Tales From My First Year as a Hostie

Discrimination, The Maharaja’s Wife and Another Round of Chardonnays Please

In the world of airplane travel, passengers seem to be divided into two kinds. There are those who never touch the call bell. Actually, some of the time I think it’s more a case that they can’t find it which can only be a good thing.

And then there are those who press it relentlessly like they’re trying to answer all the questions on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire, those who are determined to be waited on hand and foot for the entire duration of the flight.

On a recent flight in the economy cabin, I was summoned seven times by the same Indian woman, which is pretty impressive given the flight was only two and a half hours long.

In that time she managed to ask for a newspaper, a second meal, a chocolate, a selection of Indian movies, a second cup of tea, a blanket and a bottle of water (because apparently, our five times filtered tap water wasn’t good enough).

By the end of the flight, she’d been not-so-affectionately named The Maharaja’s Wife by the entire economy crew.

And I’d formulated a theory that each call bell should have a quota of times that it can be utilised and once used up, that’s it. Cut off. Shop’s closed. No more service for you.

One of the best things about flights is the free booze. Well, it’s free on our airline anyway. I love the way their little eyes light up when they ask me how much a red wine costs and I tell them it’s complimentary. Suddenly, they are like kids in a candy shop. Relentless.

Of course, I wish I could tell them it’s $5 and make a little dosh on the side but sadly, no such luck.

I don’t mind getting them a few drinks but after the third or fourth call button for the same seats, I can guess what they’re after and so I start taking my time responding to them.

Erm yep, I’ll just eat my dinner before I check on them.

Obviously, I’m hoping that none of them is having a heart attack but when you know it’s just going to be another round of chardonnay, vodka and lemonade and Bloody Marys, well, it just gets dull.

One of the tricky parts of a flight is meal time. This is because if you are one of the last passengers to be served, then chances are good that you won’t have a choice of meal because we’ll have run out. This means you’ll be stuck with whatever is the least desirable like Chilli Beef or Mushroom Macaroni cheese.

This doesn’t just happen in economy. It also happens in business class.

The other day I overheard a conversation between a business class passenger and the onboard manager. The passenger was complaining that her preferred meal choice wasn’t available. She said it was discrimination.

I laughed on the inside. Running out of meal choices is lots of things but I’m pretty sure it’s not discrimination. Haha.

One day recently, our flight was practically empty. It was so empty I did the safety demonstration in front of three people. I realised that whether it’s three people or three hundred people, no one looks at me anyway.

After I finished the demo, one guy asks me if I enjoy being on show. I say no because I think you need people to be looking at you to be on show.

On the same flight, we ran out of meal choices. I can understand running out of meal choices when every seat is full but to run out when we are only a third full of passengers, initially seems ridiculous.

Then again, caterers just use a formula to work out the percentage of each meal choice so it doesn’t matter whether we’ve got a hundred or three hundred passengers on board, someone’s always going to miss out on their choice. Bummer.

Of course, I can think about it this way and realise that it’s not ridiculous. But for the passengers it’s another matter. They see a half empty plane and can’t understand how we can run out of choice. I can see where they are coming from because if I was left with just macaroni cheese for dinner, I’d be miffed too.

Everyone knows that macaroni cheese is a heart attack waiting to happen.

Some of my more over eager colleagues were giving up their own crew meals for passengers. Erm, don’t look at me. I don’t get paid enough to give up my meal for macaroni cheese.

It’s our honeymoon. When people say this to me, I’m never quite sure how to respond. Are they being sincere? or just taking the piss to see how much free shit we can give them? Some people think that if they drop the H word, all manner of fabulous free things will fall from the heavens e.g. champagne, business class headsets, cheese platters, pajamas etc.

Not today though. Today I wasn’t buying.

I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because the guy didn’t say it with a smile on a face. Maybe it’s because they weren’t wrapped in a passionate embrace or sucking each other’s faces.

He just said it matter-of-factly with a hint of arrogance thrown in for good measure. What’s for sure is that he rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn’t even summon the decency to offer my congratulations. I just smiled and said oh.

I know. Bad me. I can be such a bitch sometimes.

I don’t know how parents manage to keep their kids quiet for such long flights. Obviously, when kids are old enough to be captivated by a television screen, the answer is simple.

And if they’re too young to have discovered the mind-numbing qualities of the inflight babysitter, the gentle rocking of the aircraft seems to keep them succumbed to sleep.

But I know it’s a fine line between contentment and chaos. Beleive me, I have seen children scream for the best part of a fifteen hour flight. But it doesn’t happen as often as I’d expect. Thank goodness.

We have kids packs on board which are felt bags filled with crayons and a coloring book. The only problem comes when we are carrying sixty kids yet only manage to get stocked with six kids packs. As much as I like the grateful acknowledgements of desperate parents when I voluntarily hand them out, when we don’t have enough kids packs to go round, I prefer to keep them for emergencies or temper trantrums.

But kids packs on their own, don’t keep kids busy for an entire flight. Television screens do. And when they go on the blink, it’s a receipe for kiddy chaos.

Recently, I had the worst case of inflight entertainment failure ever. When you need the television system to keep 371 people quiet and out of my face for 15 hours like you do during school holidays, why does it manage to fail so spectacularly? Grumpy kids is one thing but grumpy adults and kids is a why-didn’t-i-call-in-sick kinda day.

Hey guy who managed to break some of the plane, bulkheads are not built for you to put your feet on. When you kick the metal detailing over and over, it’s eventually going to fall off. So when you tell me my plane is falling apart, I’d say you have a lot to do with that.

And likewise, if you let your kids break parts of the plane and then joke about it to me, I’ll be jokingly sending you the bill. Seriously. No joke.

I’ll have some cranapple juice.

Um, I don’t think so. We only have orange or apple juice. Why would you think we are going to stock cranapple, crapple or cranky apple or whatever the hell weird ass juice that I’ve never heard of? C’mon. Get real.

Oh, you’re cold and would like a blanket? No, unfortunately we don’t have any more blankets. But here’s an idea. How about you put on the sweater that you have slung around your shoulders.

Plus it’s 6.30am and we are still boarding so the door is open. Of course, it’s going to be freezing.

Once the doors close and we take off, I promise it will get warmer. Stating the obvious. Since forever.

Call bell rings. You’d like some water? Sure no problem. Off I toddle to get water. When I return with the water, oh your neighbour would like water also? Why didn’t you fricken tell me that the first time because I absolutely love making multiple trips when one would have sufficed.

And newsflash! The water is in the galley. I’m not a camel. I can’t just pull water out of my fricken non existent hump. And guess what? I don’t carry a water jug around with me in my pocket. Sheesh.

Would you like some breakfast? Today we have the Eggs Benedict or the Natural Muesli. You don’t understand? We have eggs or cereal. Still don’t understand? Hot or cold. Still no comprehendo? Let me show you. (Shows them the hot foiled meal and the vacuum sealed cereal pottle). Ah, great, you’d like cereal? Here you go. Hang on. No. You want the eggs instead? No problem. Sigh.