A 25 year flight attendant did a Reddit Ask Me Anything and shared how many times they catch passengers trying to join the mile high club (“I average about once a year”), how often passengers try to sneak a cigarette in the lavatory (“about once a week”) and how often their fellow crew hook up with each other and passengers.
He offered that hookups tend to happen between crew during layovers, “Female flight attendants to Male pilots…..a lot. Guys think with the wrong head sooooo…” He admits, though that he’s hooked up with passengers.
On handling unruly passengers: “Yep, also had them try to fight me, spit on my, you name it….Fighting, shitting or pissing in their seat.”
He likes airlines with first class food, “its quite good actually.” It’s all relative!
And on professional boundaries: “only in a Turkish prison” (in response to seeing a grown man naked, which is a humorous way to deflect personal questions about professional boundaries).
Ultimately, he says, he “love[s] the company and its culture. And I dont wanna leave now and start of the bottom of pay and seniority all over again”
- Since they go by ‘WNFlyGuy’ they’re probably cabin crew for Southwest. They do talk about first class meals. That’s probably from experience flying on another airline, and I don’t think works against the theory that they’re a veteran with the Dallas-based single-cabin carrier.
- That’s who’s most likely to ‘love the culture.’
- But he speaks to something important; seniority means that crew feel stuck and unable to shift employers since they’d have to start at the bottom. They wind up staying with jobs they loathe. That’s bad for them, their airline, and for customers.
As for the worst passengers? While Gene Simmons of KISS was his best celebrity encounter Julia Roberts – just weeks earlier – was the worst. He found her obnoxious.
All in all, he encourages people of all ages interested in becoming flight attendants, specifically mentioning Southwest, Delta, Alaska, and JetBlue as good options.
- Being a flight attendant is a challenging lifestyle that many people aren’t up to. Passengers don’t often see the shifting schedules, repetitive tasks, low pay and challenging customers they have to deal with.
- One other perspective is that you shouldn’t become a flight attendant unless you’re going to work for Delta because of pay and profit sharing.
But if you wind up taking on the job as a career you’ll run into passengers leaving excrement on seats and finding used condoms, underwear, and tampons.
After reading this I feel like maybe I should just drive to Nashville next week!
Seriously though folks, can we passengers just at least try to be civil? This is the FA’s workplace and their livelihood. Yes, they signed up for it…but you have a job too. And it’s a simple one: That is…to be a member of the human race and not a farm animal.
Hmmm, I just can’t picture Julia Robert’s flying Southwest lol.
Yeah, read that article and took about half of it at face value.
I call BS. No way Julia Roberts or Gene Simmons fly SW.
@Jake, your snob is showing. I can guarantee you would be surprised at the number and names of so called Celebrities who fly Southwest. There are many choices out there and people make those choices every day.
Interesting and entertaining insight, although agreed can’t necessarily trust everything ha
Username could also be a red herring, I’ve noticed that flight attendants are more likely to say they are FAs at “a major airline” rather than list the actual company in social media settings than other jobs.
I flew on a flight with Gene Simmons in the 1980s and also shared a hotel shuttle van and hotel when my family and some of the Kiss guys and their manager were hit up by what was (IIRC) a weather-related delay or weather-related cancellation necessitating an overnight stay at an airport hotel. He, a bandmate and their manager were very friendly, but too much so in a way. The conversation was like Howard Stern’s public persona before I had ever heard of Howard Stern.
Sometimes SW is the only way to get from Point A to Point B without flying through Point C, so you fly it. Celebs often aren’t flying private if it’s out of their own pocket. The quickest way to go from a celeb with money to a celeb without money is to blow it on things like private flights when security doesn’t demand you do so. My daughter was on a shuttle flight with Matt Damon, no one bothered him, so why not?
FWIW, on celeb encounter sites, Gene Simmons usually ranks highly and Julia Roberts is near the bottom, so this holds.
Spotted on just a handful of flights, Francis Ford Coppola seated in the exit row on Southwest. Tony Robbins front row, Gene Hackman, window with wife next to him. Alice Cooper, Tommy Lee, Heather Locklear, Bob Eubanks from the Newlywed game, Ronert Carradine, Shaq, Nolan Ryan, Eddy Money. All the country music stars going to awards shows. You’d be shocked. Famous college football players, and NFL players. Just a few I’ve had on my flights.
Well, I would just ask “where’s the beef?” I’ve never seen a photo of Julia Roberts even flying commercial, never mind SW. I’ve seen pictures of Gene and Matt flying commercial, and could easily believe they flew SW – exactly for the reason you alluded: they’re down to earth celebs. But Julia Roberts? Well, she clearly doesn’t like mingling with us commoners.
Confessions and unfiltered secrets.
There’s nothing new here.
“stars’ will fly any airline that will get them to a gig on time…it’s not always private jets. I have seen many celebrities over the years… Over the years, I have seen some awful behavior directed at flight attendants and fellow passengers. Some I attribute to booze, drugs or mental illness…some just nervous flyers and some are just selfish morons. But I have seen incredible kindness to mothers, older people, people crying. lost kids, etc.
As for the confessions, nothing new to me..I have seen it too…couples overly “amorous” , secret vapors or smokers who think no one notices. People who vomit or worse…sat next to a poor man who obviously shat himself and was so wacked out didn’t bat an eye.
Customer service is a terrible job…but obvious some like the lifestyle and perks. I always tell people, it’s a destination job, not a final job. But bless those people that want it as a career.