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@TheAirPro                                        BLOG  (4)                                                         7/3/2012

Welcome to @TheAirPro

How many times have I heard this sentence which made my teeth grit…!

But in those days, it was widely and…vulgarly speaking… associated to the job. Consequentially it had a hidden but ironic meaning.

For me it was humiliatingly downgrading…and the scatterbrain kind of label I really resented.

Ok then, women were hired to serve people like in a restaurant.

At 12 000 ft. above the sea and in an airplane, women became airline hostesses and people airplane passengers.

Women who had been scrutinized  carefully and picked for their good looks, their pleasant manners and polite ways but absolutely not for their brain power. They would become hostesses of an “imaginary “party…however unusual or unfriendly it may be.

Being as such, airline hostesses were required to perform always as hard as they could, in the most insane working conditions ( that would irate many women or men of the world  today), with a smile automatically and eternally planted on their faces, no matter what for or to whom !

On the other side, with them…were the airplane passengers, people who demanded immediate attention and constant service for their otherwise regular needs.

This was not home.

They had purchased an airplane ticket which gave them the luxury of becoming obnoxious.

It was understandable in a way.

Tickets were expensive.

Saving a whole year to make this one special journey may have given them that right.

But many times I was wondering what genius wand would make some of them understand that there were a limited number of window seats and if you, Sir or Madam, had checked-in earlier, we might have granted your wish. And no, we can’t refund some of your air fare just because you can’t see the movie or there is no more chicken!

I learned to exercise humour very quickly because it was the best way to win hearts.

Passengers were all kinds of people.  A multitude of faces,  all ages, sexes, cultures, languages, unknown to each other but with a diversity of …feelings…thrown together … in a confined environment…who had to make do with various acrobatics totally not trained for!

«  A la guerre, comme à  la guerre »…or

                    « All is fair in love and war … »

Co-habiting with such a colourful crowd, humanity in miniature, in a challenging environment for a second in a lifetime… I had in me the enormous appetite for life, people and…humour that needed to be shown, to make our togetherness in this unique event... memorable forever.

I understood that my job would be ten times better and more rewarding if I made my passengers happy despite all of the above.

MY passengers were forgetting their own lack of comfort by allying themselves with me, making them sympathizers of my working details although no words were uttered by me but only a quick and funny rolling of the eyes…which made the ice break and laughter to explode!

 In a full flight, they made my job more pleasant and bearable.

They understood.

They helped and shared the jovial tone.

Learning and becoming popular with my passengers meant survival in a job which was considered “demeaning “for many.

Orson Welles said:

“There are only two emotions in a plane:  boredom and terror.”

How true!

But I was determined to prove to Mr. Welles that he was wrong…had he been my passenger!

I believe he would have been an even more frequent flyer if he had.