Warm and fuzzy flying tales

Apologies readers if I sounded a bit bitt-ah in my post about how to not annoy your flight attendant. Sometimes I imagine how I sometimes feel is how people who work in retail tell me they feel.

Honestly, I adore my job. To teeny tiny pieces. Right now, I wouldn’t trade it for any other job in the world.

So I also wanted to tell you of some happy and funny experiences I’ve had on board.

Earlier this year a woman and her daughter boarded the economy cabin bound for Los Angeles, and the daughter came up to me and asked if it were possible for her mother to have a window seat, as she had never been on an A380 before and wanted to look out the window.

Later on during boarding, the mother informed me it was her birthday and she was uber excited to be on board today, as her daughter had only surprised her that very morning with tickets to New York. She bubbled over telling me how it was her first time overseas and when I asked her if she was only going to New York her daughter covered her mother’s ears and quickly whispered to me that they were also going to Paris, where they were going to have dinner on top of the Eiffel Tower.

What an awesome thing to do, and what an awesome daughter, I thought to myself. The mother’s excitement was contagious, and knowing how much I love travel, I was so pleased she was finally getting the opportunity to go overseas for the first time (she was probably in her fifties or sixties), and so I wanted to make it extra special for her. I had a quick word to the manager and he gave me free reign to give them a bit of special treatment. Out came some first class champagne, noise cancelling headsets and a sweet first class amenity pack each. Cue more excitement. It was adorable.

Throughout the flight I would walk past their seats occasionally and see how they were doing, finding it very hard to pull the mother’s attention away from the overwhelming choice of cool movies and tv shows to watch on the inflight entertainment, or from discovering what was in her amenity pack or mulling deeply over the economy class menu. She made me smile.

Later, I went up to the flight deck to ask the flight crew if maybe they could make a little PA for the birthday girl when we landed into LA. They said they would try their best, and that she was welcome to come into the flight deck and have a look around when we were on the ground.

In the end they didn’t make a PA wishing her happy birthday, but I still was able to take her up to the flight deck, via the first class cabin so she could have a squiz at its opulence, and let the Captain and his officers show her what was what up in the pointy end of the plane.

She came out a few minutes later with tears in her eyes and just about wetting herself. She fell all over herself in thanks, telling us we’d made her day and started her trip off amazingly. But really, she made my day. It’s passengers like that that I love. I love to make people happy, and help them out if I can, and it makes me feel good if they’ve had a great experience.

For that and so many other reasons, I love my job to bits.

Your friendly flight attendant,

Jorgs x