is there to do in downtown Flint on a 54-hour layover but think about your pain? I’d already been to Denny’s.” Here, she talks shop with USA TODAY’s Jayne Clark.
Q: After a period of relative post-Sept. 11 calm, more incidents of bad behavior in the air are creeping back into the news. Rowdy Russian orchestra members got booted off a flight in Washington last month. An amorous couple admitted smoking crack in the bathroom on a flight to New York. Are things getting back to normal?
A: It does seem people have short-term memories. But one thing that has changed is that airlines have zero tolerance for misbehavior. What eight months ago might have gotten a dirty look from a flight attendant could get you arrested. Some of the bad behavior is beginning to resurface, but there is a change in the psyche in all of us. People are calmer and seem to be aware that if something did happen, such as a passenger getting out of line, they’re more likely to get involved to prevent a bad situation. The us vs. them (attitude) is pretty much gone.
Q: So the general mood aloft has improved?
A: People are still grumpy. There have been a lot of changes in the level of service. Meals have been eliminated or downgraded.
Q: Do they still complain about the food?
A: Whereas before they complained that they didn’t like what we had, now they complain that we don’t have anything. But if you make people aware that we’re not serving food, they can grab something. My motto: Carry a bottle of water and an apple.
Q: You make light of the trash-collecting, abuse-taking aspects of your job. But what really bugs you?
A: People coming on late with too many bags. The bag thing has gotten better, but even though they’re monitoring it, the bags are getting bigger, and the bins are getting smaller.
Q: Your mother was a flight attendant in the 1950s, when air travel had a certain glamour. There were orchids in the restrooms and passengers dressed up, or at least wore shoes. What would she think about flying today?
A: I think she would probably be appalled at how people dress. And at the level of service. (In her day) there was a cocktail hour and hors d’oeuvres and champagne and lobster thermidor. But there may have been 30 passengers on the plane and four flight attendants. And now, it’s 200 passengers and three flight attendants. So the one-on- one rapport is gone.
Q: Regardless, people still have a sort of fascination with flight attendants. Yours is the third flight attendant tell-all to come out in the past few months. Gwyneth Paltrow plays one in View From the Top, opening this summer. What gives?
A: Being on an airliner is fuel for interesting situations -- and not so interesting situations. And some is a hangover from the ’60s coffee-tea-or-me, fly-me, sex-sells days. (The airlines) promoted women wearing miniskirts. And there was this one-day-I’m-in-Miami, the-next-day-in-New-York image that has stuck. Though it’s more like eight hours in Cleveland, nine hours in Poughkeepsie. And after Sept. 11, people are more aware of flight attendants and pilots -- in the way you think about what firemen do. The airline industry has been thrust into the limelight.
Q: Tell me about the secret language of flight attendants.
A: There’s an old chestnut, “How does a flight attendant say, ‘*&%# you’? ‘I’ll be right back!’ ” When we talk about a “wide body,” we’re not talking about a 747. An “equipment change” means the plane is broken.
Q: There’s a song in your review, The Safety Demo Shuffle, that begins rather dryly, “If you’ve never traveled by car, this is your seat belt . . . ” Are you ever tempted to just belt out the song in lieu of repeating the same old safety spiel?
A: Yes. But if I did, I’d be unemployed, too. With my luck, someone from the FAA would be on board.
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