Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 5 minutes ago
Flight attendants have truly seen it all. From the mile high club to unruly passengers and everything in between, we interviewed cabin crew from across the airline industry to uncover their wildest in-flight experiences. Between tales of exotic companion animals, police raids and passenger breakdowns, these stories reveal one thing for sure: “people act very differently on planes than they do at home.” Hear how crew members are trained to handle the unexpected–and the moments no training could ever prepare them for.

Category

🏖
Travel
Transcript
00:00When we say smelled bad, it made people's eyes water.
00:03People act very different on planes than they do at home.
00:06Some parents left their kids, so we have to turn around.
00:09I think I've become desensitized.
00:11I've been a flight attendant for three years.
00:13Four years.
00:1436 years.
00:15And this is my craziest, my craziest in-flight experience.
00:19Crazy to me is the smells on the plane.
00:22I've only ever kicked off two people from a flight my whole career.
00:26No one can ever guess why.
00:27They'll be like, oh, were they drunk?
00:28No, it was BO.
00:30They smelled so bad they couldn't fly, which I didn't even know was a thing.
00:34It's in the bottom line of the ticket.
00:36Purchase a ticket.
00:37You have to have good hygiene.
00:38When people would board and they would literally, kind of like in The Lion King,
00:42how all the zebra heads, they would turn at their row.
00:45And they were saying, um, if they're flying, I'm not flying.
00:47If they're flying, I'm not flying.
00:48Everything on the aircraft is going through the vents and is coming back out.
00:52So if we had shut that aircraft door with them on board,
00:55the entire plane would have smelled like them.
00:57So I went to the captain and I was like, oh, we're getting some complaints.
01:00And it's like, it's pretty bad.
01:02And yeah, they got kicked off.
01:04Please shower.
01:05Just, just basic hygiene.
01:07Okay.
01:07If you want to enjoy your tuna egg sandwich at home, by all means, like go ahead.
01:12But if you're going to do that in like a metal tube with recycled air, maybe like just wait a
01:18little bit.
01:18There was a particular flight where somebody might have been passing gas consistently and there was
01:25another passenger seated in that region and she just could not take it anymore.
01:29So she started yelling, please, whoever is farting, please stop.
01:35It was kind of cool because the cabin was policing itself.
01:37I mean, there's really not much that we can do in those situations other than offer coffee bags.
01:43That's a flight attendant hack.
01:44It masks the smell.
01:46So instead of smelling somebody's leakage from their body, you will smell coffee grounds instead.
01:52So the lavatories a lot of the times are right by the galley.
01:56And that's also like our kitchen.
01:57Someone will walk out of the lavatory and we'll be like, oh my gosh.
02:01So a lot of flight attendants actually carry like a little air freshener,
02:04which I've started carrying as well.
02:05A lot of people also put like the coffee bags like on top of the jump seat where the
02:10where the lavatory door is so that it kind of like neutralizes the smell.
02:14But yeah, very, very poor placement of the lavatories, unfortunately.
02:20When you go through training, they do have situations where the instructors are literally
02:24acting like crazy people.
02:26Sometimes even some of your classmates are acting like crazy people.
02:29Crazy is the unpredictable.
02:30Every single day that I come into work, I expect the unexpected.
02:34We allow cats and dogs on the aircraft.
02:36And someone came on with a squirrel.
02:39Sorry, there's squirrels aren't allowed on board.
02:41And he looked right back at us and he was like, that's my cat.
02:44We were looking at the squirrel and we were like,
02:47that cat has a tail that looks like a squirrel.
02:49I mean, I was questioning my sanity.
02:51The agent came on and I said to her, that's a squirrel, right?
02:55Yeah, sorry.
02:56You and your squirrel cat can't fly.
02:58On my first ever day of flying, this was my first trip out of training.
03:02We had landed in Charlotte.
03:04And so I stick my head out the window and I see a bunch of police officers.
03:09And they are like vests on ready to go.
03:11And I'm new.
03:12So I'm thinking, are police always here to open the door?
03:15And they come in and they're like, tell all your passengers to sit down right now.
03:18The police basically storm the plane and they drag one of my passengers off.
03:22While all of this is happening, we have a dog in main cabin who had a severe accident all over
03:28main cabin.
03:28I have a passenger who's like, can I get a napkin? Can I get a napkin?
03:32I have to clean up my dog's poop.
03:34There's police dragging a man off the plane.
03:37This man was being arrested for armed robbery and home invasion.
03:40They're asking for a napkin.
03:41The cabin's now smelling.
03:43One of the pilots goes, can you arrest the dog while you're at it?
03:46The dog was happy after all of that.
03:48He, I think he felt a lot better.
03:49I didn't because this was literally my first day of flying.
03:52And I thought that this was how my career was going to go.
03:55We were going from Detroit to Denver.
03:58This drunk passenger boarded, she was like a middle-aged woman,
04:02stumbling down the aisles.
04:05And usually you're supposed to stop them right at the boarding door.
04:09You can't be intoxicated when you get onto the aircraft.
04:12It's a FAA thing.
04:13If they're visibly intoxicated, it's definitely a discussion to have with the pilots
04:17to ensure the safety of everyone, including ourselves.
04:19We tried talking to her.
04:21She did not make any sense at all.
04:24The gate agent came on board, ended up kicking her off.
04:27We closed the boarding door.
04:29Like, we're literally ascending.
04:31The pilot stops short, gets on the loudspeaker.
04:34Some parents left their kids, so we have to turn around.
04:37And supposedly the mom that got kicked off left her 14-year-old child on board.
04:43And now she's an unregistered, unaccompanied minor.
04:46And the reason why we weren't able to tell that
04:48was because they weren't under the same reservation.
04:52We went up to the kid, and we were like, was that your mom?
04:55She said yes.
04:56She's like, why didn't you leave the plane if your mom got kicked out?
04:59She kind of just shrugged her shoulders, and then they left.
05:07People act very different on planes than they do at home.
05:10There is this sense of situational awareness that just completely leaves.
05:15And then passengers that are constantly vaping or constantly smoking, that is also crazy.
05:19It's like, we know that you vape, and we always know because when you get on that plane,
05:22and you're vaping in that bathroom, there's a signal that goes to the cockpit, and we just know.
05:27There's a sensor in the restroom.
05:29We know when it happens.
05:31So we obviously look at who was the last passenger that came off the bathroom,
05:34and then we kind of make that determination if, like, we should take you off the plane.
05:38We're trained for, if these alarms go off, it's because of smoke, blah-da-da.
05:42We're not trained for grown men denying that they had smoked on the plane.
05:47Came out of the lav, the alarm's going off, there's smoke in the lav.
05:51We need to know where you placed it because of a fire.
05:53Like, a lot of people try and stick it in the trash.
05:55That's why we have something in the trash that will automatically put a fire out.
05:59I don't care what your name is.
06:00I don't care anything about you.
06:02Where's the butt?
06:02Like, where'd you put it?
06:03He looks straight in the face and, what cigarette?
06:07Wasn't me.
06:07So I don't really know what to do with that because it was you.
06:10There's smoke in there.
06:11The alarm's going off.
06:11He's like, it must have been like that before I got on board.
06:14It's just common sense not to smoke in a plane.
06:16Vaping in the bathroom is one thing.
06:17Or going into the laboratory with no shoes on.
06:20Like, that's not water on the floor there.
06:21It's piss.
06:22Or with socks, which I think is worse because you're having pee all over your socks.
06:29I've never gotten the Mile High Club phone call.
06:31I don't think our bathrooms are big enough to fit two people, unfortunately.
06:35So the stereotype is huge.
06:37A lot of flight attendants get with a lot of pilots.
06:40The actual, like, luxury of Mile High and in the bathrooms, no.
06:45If there's two people going into the restroom, we all see.
06:47Our jump seats are right there next to the lavatories.
06:49No, it's not going to happen.
06:50I saw it, but in my brain, I was just like, you're going to the bathroom.
06:54So many bacterias.
06:56Like, what are you going to do?
06:57It's just disgusting.
06:58But I guess some people, they have these crazy sexual ideas.
07:03We will have someone come on board and they will be a 10.
07:06I'm like, Chris Hemsworth, 10.
07:08The crew knows.
07:09Sometimes we'll chat about it.
07:11We'll tell the back.
07:11Oh my God, 7a.
07:13But then we'll be in flight and there's turbulence.
07:15So the seatbelt sign comes on.
07:17We have to make our announcement.
07:18We have to have everyone seated and Chris Hemsworth, 7a, will stand up.
07:23You are no longer a 10.
07:24You are all the way down to a zero.
07:26Pretty much that is general rule flight attendants.
07:29Passengers, there's an entitlement that they feel that if they have the seat,
07:33that the overhead space is for them as well.
07:35But you pay for the seat.
07:37You're not paying for the overhead space.
07:39Flight attendants are paid when the boarding door closes
07:41and when we push back from the gate and then take off into the air.
07:45A lot of people don't know and don't understand
07:47that when these things happen, we're not getting paid at the time of like the delays
07:52and the cancellations.
07:53We're only paid for the flights that we work.
07:55So a lot of people don't know this, but you are welcome to come back to the galley
07:59and chat with us, ask us a question if you need something.
08:03If the seatbelt sign is off, ask for water, ask for headphones, glass of wine.
08:08We are so happy to get that for you.
08:10We are here to be the calm and the chaos.
08:12Kindness really does go a long way.
08:14You never know when you come to work something different every day.
08:16Some of my craziest stories come from like being in the back
08:19and somebody is having an emotional moment and they need a hug as they're crying on my shoulder.
08:23Like you're a therapist.
08:25You're a friend.
08:26I've heard about breakups.
08:28I've heard about toxic boyfriends.
08:30And I'm like, girl, leave that man.
08:31He is not worth your time.
08:33He is not worth your time.
Comments

Recommended