by Donald Bain
Marriage: Some airlines allow their girls to fly even after they’re married. This seems reasonable, especially in light of their desire that we don’t play around with the male passengers on our trips. Airlines that make you stop flying after marriage do it because they want men passengers to envision conquest after conquest when they travel. These airlines also say a married girl will find it difficult to make her marriage work without interfering with her stewardess schedule. That might be. Let us get married and when our performance slips, fire us. But let us get married—if we’ve found someone to ask us.
Anti-marriage rules force many girls to hide the fact they’re married. This is a tricky feat to pull off and produces dialogue like this:
“You devil, you. I just found out you’ve moved and are married.”
“I’m not married.”
“But what about Harry, the man in your apartment?”
“Oh, Harry. I just live with him.”
A stewardess who is married and hiding the fact must always have two telephones in the apartment so a man won’t answer. A secretly married stewardess must also conceal the fact from her parents. This can be difficult when they come to visit. Hubby goes to the YMCA and is introduced as a friend.
“He seems very nice,” says your mother. “He’d make a good husband, I bet.”
“I don’t know, Mom. He might turn out to be mean.”
Of course, there’s no way to continue the pretense when you become pregnant. They’ve got you there.
“It was quite a honeymoon,” she says to her supervisor. “Got pregnant right away.” The supervisor knows she was married long before and doesn’t buy her story.
Change of address notification: We must notify the airline of any change of address within twenty-four hours of the change. Good rule. Makes sense. Except where Betty Elkin was concerned.
Betty came down with appendicitis one night and her roommate rushed her to the hospital. “Don’t forget to call the airline and tell them,” Betty said as they wheeled her to the operating room. Her roommate promised, but forgot. Betty was on a four-day break.
The roommate was out the next day when the airline called to ask Betty to come off her four-day and work a trip. There was no answer. So, they called the landlord of the two-family house where the two girls lived upstairs.
“Betty’s not here,” the owner informed the airline. “She’s in the hospital.”
A simple situation. It obviously was, except in the mind of Betty’s supervisor, who promptly wrote her up for not notifying the airline of her change of address. The airline reviewed the case and didn’t bring any punishment against Betty.
Conduct unbecoming a stewardess: Now here’s a bit of vague, ill-defined, and questionable double-talk. Under this heading, we can be fired for almost anything. Naturally, the interpretation of this clause varies with the airline involved. Each airline chooses its girls for different reasons. Each airline likes a certain type of girl, and betraying her “type” would be construed as conduct unbecoming a stewardess.
American seems to prefer the all-American girl. They judge her conduct accordingly. It becomes difficult to ascertain what is an all-American girl. Hugh Hefner claims the girls in his centerfold are all-American girls, like the ones you find next door. We don’t think American has this in mind.
TWA evidently interprets stewardess conduct as that of a Vassar or Wellesley graduate. TWA girls have that air about them, and to violate that vague, questionable image would not be prudent for a TWA hostess.
Braniff, from what we’ve observed, considers a large, full bosom necessary when judging stewardess conduct and appearance. Betty O’Riley’s impressive overhang would not have violated the Braniff image. Her conduct is another matter.
United has average girls, in every sense of the word. This is good, because you can then apply average, middle-of-the-road criteria to a United girl’s performance. Average usually has a negative meaning. Not so with United. It just means their girls aren’t far out one way or the other, and usually wear medium-cup bras.
Why do National Airline stewardesses have that hard look? They’re sexy, but it’s a knowing look of sex, too knowing for most other airlines. Stew-bums say you almost expect a National girl to set an alarm clock next to her bed when entertaining a gentleman. We’re sure that isn’t true, but it is a graphic way of stating it.
PSA, that California airline, has what are probably the pick of American womanhood. Take everything good about all other stewardesses, lump it together in one package, and you have a PSA stewardess. Amazing for a smaller airline.
Air Canada naturally likes plump, British-looking girls. Their standards of stewardess conduct must be based on the British system, one that many men seem to prefer.
Eastern’s girls are improving.
Delta’s girls are Southern.
Pan Am’s girls are primarily the snobby, jet-set type. Unfortunately, many of them only strive to be this way. They don’t make it too much of the time.
Other airlines have their own standards. And as a stewardess you live up to those standards—or else.
One of the most exasperating jobs is that of a union leader in your city. We have a good friend who has held this job for over a year, and her life is a series of middle-of-the-night telephone calls from girls in trouble.
“I’m pregnant.”
“They caught me stealing a lobster tail.”
“I just got married.”
“I’ve been raped.”
“This VP is after me to go to bed with him. He says I’ll lose my job. What should I do?”
“I told a passenger he was a pain in the you know what and I’m sure he’s going to write.”
“The captain’s wife knows.”
“My husband knows.”
“The supervisor knows.”
“I know.”
And so on.
Also included in the union leader’s life are the pleas for money by a broke stewardess, confessions of an alcoholic, dope runner, aborted mother, and just plain homesick gal. It’s a tough job.
As a group, we’re reasonably happy with our pay, even though it isn’t great. Girls now start at about $345 a month. That sounds low, but the company pays for life insurance, medical bills, dry cleaning, and our hotels, meals, and cabs when we’re away from home. Because we’re home so little, we don’t really need elaborate housing or a fancy car. Then there are the fringe benefits—the $40 weekends in Europe, the mere $312 to go around the world, the hotel passes, and all the other extras. How can we really complain?
CHAPTER XXI
“A Layover Is Not What You Think”
Every job and every industry boasts its own peculiar set of terms and phrases. Being a stewardess for an airline is no different. We have our own jargon that we communicate with effectively. Some of it is as follows:
Actual flying time: The time from the moment the blocks are removed from the wheels of the aircraft at the point of departure to when they’re replaced at point of arrival.
ATC: Air Travel Card. We give you credit for a little status when we know you have such a card. We credit you with similar status when you flash a membership card to an airline’s VIP club. It doesn’t always mean you deserve status. Some of our greatest disappointments are cardholders. But it’s a reference point with which to begin.
Belly: Underneath the plane where the baggage is carried.
Bid sheets: Each month, every stewardess receives a bid sheet on which she bids for certain trips the following month. Naturally, the longer you’ve been flying, the more preference you’re given. It takes at least a year before you’ve achieved enough seniority to get what you bid. This can fluctuate according to how rapidly the girls are finding men and leaving the job for marriage. In a good year, when romance is running wild, you can climb up the seniority ladder more quickly.
Booze report: How many bottles of liquor were served on any given flight? That question, and its answer, will determine how many bo
ttles must be returned after the flight. It’s all on the beverage report. By the way, we don’t get away with as many bottles as the airline believes we do. It’s not easy.
Bumped: We’re going to Phoenix for a glorious weekend vacation. We’re flying on a free pass. We get as far as Chicago and keep our fingers crossed. We’re told it looks good—there are two open seats and we can have them. And then you come running down to catch that Phoenix flight at the last minute. You bump us off the trip. We spend the weekend drinking in Chicago to keep warm. Thanks.
CAT: This is not a term to describe a new counterespionage group. It stands for Clear Air Turbulence, that mysterious and un-definable rough air you hit when flying on a clear, beautiful day. It causes many problems, usually because seat belts are unfastened when we hit it. CAT never shows up on aircraft radar.
Cattle car: Tourist-class aircraft or the tourist section of a two-class airplane.
Cockpit key: Our government frowns on passengers entering the flight deck and hijacking the airplane. Thus, we have a federal regulation that dictates that the cockpit door will be closed and locked at all times. We each carry a key under our jacket.
Credit time: If any crew member is away from his home base for too long a time, the pay scale is adjusted accordingly to a higher rate. We then are paid for our credit time.
Crew sched: These are the men who schedule stewardess trips and check us in and out. They’re located in operations and, for the most part, are pretty good guys.
CTO agent: City ticket agent who works behind the counter in the city.
Deadhead: It could mean you’re dull. But more often it means a crew member is returning to his home base as a passenger. He or she has worked a trip to some city and must return home without a flight to work.
Demo O2 mask: The oxygen mask we use to demonstrate procedure before takeoff. Black pepper in it is a marvelous way to reap revenge on a naughty girl.
Ferry: Bringing an aircraft or crew back from somewhere to another point. Passengers never fly on ferry flights.
Flag stop: A special stop to pick up passengers left stranded through the fault of the airline. Especially prevalent during bad weather in certain sections of the country or during strikes by other airlines.
Flight deck: Airline’s fancy term for what you’ve always called the cockpit. This change in nomenclature is designed to dispense with the World War I image of pilot with silk scarf around neck and wind in face, goggles, etc. Call it what you will, but we must call it flight deck. OK?
Flight pay log: All crew members keep records of their flying time for pay purposes on this sheet, which is kept in the cockpit.
FTO agent: Field ticket agent who works behind the counter at the airport.
Galley: Where we cook up all the goodies you enjoy on your flight. Also called the buffet area, when someone wants to add class to the conversation. In reality, it’s a kitchen, no cleaner or dirtier than yours at home and designed for the same functions. It’s also the only solitary place on an airplane where a stewardess can retreat and lick her wounds. Please take note that we hate people to poke their heads in the galley when the drapes are closed.
Jump seat: An extra seat on an airplane where the stewardess sits on takeoff and landing.
Layover: Our moment of complete collapse. We lay over after working a trip to a destination away from home base. We stay there for a period of time and then return home on the return leg of the trip. If you’re laying over somewhere too, and would like to “bump into” a stewardess, you might try the following hotels:
New York
Lexington
St. Moritz
International Inn
Commodore
Miami
Skyways
Miami International Inn
Atlanta
Air Host Inn
International Inn
Holiday Inn
Hilton Inn
St. Louis
The Chase Hotel
Chicago
Palmer House
Various airport motels
Denver
Cosmopolitan
Seattle
Olympia
Washington, D.C.
Burlington
Shoreham
Conrad’s
Mayflower
Salt Lake City
Newhouse
Boise
Boisean (Didn’t know you could find a stewardess in Boise,
did you?)
Dallas
Hilton Inn
New Orleans
Hilton Inn
Boston
Hilton Inn
Copley Square
Los Angeles
International Inn
Airport Marina
Miramar
Santa Monica
San Francisco
Hyatt House
Holiday Inn
Downtown Hilton
Mexico City
Vista Hermosa
Maria Isabel
Acapulco
Hotel Caleta
Phoenix
Adams
Newark
Robert Treat
Toronto
Skyline
Cleveland
Sheraton Cleveland
Mechanical: Trouble with the equipment on a flight that causes delay or cancellation.
Milk run: Those puddle-jumping flights that stop at many places before reaching their final destination. We just pray when working them that we won’t develop aircraft trouble and be forced to spend the night in one of the intermediate cities.
Mis-connect: Our airline has booked you on the wrong flight or we were late and you missed your next trip. You’re a mis-connect and we’re sorry.
OLP: We call you this when you’ve made your reservation through one airline for passage on another. You’re an off-line passenger.
OSB: Actually means Other Stations Boarding. You’ve made your reservations in one city but board in another. You’re an OSB. Talk nasty to us and we shift the letters.
Over-water pay: Flying trips over water bring extra pay for stewardesses.
PA check: Our supervisor sneaks on board the plane before take-off and checks us for all necessary items. Gloves, flashlight, grease pencil, etc. Naturally, we’re never 100 percent right, and as passengers, you should be happy supervisors conduct these PA checks. There’s no telling what we’d forget without them.
Pass rider: An employee riding free on a pass. All such passengers fly space available, and are only there because the plane did not have a full load of paying passengers. Airline employees are instructed not to tell other passengers they’re traveling free. There’s no sense upsetting the guy next to you who has just paid $200 for his ticket.
PSR: Passenger service representative. His job with any airline is to try and soothe you when your feathers are ruffled. It’s a very difficult job and you really can’t blame any of these people for turning to the bottle later in their lives.
Reserve: When we’re on reserve, it simply means we’re on call to cover any trip that is short of a stewardess. Being on reserve is usually the plight of junior girls who can’t win bids. You’ll also find senior girls flying reserve because they didn’t bother bidding for a particular month or turned their bid sheet in past the deadline. One thing is certain: Fostering a love interest is damned tough when you’re on reserve.
Seat chart: The chart on which we record your names and destinations; that is, when we can spell your name. You might try helping us once in a while.
Senior pay: The senior stew on a trip receives extra pay for the paperwork she’s responsible for.
CHAPTER XXII
“An Unhappy Landing”
I got on the 707 bound for San Francisco low in spirit. My gloomy mood was a combination of many things. I still had a bad taste in my mouth from my ugly experience with the Hollywood star. I couldn’t get Sally Lu completely out of my mind. A kind of general lethargy had set in—I didn’t have my
old pep and zoom. I no longer bounced out of bed in the morning, eager to get on a plane, meet the day’s passengers, wrestle with the flight’s problems. The routine seemed monotonous. The problems were boring. I’d already met all the passengers. Clearly I was in the doldrums.
The Chuck situation bothered me, too. He was the greatest guy I’d ever met. Everything was marvelous between us. The fact that I didn’t see him very often kept the level of excitement high. It was like a holiday when he turned up. He’d made it pretty clear that he might be interested in marrying me someday, some remotely future day when I’d gotten all the flying and the chasing after glamour out of my system. I was sick of flying as of right now. Did that mean I was ready to marry Chuck?
My thoughts sped round and round like little animals in a cage. I was really in a poisonous mood as I passed out the second round of drinks on the San Francisco flight. Suddenly I felt a tap on my fanny. I spun around. It was Mr. Shackwood in the last row of first-class seats. He was a man with one of those tight expressionless little faces and a hairline mustache. I never like that type. I waggled my index finger in front of his nose. “That’s a no-no. Mustn’t touch.” That was my automatic answer to tappers and pinchers.