Airline Memories

Flight Attendant

At the age of 20, I woke to an ad on the radio that TWA was interviewing bi-lingual candidates to become International Flight Attendants. At the time, I was a Bi-Lingual Secretary for Air France. Even in French, being a Secretary was not my career idea. So this ad caught my attention; I had nothing on the calendar, so I scheduled an interview.

I scored 100 on the French test and met the height and weight requirements; they hired me on the spot and sent me to training in Kansas City, Missouri. Before graduation, there was one final test. In the middle of the night, there was pounding on the doors to wake us up. Peggy, me, Bridget and Patrice, and the rest of our class boarded buses and headed to the airport for the “Fright Flight”. We took our seats on a Boeing 707 and the Captain treated us to dips, dives, rolls, and other maneuvers. One classmate freaked out and did not graduate. Remember, the only reason for Flight Attendants on airplanes is to take care of passengers in an emergency!

Ohio River Valley Puddle Jumper

I flew domestic trips while waiting for an International spot to open. Our DC-9 flight schedule back in the late 60s included 5 or 6 stops in one day all over the Midwest. As I recall, we served snacks on a 45-minute flight and a meal and drinks if the flight was longer than an hour! Compare that to today’s bag of peanuts or cookies. On my very first flight, we served a meal that included peas. Before we picked up one tray, the Captain announced that we would be landing shortly! We had the passengers dump their trays into trash bags as we ran through the cabin and tossed the bags into the galley. When we landed, there were peas all over the floor! The commissary crew laughed when they opened the galley door and commented “First Flight ladies”?

We stayed at some sketchy motels including one in Dayton that we all referred to as “Desi’s Hilton”. The owner, Desi, had quite a collection of birds that welcomed us loudly; it was no Hilton! There was no security and one key opened all the doors, or at least that’s my recollection.

International

After several months, an International spot opened up and I was transferred to New York. As a Junior Flight Attendant, I was on Reserve. Before technology automated the process, I had to phone Crew Scheduling on the hour to see if I was on a flight that day. If the answer was yes, I had 3 hours to get from NYC to JFK Airport, ready to work a flight. Since I lived on the 5th floor of a building without an elevator, I got my exercise.

One night, I returned from a long trip at 2 am, dropped my suitcase, took off my heels, got the mailbox key, and walked back down the 5 flights to check the mail. As the door closed behind me, I remembered that it locked automatically! There I stood in my stocking feet, wondering how I could get into the apartment. Then I remembered the bedroom window faced the fire escape. The door to the roof was unlocked, so I went up and climbed down the fire escape to the bedroom window. We had hammered nails into the window frame to stop the window from going up very far. This was a trick to stop someone from breaking into the apartment. Luckily I was thin enough to shimmy my way in, feet first, with just a few scrapes. What a lesson learned!

European Memories

My memories of European layovers include:

• Watching the first Moon Landing with the entire crew on a layover in London!
• The Spanish potato omelet they served at cocktail hour at the hotel in Madrid.
• The late-night dinners in Madrid, followed by early morning crew calls! Good thing I was young!
• Fado in Lisbon. I flew with a Portuguese Purser who took us to the best local place for Fado, folk music, and wonderful food in nearby Estoril.
• Gourmet food shopping in Paris to bring home a baguette, some chevre, and other delicacies.
• The crazy drivers in Frankfort, Germany. One Easter Sunday, a woman standing next to me stepped off the curb and was hit by a speeding car and sent flying. I never had dinner that day.
• Going to the Vatican wearing a mini-dress. The crowd gathered around me, hiding me and the short skirt so I was not sent packing.
• Shopping in London. Twiggy was big at the time so I had no difficulty finding clothing in my size! The exchange rate was favorable, so I shopped there often.
• Shopping in Rome, where I found the most fantastic black suede lace-up boots! Why didn’t I keep them?
• New Year’s Eve dinner in Rome with the crew. We took over a small restaurant and the food and wine just kept coming!
• The ladies’ room in most Parisian restaurants, especially those in the Student Quarter. If you’ve been, you know what I mean.

In the 60s, you could only become a Flight Attendant if you were unmarried, not pregnant, passed a weight check before every flight, and were under the age of 30! There was no retirement, you just had to leave. As a result, I never looked at Flight Attendant as a career and moved on to management before leaving TWA and becoming a salesperson in the travel industry by the age of 23.

Stay tuned to this blog for more memories and retirement stories.