Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage, and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet by Hester Elliott

Author:Hester, Elliott [Hester, Elliott]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2010-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

17

Doing the Non-Rev Shuffle

The plane that I hoped would fly me from New York to Los Angeles was crammed with restless passengers. They sat shoulder to shoulder in pre-flight agony, kicking mercilessly against the bags stowed improperly beneath the seats in front of them, battling for sole possession of the armrests, redirecting reading lamps, twisting away at the air vents, tucking books and portable CD players and God knows what else into bulging seatback pockets that pressed against their knees like inflated air bags in a Volkswagen Beetle. I guess you could say the passengers were packed in as tight as proverbial sardines. They were wedged into elfin airplane seats that left them scrunched together, row after identical row, like cigarettes in a pack of Marlboro Lights.

Having been the last person issued a boarding pass by the gate agent, I was hustled onto the aircraft and told to sit in any available main-cabin seat. I slid sideways down the single aisle, scanning the split sea of contorting faces, careful not to whack heads with my shoulder bag, hoping there was an aisle or window seat available, praying, believing—but ultimately stung with a dose of reality when I finally found the last remaining seat in coach. It was a center seat in the very last row. A seat flanked by two beefy business types who rolled their eyes maliciously when I stopped, cleared my throat and shrugged my shoulders in apology.

Because my carry-on was small, finding space for it in an overhead bin was a cinch. I squeezed into my seat, closed my eyes and began to pray. I prayed not for a safe flight, not for the strength to withstand a six-hour squeeze between two fleshy bookends. I prayed instead to hear the agent’s departure announcement. To hear the distant clamber of the aircraft door being closed and locked. To feel the head-tingling rush of cabin pressurization and the reassuring voice of the gate agent who claims it was her pleasure to have served us on the ground. I was an airline employee traveling on a company pass, after all. Experience had taught me that it’s never too late to get bumped from a flight.

Airline employees traveling on a company pass fall into a category known as “non-revenue” passengers. We’re lowest of the low in the onboard pecking order—and justifiably so: beneath ticketed revenue passengers, standby revenue passengers, deadheading crew members, employees traveling on decreasingly important levels of company business, and non-revenue passengers who were smart enough to check in before their last-minute brethren.

Each airline has its own non-revenue service-charge policy. Some allow their employees to travel free of charge. Others charge a flat fee. Many impose a nominal service charge based on the actual number of air miles flown. The cost for my one-way trip from New York to L.A., including taxes? Fifteen dollars and change. From the U.S. to Europe? About fifty dollars each way. Asia? A few dollars more. Adding more sugar to an already sweetened pot,

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