Guest Posts From My Favourite Bloggers : The Flying Pinto – Insights & Humour From A Flight Attendant

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19/09/2009 – Guest Posts From My Favourite Bloggers : The Flying Pinto – Insights & Humour From A Flight Attendant

As a photographer, traveller and airline industry geek there are a few blogs I read on a daily basis. With the broad range of readers that Flying With Fish attracts I’d like to introduce to you folks to the bloggers I follow.

Today’s guest post on Flying With Fish comes from The Flying Pinto…aka Sara, a flight attendant from Boston, based in Houston, frequently flying out of Newark, who flies for one of the five major legacy carries in the United States. As an added bonus, Sara also happens to be a Boston Red Sox fan. The Flying Pinto was also recently mentioned on Flying With Fish in this post 01/09/2009 – Five Flight Attendant Blogs You Should Read You can follow Sara on Twitter at www.twitter.com/theflyingpinto

“CRAZY IS FANTASTIC”

I truly wish as a flight attendant we could call for a psychiatrist when we needed one on the airplane just as we do when we need medical assistance. After all “insanity” is a medical condition, right? It really would be helpful because after they were done helping the crazy passenger they could help the flight attendant with the trauma of having dealt with that person. As was the case on a recent flight of mine:

“Hi, excuse me, I need a glass of water,” a female passenger said to me as we were boarding the aircraft. As I gave her the glass of water she asked me for a head set. As I gave her the head set free of charge she seemed happy.As she headed on her way she said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’m not one of those needy passengers, I am very self sufficient.” Famous last words.

Forty five minutes later, about thirty minutes into the flight:

Ding!

Passenger 8C: “Hi, yes, I need something to drink.”

Me: “We are just about to pull the cart up, we will be with you in a moment.”

8C: Big sigh

Ten minutes later:

8C: “I can’t believe it is six dollars for this Direct TV! I’ll have two red wines and a water. What are the meal choices.

Me: “I’m sorry you feel the Direct TV is too much, I can give you one wine for now and there is no meal.”

8C: “WHAT? No, meal?” Bigger sigh. Seriously, this airline is sucks.

Me: No, I’m sorry mam, we do serve meals but only at meal times since this is a red eye flight and it is past midnight we don’t serve food, I’m sorry.”

As we moved the bar cart passed 8C, I should have known this wasn’t the last we would hear from 8C. She pressed her call light ten more times in the next hour. Yes, ten. I counted. Nothing was ever important, she wanted another wine, she wanted a club soda, the opener on her club soda broke off, she wanted a pillow….and then came the tenth call bell:

8C: “He (the passenger in 7C) reclined his seat and spilled my wine!!!” What are you going to do?”

Me: “I will be right back, I will get some towels.”

8C: Gasping

I return with wet towels, dry towels, club soda, and a trash bag.I try to hand her the towels:

8C: “What do you want me to do with these? YOU need to do something…he spilled it on me!!”

7C: “I said I was sorry!”

8C to 7C: “Oh I know, it’s not you, it’s HER! She is rude and not helping me. What are you going to do?”

Me: ” Mam, I am trying to help you, we have empty seats, I will change your seat cushion out, after you are cleaned up. Do you have a change of clothes on you?”

8C: “That is not good enough, YOU need to clean this up!” (as she then throws the paper towels I handed her back at me, they land on the floor. She then kicks them into the aisle)

Did she really think I was going to touch her and be accused of who know what?

Obviously, at this point I know the woman is what we flight attendants refer to as crazy. As I walk away to get the lead flight attendant, she follows me and continues to argue with me in the aisle. She has managed to wake up every passenger around her and at this point I stay calm and let her piss everyone off. I know that I will have all the witnesses I will need should this continue to escalate.It did, she continued to harass me, we filled out the proper paperwork, we had plenty of passenger witnesses and CRO (customer resolution officer)meet our flight.

I pride myself on being able to diffuse a situation on the aircraft and as long as the passenger I am dealing with is sane, I can. This is a special kind of passenger, they’re not necessarily a threat to the flight but they can’t be reasoned with either. They are looking for the drama, the free flight and the fight. They are crazy. That is the word, in fact I had at least ten passengers come to me and tell me, “that woman is @*&%#(* crazy!” Although, I really can’t think of a better word to describe that behavior I did look it up in the thesaurus and found the word fantastic! That’s perfect. Now when I come across a crazy passenger I can say, “You are fantastic!” and mean it.