Skytresses and Skyters are known to smile and laugh…a lot. It helps to be a happy person if you do this job. Passengers like happy crew members. But, let’s be real. We fly long hours and deal with a plethora of different passenger personalities. A few crabby passengers can turn your day in an instant. Sometimes we Skytresses and Skyters need to create our own fun to get through a trip.
One game we like to play is the Manifest Game. Typically, the gate agent will give the crew the pre-departure paper work before the passengers board the airplane. On this paperwork are the names of each first-class passenger. To play the Manifest Game each person on the crew will look over the manifest. Then each crew member will pick a name of the first-class passenger they think will board the airplane first. The only information we go by are the passenger’s last name, their airline status, and possibly a connection city. Of course, I pick my name like I pick my horse to win the Kentucky Derby. It’s all in the name that “speaks” to me. Yes, it’s a silly, simple game we play. But, when your passenger boards first… it’s a glorious feeling. There is another Manifest Game we play as well. The crew will look over the first-class passenger’s names before we board. Then we pick the name of the person we want to be our “flight boyfriend”. Oh the smiles we give each other when our flight boyfriends arrive. Every once in awhile you get a great flight boyfriend. Mostly we don’t. And the worse your flight boyfriend is….the better for the rest of the crew. The person who gets the “Dud -flight boyfriend” is subjected to innocent teasing from the crew for the rest of the flight. You may remember I have picked very few Kentucky Derby horse winners based on names alone. The same can be said about my flight boyfriends. Yes, I usually pick the “Dud- flight boyfriend”. Oh well, I still love the game.
One Christmas my crew and I created what we thought would be a fabulous game. Each of us Skytresses wore a Christmas bell around our necks. If you saw a cute passenger on the flight you were to jingle your bell. This way the other Skytresses would know you spied someone special. Now years ago, we flew with the same crew all month. So, two weeks before Christmas we started playing this game. For two weeks we didn’t give one jingle. We all laughed about it. Where were all the cute passengers? We thought this was going to be the perfect holiday game. My Skytress friends and I flew one more trip after Christmas. I didn’t bring our Christmas bells for this trip. Christmas was over for us. We had moved on. On one of our first flights after Christmas, I was working the beverage cart with my friend Jennie Lou. As, I was pouring a drink Jennie Lou starting saying, “Jingle, Jingle”. I wasn’t sure what she was doing. So I looked right at her. Again she said, “Jingle, Jingle”. This time she gave me the look. I followed her eyes. There in the row she was serving was a very cute passenger. I looked back at Jennie Lou. I smiled and said a very happy, “Jingle, Jingle” back to her. The passengers looked at us. They had no idea what we were doing. But, they smiled because we were smiling and giggling. For the rest of the trip we “Jingled”. It was a post- Christmas miracle. Cute guys were everywhere!
One of our best Skyters loves to have fun on his trips. Skyters and Skytresses love flying with him. Skyter Steve travels with a fart machine. He flies in-charge most of his trips. Steve likes to stand at the boarding door and keep his fart machine close by in the cockpit. When an unsuspecting passenger steps into the plane he will press the button. Then Steve will either make a face, or a comment. The unsuspecting passengers have multiple reactions. Mostly, they have a hearty laugh. One day the first officer saw what Steve was doing. So, he stood next to Steve at the boarding door. The two worked in tandem. They were extremely good at embarrassing the unsuspecting person. I eventually had to leave the galley and the boarding door. I couldn’t stop laughing. Even when I was in the aisle I could hear the fart machine going off. I kept giggling. The first-class passengers started giggling, too. They were now privy to what Steve and the first officer were doing. Steve pressed the fart machine button for three days. Not surprisingly, the crew laughed for three days, too. I’ve flown with Steve numerous times. He doesn’t always bring out his fart machine. But, if the crew is dragging, he will bring it out. It is an instant crew mood changer.
For years, we used to cut our own lemons and limes for the passenger’s drinks. After 9-11, the the galley knives were removed for security purposes. However, prior to 9-11, catering would usually board more lemons and limes than we needed. Because of this,…a crew game was eventually created. A Skytress or Skyter would sit on the aft jumpseat with the extra fruit. When the plane would land and the thrust reverser would be activated by the pilots, the person on the aft jumpseat would let the lemons and limes go. The object of the game was to see how far the fruit would go down the aisle. The reactions of the passengers when they saw the fruit flying down the aisle was priceless. I know the passengers thought it was a just an unassuming piece of fruit that must have dislodged from somewhere in the aft galley. Little did they know we were playing a game. One day my friend Kelly was on the aft jumpseat. She let a lime go down the aisle as soon as we touched down. Passengers watched it wiz by. I was cheering the lime on. I could tell it was going to make it to first class. The lime picked up speed as it made it’s way down the aisle. Amazingly, it made it all the way to the cockpit door. Surprisingly, it hit the bottom panel of the cockpit door and popped the panel out. Remember, this was before 9-11. The cockpit doors we not re-enforced like they are now. The pilots didn’t know how the panel got popped out. The pilots had to call a mechanic to fix the panel. Kelly told the mechanic she wasn’t sure what happened. She explain a lime got loose and flew down the aisle and knocked the door panel out. The pilots and mechanic didn’t bat an eye. It was a very logical explanation. We were lucky. The crew all swore we would never play this game ever again. We sure stopped with a winning lime toss, though.
My friend Tulio asked our crew one day if we would like to play a game. There was a weather delay and the agents were holding off boarding. Tulio asked us if we had ever played Ellen Degeneres’ game “Heads Up”. None of us had ever played the game. Tulio explained someone would hold his phone up to their head. Words would appear on the phone. We were to give clues so the person holding the phone could guess the word. If the person holding the phone against their forehead guessed the word, or wanted to pass on the word, they would tip the phone. A new word would appear. The person holding the phone had a minute to guess all the words. Simple enough. So we started to play the game. Because the game is an Ellen Degeneres game, a lot of the words have references to actors, TV shows and movies. Tulio is from Buenos Aires. He didn’t grow up with American TV. We doubled over laughing trying to give him clues. We were hooked. We played the game again after we got in the air and our beverage service was done. We were in the aft galley of the 757 having a great time. Tulio was standing in front of the lavatory when a passenger came out. They surprised each other. In true Tulio form, Tulio told the woman we were playing the game “Heads Up”. He immediately asked her if she would like to play. She did. She was extremely fast guessing the words based on Tulio’s clues. When it was her time to give Tulio the clues, she kept giving clues with references to American TV. We couldn’t stop laughing. We explained Tulio was from Buenos Aires….he didn’t understand the clues. She started to laugh, too. She played a few rounds of the game. As she was heading back to her seat, she looked at all of us. She said she finally knew what the crews do in the galleys after they finish their service. Of course, this made us laugh more. A few months later Tulio and I laughed about the passenger playing the game with us. At the time, Tulio and I were playing another game….”See how many winter coats and garment bags you can fit in the first-class coat closet”. I’m sure we fit in more than the FAA would have liked. But, we were having a great time laughing and playing the game. The trick to the game….if you should ever want to play is,….a little more hip action and a very strong arm push into the door. You’ll be amazed at all the items you’ll fit in ….and still be able to get closest door closed.