Perceptions hurt
“It’s very difficult to combat the preconceived ideas people have about flight attendants. They think we’re just waiters/maidservants—that we constantly sleep around, have affairs with pilots. They don’t realise that I’m not there just to serve food. I’m also the person who can save them in case of an emergency. I’m the person who’ll help them deliver a baby, put on an oxygen mask, and if they collapse, perform CPR. Every year, I am tested on safety equipment and procedures and on aviation medicine and I need to score 90 on those tests or I lose my job.”
“People think my job is super-glamorous. I remember, when I first started out, my younger cousins were so impressed with my uniform and the fact that I got to travel to all these cool places. But the fact is it’s not as glamorous as it seems. The jet lag, the constant awareness that you’re responsible for so many people’s safety—it can be exhausting. And did you know that a fully loaded food trolley weighs about 130kg? It’s damn difficult to handle.”
“Earlier, foreign airlines didn’t want Indian flight attendants. There is a belief that Indians are so used to having domestic help that they themselves don’t know how to work hard. They were surprised to see that our work was on par with the rest.”
Passengers are getting better—and worse
“Some passengers just think they know best, and they don’t follow safety rules. I remember this Business Class passenger who made her baby sleep in the aisle, claiming that the child wasn’t comfortable in the bassinet and was getting cranky. I tried to explain to her that someone could trip over the baby, that there was a chance of turbulence, and it took a lot of cajoling to persuade her.”
“There’s been a drastic change in the profile of Indian passengers—they are more aware, exposed to travel, dress better and know how to interact with the crew and other passengers. They are also more demanding; they assume that more things will be served. Indians are perfectly nice people: they’re helpful when they see someone in trouble and are good at heart. But they come across as pushy, needy and greedy, especially the men.”
“Indians aren’t embarrassed to ask for a drink on a flight now. More and more Indians are drinking openly, and even women, who would earlier either abstain or look at their husbands for permission, are now ordering drinks without hesitation. In fact, the hesitation is more evident among the NRIs—they try so hard to cling to their roots, their notion of Indianness, and to pass that on to their kids, that they end up living in an outdated bubble.”
“On flights to India, especially in Economy, the loos are just so filthy, it’s embarrassing. We used to wonder what the hell people did in those loos—shower?”
“Men are always nicer to female flight attendants than other women are. They’re always politer and less critical. If there’s a couple on board, my trick is to always direct conversation to her, make eye contact with her, take care of her needs first. That way, she knows I’m not a threat.”
“Yes, men do flirt. Men have asked me for my number, but no one has ever messed around more than that or made me feel uncomfortable. Well, except this one time when a passenger proposed to me!”
People and alcohol don’t always mix
“On one of my flights, a British woman travelling to Mumbai in Business Class had had 2-3 bottles of Champagne. Well into the night, when the lights were dimmed, she took off her pants and went and sat on a fellow passenger’s lap (an Indian man, incidentally) and prepared to pee—she was so drunk that she thought he was the toilet.”
“Another time, a man got very drunk and ran down the entire aircraft stark naked.”
“There was an extremely drunk South African lady on my flight, yelling, spitting and abusing the passenger next to her. This was post 9/11, and we had special security officers on flights to or from certain areas, just as a precaution. They finally had to handcuff this lady, keep her in the galley, and when we landed, hand her over to the cops. I think she was deported and not allowed to fly certain routes for a while.”
“Indians drink so much on flights—especially whisky and vodka. On most flights to India, especially to Delhi, we would inevitably run out of alcohol! Once, this guy, who had already had a fair amount of whisky, asked for more. Our rule was to give one bottle per person, and beyond that, it’s up to us to use our discretion. So I told him that we were out of whisky. He got really angry, and for the next hour, kept yelling ‘Kahaan gayi saari whisky?’ Finally, I snapped: ‘Maine pi li.’ He had no clue how to react to that and just slunk back to his seat.”
Shocking things I’ll never forget
“One of the worst incidents I can think of was when a young girl, about 11 or 12 years old, came up to me and told me someone was trying to touch her. It was night-time, the lights were off. I asked where her mother was. She told me her mother had taken her younger brother to a seat further back to help him sleep. I went to her seat with her. There was a man sitting next to it, a man who had his own seat further away with his family. I asked him why he was sitting there, why he had come to sit next to a sleeping girl when he had his own seat. He mumbled some vague excuse, but I wasn’t letting it go. So he realised I knew, and went back to his seat. I couldn’t do anything more than tick him off because I hadn’t seen anything myself.”
“I was still fairly new, just about four years into the job. An elderly couple was on the flight, and the man asked for whisky. His wife put her foot down and instructed me not to give him one. He pleaded with both of us, and finally, I looked at the wife and said, ‘Ma’am, should I just give him one?’ She agreed. Later, he came to the galley to ask for water and collapsed. We tried everything, pumping his chest, CPR, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but he died. I just started to cry and went and sat in one of the seats at the back. The wife came looking for me, and when she saw me, asked why I was crying. I said, ‘I tried everything, I’m so sorry, I should never have given him that whisky.’ She shook her head and exclaimed, ‘He’d been drinking for 50 years, child. Your one whisky didn’t kill him!’ And she just hugged me. The memory of that will always stay with me.”
–Based on conversations with multiple flight attendants serving major international carriers
Courtesy: Conde Nast Traveller
