Heather Poole: Cruising Attitude

Of course, the first time I tried to become a flight attendant I wasn’t part of the lucky 4 percent.

In college, I went to my first airline interview in order to get away from a roommate who had more than her fair share of issues. She’d bring guys back to our dorm room and leave them behind. Try studying Japanese culture when your roomie is throwing up all over your clothes, the ones you’d specifically and repeatedly forbidden her to wear! So when my mother, a woman who had always dreamed of becoming a flight attendant, mailed me a newspaper clipping with an ad circled four times in red for an open house with a major U.S. carrier, I decided to apply. Not so much because I wanted to become a flight attendant, but because the airline provided a free ticket to a city out of state where the interviews were being conducted. Broke and tired, with a laundry hamper full of vomit and a disheveled man locked in the bathroom using my Q-tips, I just wanted to get away. I also wanted to fly on an airplane, something I’d only done three times before in my life.

Two weeks after I received a letter from the airline telling me where to go and what to say to the ticket agent to get a seat on the flight (not all airlines cover the travel expense), I stepped off the aircraft, sashayed down the jet bridge in four-inch beige pumps, a little black bag rolling behind, and made my way to a nondescript door clear on the other side of the busy airport terminal. There I found a giant room filled with hundreds of happy, smiling women. I stopped in my tracks. The banquet room was lined with neat little rows of applicants, knees held tightly together, ankles crossed delicately off to the side, dressed head to toe in blue and black. My brand-new canary yellow suit and suntan hose screamed LOOK AT ME! And not in a good way. Right then and there I wanted to die.

The women, all with their hair pulled tightly back, looked me up and down, then quickly turned their attention back to the front of the room. With my blond locks falling halfway down my back, they could see I was zero competition. Nonchalantly I wiped the frosted pink stain off my lips with the back of my hand, twirled my unruly hair into a loose bun, and took a seat in the back of the room. I wanted to hide, but hiding at an airline interview is not an option. Not if you want to get hired. Also not if you’re the only person in sight wearing a shade of the rainbow.

After a brief introduction from the people conducting the interviews, we were divided into what looked like fifty groups of five. While I waited for my turn to be called, I made friends with the girl seated beside me. She had worked for a competitive carrier for five years but quit after she had a baby—the biggest mistake she ever made, she said. Now divorced, she really needed this job. I couldn’t decide if her history with a different airline would be an advantage or a disadvantage over someone like me. When my group was finally called, we were taken to a private room and asked a number of fairly easy questions regarding our past work experience. Playing it safe, I made an effort to raise my hand second or third since I had overheard others talking earlier and knew not to be the last person to answer a question. We had been in the room for about ten minutes when a peppy women with red lips got down to business.

“Besides travel and meeting new people, why do you want to be a flight attendant?”

Silence all around. Finally I spoke up. Glamour! Excitement! Free passes! She smiled real big and said, “If you don’t hear from us in two weeks feel free to apply again” and then dismissed us all.

On my way out I spotted the former flight attendant through the glass of another door as she was stepping onto a giant scale. When we made eye contact, she smiled real big and gave me a thumbs-up. My heart dropped a little as I gave her one back. Turns out, “free passes” wasn’t the right answer.

Three years later I applied again. I had graduated from college and found an exciting job designing watches for a well-known company. But the pay was miserable, and when a promotion didn’t lead to a raise, I quit. Once again my mother cut out an ad in the help wanted section of the Dallas Morning News. An airline I’d never heard of was looking for flight attendants. At $14 an hour, why not? I could travel around the world and meet new people while I looked for another job, a good job, the kind that pays well, that people have respect for—maybe something in marketing. And two days later, I was officially a flight attendant for Sun Jet International Airlines!

Sun Jet International, a charter airline based in Dallas, never once flew anywhere you’d call “international.” They didn’t even fly anywhere that might require a layover. It was 100 percent “turns,” which meant I never had to pack underwear. There were only three airplanes, all leased, and Sun Jet flew the ancient birds twice a day to Newark, Fort Lauderdale, and Long Beach for just $69 a flight. At the time, other airlines charged eight times that amount for the same ticket, which should tell you a lot about our passengers. We quickly became known as the “Dancer Express” for all the go-go dancers from Dallas who flew to New York to make money. After their flight, all these bleach blondes could be found at baggage claim teetering on six-inch stripper heels waiting for giant tubs full of costumes to come jingling down the luggage chute.

It didn’t take me long to notice that other flight attendants— real flight attendants, the kind who traveled to exciting destinations and had layovers in hotels—rarely returned my greeting whenever we passed each other in the terminal. It might have been the Sun Jet uniforms: white button-down blouses, two silver stripes adorning each shoulder, tucked into pleated, navy blue Bermuda shorts with navy blue hose and heels. I loved the ridiculous getup—after all, it showed I was a flight attendant! That is, until one day, when we landed at the Newark airport and I ran off the airplane to find something quick to eat before heading back to Dallas. As I impatiently waited in line at Nathan’s hot dog stand, I saw it. The woman plopping the sausage into a stale bun wore a navy blue snap-on tie that looked exactly like mine. After that I refused to wear the tie.

Of course, it’s possible the other flight attendants weren’t snickering at our ties—it might have had something to do with our passengers. They were a class act, notorious for causing disturbances in airports. But why wouldn’t they? I worked for an airline that made no qualms about using duct tape to repair broken armrests, seat backs, and overhead bins. No apologies were made to passengers forced to sit on soiled seat cushions that had been covered with a black trash bag in order to hide the vomit or pee from one of the dozens of unaccompanied minors who traveled with us regularly. Other airlines had limits on the number of unaccompanied minors. Not us. We were the airline of broken homes. Once I counted twelve UMs on a single flight. (This is unheard of with larger airlines.) Weight and balance issues were simply solved by removing luggage— all of the luggage , not just passengers with luggage—without informing anyone what had been done until the aircraft had landed. Passengers were often greeted by an announcement stating they could pick up their bags the following day. Of course, chaos always ensued, which meant security would have to escort the crew off the airplane. Once we were safe and sound behind a locked metal door emblazoned with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign, we’d sneak out a back door and take the sky train to the employee parking lot, knowing full well we’d be dodging spit balls and loogies all over again in less than twenty-four hours.

Late one night on the sky train, I noticed a homeless-looking gentleman sitting in the corner and squinting at me. He looked me up and down and hissed, “Something wicked this way comes.” I sat there in silence clutching the handle of my bag, too afraid to speak or even move, when it dawned on me. He must have flown Sun Jet before.