The Lone Flight Attendant

Posted by beth on January 7, 2008

I don’t know if I can describe this with any sort of accuracy, or if it will be funny at all without a physical reenactment, but I’ll try.

When I went to New York, I was on one of those tiny little puddle jumper planes that they use for commuter flights and such, and we had but one man flight attendant. There were basically three really funny things about this.

1. When he reviewed the safety instructions and information, he had to do both the speaking-into-the-phone-intercom part and the demonstration part, so he would do a little bit of the spiel, and then he’d put the phone down and come out into the cabin to do the demo. The best parts of this were the airplane info brochure, which he displayed thoroughly rather than just holding up for a moment. I mean the man did some serious Vanna White action. And the oxygen mask bit, which he had to demonstrate falling down from the ceiling. But rather than doing it sort of close to himself and thus farther away from the passengers in the front row, he did it in the exact place from which the masks would actually fall in the event that the pressure in the cabin were to change suddenly. That means he was all up in the faces of the passengers in the front row. I was in the second row, and I was plenty uncomfortable with this.
2. His seat folded out of the wall directly behind the door into the cockpit, which meant that he was about four feet away from us, facing us, as though we were all going to interview him. And he made eye contact with NO ONE. The man was completely deadpan, staring directly at the back wall of the plane throughout the entire take-off and landing. Oh, and he had shoulder straps in addition to his lap belt, which makes me wonder perhaps one of two things: (a) Does that particular location on the plane really require shoulder straps, or are they just for looks? (b) If he needs shoulder straps, why don’t the rest of us need shoulder straps? All we get is an oxygen mask and a seat cushion that doubles as a flotation device.
3. The girl in front of me left her phone in the terminal, but she told the flight attendant early enough that he was able to radio inside and have them bring it out before we left the gate. They had already moved the little tunnel thingy away from the plane, though, so the ground crew brought it out and handed it up to the flight attendant, who had to open a secret door on the other side of the plane in order to retrieve the phone. As he was doing so, we hear the ground crew man yelling up, “HEY! WILL YOU TELL THE PILOT THAT THE HEADSET’S NOT WORKING?! I’M SWITCHING TO HAND SIGNALS!” Awesome. Don’t we all feel secure?

But we all made it safely both off the ground and to New York, so I’ve no complaints. And I’m very glad that the oxygen masks were not employed, but I’m grateful for the chance to have seen the demonstration from the flight mantendant.