Last week’s story about Tico Torres is one of my favorites to tell. It's got magic, romance, a lot of charm and charisma (both his and mine). I've enjoyed telling that story and many others over the years. I tried to dial it back to
The first time you ever pick up the PA as a brand-new flight attendant, it feels like you’ve just been asked to perform stand-up comedy for an audience that cannot leave. All those faces in rows as far back as you can see, all looking at you, mostly because
One of the most interesting things that changed when I became a flight attendant has nothing to do with the job itself and everything to do with how the world suddenly looked back at me. Suddenly, I was no longer just a person on a plane. I was the flight
There are two types of people who end up in crash pads: First, there are the ones who think, “Oh, this is just a temporary situation, I’ll figure something out soon.” Second are the ones who realize, “Oh. This is the situation.” If you’re based in New York
There is a very specific kind of psychological shift that happens when you go from “person with a job” to “person who can be summoned at any time by a computer system that does not care about your feelings.” And for me, that shift had a name: Access Days. Or
💡This is my first submission to a writing contest, so I'm sharing it for paid readers only. My heart is beating way too fast for someone who is, technically, on “vacation” for the next 24 hours. Make that 22 hours, according to my watch. Vacation is in quotes
No one tells you where you’re going to sleep when you become a flight attendant in New York. They tell you how to evacuate a plane in 90 seconds,* how to guide people to "step, JUMP, and slide" out of the 777 once you've popped
There are many nights I remember clearly. There are also quite a few nights I remember in fragments. And then there are nights where my memory is less of a timeline and more of a highlight reel stitched together from leftover vibes, secondhand accounts, stamps on my hand (or wristbands)
I have been pulled aside by TSA more times than I can count. Almost all of them were while I was a flight attendant. Let me be clear and say I wasn't pulled aside because I'm dangerous. I just sometimes make questionable packing decisions. It was
There are passengers we tolerate. There are passengers we forget immediately. There are passengers we are pleased to have onboard. And then there are the ones we would go absolutely out of our way for. Not because they’re the most important. Not because they're a celebrity. Not
💡This is your reminder that your flight attendant controls your snacks, your drinks, and—occasionally—your experience. There is a version of flight attendant professionalism that exists in the training manuals. And then there is the version that exists in real life. Real life will train you in ways that
I said in my last post that once training ends, you don’t ease into being a flight attendant. You get dropped into it. Sometimes you don’t even know where you’re going until the night before, and sometimes, if the universe is feeling particularly generous and not a
When people think about flight attendants, they think about the drink cart. Coke and peanuts. Ginger ale and Biscoff cookies. “Coffee, tea, or water?” "Can I get you something to drink, sugar?" "We've got Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, ginger ale, apple juice, orange juice, cranberry
I don’t know where to start, which feels appropriate, because that’s exactly what it felt like walking into flight attendant training in 2008. The first day wasn’t a quiet, professional, buttoned-up welcome. It was loud and exciting and exuberant, and not just for the new hires walking
I’m starting this new publication where I tell stories from my time as a flight attendant, starting in 2008. Some of these stories are exactly as they happened. Others will sound like I made them up—which is fair, because even now, they feel a little unreal. But they’