And a few of you in Sydney, I think, judging by the reaction he’s getting. I notice he’s wearing a rather shiny new wedding ring. Not that that makes much difference downroute. There’s honour among thieves once the chocks are off. I remember one of our older pilots had one family in London and another in Sydney, and neither knew about the other. Until he came to retire, that is. Then the. poor bloke really was up shit creek. I think he opted for the UK lot in the end. Perhaps the Aussie maintenance was cheaper.
‘The flight is full today,’ continues Captain Jones. ‘The weather seems to be fine, if a little damp.’ A couple of the girls laugh. God, life must be easy if you’re a captain and you’re tanned and good-looking. ‘But I am expecting a bit of turbulence as we go over the Alps, so maybe we should get the drinks out early and wait until we are over the Med before we do the main meal.’
‘Absolutely, Captain,’ says Chris.
‘Thanks, Chris. We’ve got a bit of a tail wind down over the Middle East so we might well be a bit early into Bangkok. The flight time is eleven hours give or take half an hour. We’ll restock in Bangkok and then continue on down to Sydney. I’m not sure what the weather is like Down Under at the moment but I shall be checking in to see if it’s Bondi or straight to the bar when we land. Um, any questions?’
‘No, Captain,’ says Chris.
‘Oh, one other thing,’ adds Captain Jones. ‘I understand we have a terrorist on board. I’m not entirely sure what he is supposed to have done or who he is supposed to work for, but let’s just see if we can get him to Bangkok with the minimum of fuss, shall we? Then we can get on our way to Sydney as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, Captain,’ reply the crew.
‘On no account should any of the other passengers find out who he is or what he’s supposed to have done. I gather there are two guards with him?’
‘A couple of tigers, yes,’ says Chris.
‘I gather there is someone coming over from ground staff to tell you a bit more about him?’
‘That’s correct,’ says Chris, pointing me out at the back of the room. ‘He’s here already, actually.’
‘Good,’ says the captain, not bothering to acknowledge me. Captains are famous for never remembering the names or faces of any of the ground staff. Because we don’t fly, it’s almost as if we don’t exist. He turns to exit the room and pauses. ‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ he says, smiling and tapping his square forehead. ‘The password to get on to the flight deck today is, um . . .’ He looks around the room. ‘Beaver.’
The whole room bursts out laughing.
‘Beaver?’ queries Sally.
‘That’s right.’ He winks. ‘And do try to get it into a natural-sounding sentence.’
Captain Jones leaves the room and everyone suddenly starts chatting. ‘Isn’t he great?’ ‘This is going to be a good trip.’ ‘I wish I was working in first, so I’d get to talk to him.’ ‘How long d’you think he’s been married?’ He’s clearly charmed the pants off all these women. It’s just sad that half of them aren’t wearing any.
‘Settle down now, everyone,’ says Chris. ‘I’m just going to hand out per diems to those of you who are having them. Denise?’ he says.
‘Yes?’ she replies.
‘I’ve got you back on per diems now. Is that right?’
‘That’s right,’ she confirms. ‘I’ve done up my kitchen. New washer, the works.’
Per diems are the daily allowance the airline gives the flight crew to spend while they are out of the country. The amount of money is worked out according to the cost of living in each country the crew are staying in, and can differ quite widely. In an expensive country like Japan, the per diems are quite impressive and much higher than for a country like Egypt. In some countries, like India, the cost of living is so low that they become known on the circuit as charity flights as you get almost nothing from the airline to live off. This extra money used to be a bit of a perk, but now the government taxes it at source which has slightly taken away the joy of having the airline give you money.
Sometimes handed out as cash in envelopes or as travellers’ cheques, per diems can (for a 2½ per cent handling fee) also be dished out by the hotel where the flight crew are staying. You check in for your five-day, seven-day or two-week turnaround and collect the wad of cash at reception. Sometimes, though, in order to save money towards a car or a kitchen or something substantial, flight attendants choose to forgo their per diems, adding them to their basic £16,000-a-year wages instead. It’s a way of stopping them irresponsibly splashing out as soon as they touch down. However, if everyone else is irresponsibly splashing out and you’re the one in your room eating an apple or an in-flight meal you have squirrelled away in your bag before leaving the plane, this can lead to downroute tension. Those who are not saving invariably end up forking out for those who are building a nest egg. I remember Rachel telling me, when we were actually speaking to each other, about the huge rows they used to have in restaurants whenever the savers said something annoying along the lines of ‘I only had a salad’ and those with per diems always ended up paying.
Chris hands out the per diems in small brown envelopes like school dinner money. All the attendants gather round, excitedly pocketing their cash. I have always thought that working as a flight attendant is not that dissimilar to a life of endless school trips. The way they are looked after, collected from the airport in buses, ferried to the hotels, given their daily spending money, the drinking, the partying, the bad behaviour – it’s all rather similar to releasing a group of teenagers for the first time in Paris. You would think they’d all know one another and get along well, but that’s not the case.
It’s truer of the smaller charter companies, although this intimacy does have its consequences. Andy’s flatmate Craig had to leave Britannia after one particular flight when he arrived and realized that he’d fucked every hostess on his plane. Fortunately, none of them knew that he had bedded any of the others, but he decided to leave before they all found out. But in the larger airlines many of the flight attendants don’t actually know the people they are flying with at all. They meet for the first time in the crew room and have to start relationships from scratch every time. This can lead to a different kind of problem, mainly isolation and loneliness. If you’re not one of those people who can bond on the bus on the way to the plane, you can end up on your own for the entire three- or four-day turnaround. I have a friend who was asked to look into flight attendants’ concerns for a large national carrier and she came back with such terrible stories of temazepam, vicodin and valium addictions prompted by the odd hours and the isolation that they had to set up an internal helpline open twenty-four hours a day.
Ours is a medium-size carrier, so we span the divide. You can drop your pants with a certain amount of impunity, though sooner or later your past will catch up with you. Andy and I both have a bet with Craig that it is going to take him three years before he has a planeload of ex-shags to deal with. So far, it’s looking like we might get paid a little sooner.
‘OK,’ says Chris, with another clap. ‘I have given him the benefit of the doubt and Tom is clearly not turning up. I’m going to have to call in a standby.’
As well as flying days, part of the shift system also includes periods spent on standby. All flight crew on shift have to live within ninety minutes of the airport crew room in full make-up so that they can be called in at short notice. In any one week an attendant can have three flying days and two spent on standby for which they also get paid. In the smaller airlines such as ours they get called in to fly at short notice about 70 per cent of the time. This can happen at any time during standby. If you have been on standby all day, unable to drink or stray further than ninety minutes away from the airport, you can be called in at 5.50 p.m., in the last ten minutes of your shift, and asked to do a seven-hour night flight. I have lost count of the number of times flight attendants have been caught out, glass of wine in hand, as they clock off an hour or so ear
ly.
‘Which Tom are you talking about?’ I ask, thinking I might be able to help.
‘Tom Raven,’ replies Chris.
‘Oh.’ I smile. ‘I might give Andy a call. He goes out with Tom quite often.’
‘Would you? That’d be great.’
I radio through to Andy and mention that Tom is missing from work. He doesn’t seem at all surprised. He says he’ll look into it and call me back as soon as he can. Two minutes later, he’s as good as his word.
‘So?’
‘Well,’ says Andy. ‘Slightly delicate . . .’
‘OK.’
‘He’s handcuffed to a bed on the sixth floor of the Kensington Intercontinental and can’t get out.’
‘Right,’ I say, slowly taking in the information. ‘How do you know this?’
‘Because he was out with me last night and I know the bloke he went back to the hotel with, so I gave him a call.’
‘Oh.’
‘It’s one of those pranks that went a bit wrong.’
‘No shit.’
‘Yeah, well.’
‘Is there any way he can be released?’
‘Not in time for the Bangkok–Sydney flight, no.’
‘Right.’
‘Whoops.’
‘Double bloody whoops.’
‘We can probably get him here in time for Singapore–Sydney,’ suggests Andy optimistically.
‘Sadly, not the flight he’s scheduled for.’
‘No,’ says Andy.
‘No,’ I reply.
‘Any luck?’ asks Chris from across the room.
‘Well,’ I smile. ‘I think it’s probably better if you can get a standby. Tom seems to be incapacitated. Some family problem . . .’
‘Oh.’ Chris nods. ‘He could have phoned in.’
‘Yes. Unfortunately he can’t get to a phone.’
‘Oh,’ says Chris again. ‘Sounds bad.’
‘Yes. Most unfortunate.’
‘I’d better sort out a replacement,’ declares Chris. ‘I hope they can get here at such short notice.’
‘Good idea,’ I agree. ‘You’d better get your mate to release Tom,’ I whisper to Andy.
‘Roger that,’ says Andy, starting to laugh.
‘See you back at check-in.’
‘OK, mate.’
Chris rattles through his list of standbys and manages to find someone who lives unfashionably close to the airport and can make it in half an hour. It seems that Tom is off the hook. I look at my watch. It’s 2.55. I really have got to get back to the check-in. I had no idea I had been sitting here for so long.
‘Um, Chris?’ I say.
‘Yes, mate.’
‘I’ve got to head back across ...’
‘Oh, right. Any quick words of wisdom on the terrorist?’
‘Oh, um, of course,’ I say. A whole room of expectant faces turns towards me. ‘Well, let’s see. He looks like an old school teacher.’ They all nod. ‘And wasn’t that frightening at all.’ They nod again. ‘He is the brains behind things, not the brawn. Um, not dangerous in the slightest.’
‘Why does he need two guards?’ asks Chris.
‘Oh, well, you know – regulations.’ I smile.
‘Of course,’ says Chris.
‘Anyway, better go. I’m sure I’ve got a load of late passengers to deal with.’
‘See you on the ramp,’ says Chris.
‘Absolutely,’ I reply.
‘And thanks for the talk. It was really very useful indeed.’
3–4 PM
BY THE TIME I get back to check-in via a small cigarette break just next to the put-down area outside, the crowds have disappeared, Andy’s nowhere to be seen and there is a shouting match going on, involving the very hungover Debbie and a rather small woman in a leather jacket with a fur-trimmed collar. It seems to be just about to hit its stride.
‘Look,’ says the short woman, sounding exasperated. ‘When I came to check in and didn’t have my passport, you told me I had enough time to call my flatmate and get him to bring it to the airport, and now . . . and now . . .’ Her voice is getting louder. Her face is increasingly puce. ‘And now you are refusing to check me in!’
‘You’re too late, madam,’ says Debbie, not looking her in the eye. ‘I know that you’ve gone to a lot of trouble for nothing. But you are just too late. We’ve closed the check-in.’
‘But you knew I was coming!’ replies the short woman, looking astounded. ‘I’m hardly unfamiliar. It’s not like I have come out of the blue, like some big fat surprise. I’ve been standing next to you for over an hour.’
‘That’s as may be, madam,’ says Debbie, her face looking slightly less grey than when I left. ‘But we closed the check-in ten minutes ago and you are too late.’
‘The plane is still here, you are still here, what’s the problem?’ she says, raising her voice another decibel.
‘The check-in is closed,’ Debbie insists. ‘There is nothing I can do.’
‘Yes there is!’ shouts the short woman. ‘You can check me in for my flight to bloody Australia and be done with it!’
‘There’s no need to swear,’ says Debbie.
Oh dear, here we go, I think, as I walk towards the situation.
‘You call “bloody” swearing?’ exclaims the woman, making little quotation marks in the air in front of her.
‘I’m afraid I do.’ Debbie is not handling this well.
‘Bloody isn’t swearing,’ the short woman bellows. ‘Fuck! Cunt! Arsehole! Now that’s swearing. If you want to hear swearing I can carry on.’ But her voice is growing a little weaker; she seems to be on the verge of tears. ‘Fucking cunting cockhead. There! Now that’s really something to complain about.’ She sounds triumphant. I have to admit, as swearing goes it’s a pretty good combination, possibly some of the worst we’ve had in a while.
The passport-dash passengers are always the most difficult, mainly because they can’t believe they’ve been so stupid as to leave their passports behind. And it usually happens to the most cool, well-travelled people. Granted, there are a few dickhead novice passengers who forget their passports, but more often than not it’s the ones who are quite relaxed about travelling who don’t bother to check for their tickets and passport three times before leaving the house. They turn up, feel like twats, and then go into a total tailspin panic. They clock-watch while someone races to the airport with their documents, tension mounting all the time, and then they collapse completely when they are too late for the plane.
But I have to admit that I think Debbie is being a bit harsh here. Perhaps she’s had a shit shift and is being bloody-minded just for the sake of it. Or more likely Little Miss Shouty got up her nose the first time she tried to check in.
‘Can I help?’ I ask.
Debbie looks relieved. The short woman spins around.
‘Yes!’ she says. ‘I’d like to speak to someone in charge.’
‘I’m in charge.’ I smile.
‘Oh good. This woman here’ – she points at Debbie but can’t seem to bear to look at her – ‘is refusing to check me in, even though I have been standing here for over an hour.’
‘OK.’
‘You didn’t have the correct documents and now the check-in is closed,’ mumbles Debbie from the other side of the desk.
‘Do you have much luggage?’ I ask.
‘Just this bag.’ She indicates a suitcase that, at a push, is small enough for hand luggage.
‘Well, let’s see what we can do.’
Her face breaks into an enormous smile. ‘Really?’
‘We’ll see,’ I say, reaching for my walkie-talkie.
Truth is that just so long as the plane is still here I can get anyone onto it I like. VIPs are always delaying flights and arriving at the last minute. But our flight is still very much on the ground. It doesn’t take off for another twenty-five minutes and they’ve only just started boarding. All I have to do when calling through is to use the co
rrect code to elicit the correct response. If I start the sentence ‘We have . . .’ it means I want them to reply that it is too late to accept the passenger. However, if I say ‘Any chance . . .’, the woman will get on the plane.
I page through to the gate and get Andy.
‘There you are,’ I say.
‘Well, someone’s got to start the boarding,’ he says. ‘And seeing as you weren’t back yet . . .’
‘OK, point taken. There’s an LRP. A late reporting passenger.’
‘I know what an LRP is,’ he says, sarcastically.
‘I was just checking that you were awake.’ I laugh. ‘Anyway, any chance of getting her onto the flight?’
‘You know it’s fine,’ says Andy. ‘Just get her along quickly. We are actually boarding.’
‘Good,’ I say.
‘What?’ asks the short woman.
‘It’s fine.’
‘Oh my God!’ She yelps and leaps into the air with joy. She runs up to me and puts her arms around me. ‘I love you, I love you,’ she says, kissing my right bicep, nuzzling her face into my armpit. ‘Thank you so much. Thank you so very much. You’ve saved my life. You really have.’
‘That’s perfectly all right, madam,’ I say, trying to extricate myself from her embarrassing embrace. ‘Follow me as quickly as you can. You have a plane to catch.’
‘Right, of course,’ she says, picking up her bag. She stops and turns towards Debbie. ‘Um, sorry about all the shouting and swearing. I was a bit overwrought. I just have to leave for Sydney today. My sister’s getting married.’
‘Oh, right,’ says Debbie. ‘Don’t forget your passport again.’
‘No,’ agrees the woman. ‘Never again.’
As we jog through the airport towards the plane, the short woman won’t stop talking about how grateful she is and how marvellous I am for sorting her out. To start off with it’s enough to make a guy’s head swell. I feel quite chuffed with myself and pleasantly pleased. If only it were possible to elicit this sort of response from everyone we help. But by the end it is rather like being followed by a yapping, rather over-excited poodle. She really won’t shut up, no matter how many times I pretend to be self-effacing. When we finally reach the gate I freely admit I’m pleased to be rid of her.
Air Babylon Page 13