How Chaotic is Flight Attendant Life? I’ll Tell You.
Earlier this week, I experienced my most chaotic 48 hours of flight attendant life in recent memory. It’s not my worst story, by far, but it was a great example of the wild world of working as a flight attendant (and living as Toni.) It was a sleep-deprived, planning-on-the-go, tornado of chaos, and I’m here to share it with you. Anxious people beware, this one’s a doozey.
Leggo!
Don't worry, it'll be fun.
Something Was Missing…
I was in my Uber Sunday night, on the way to the San Diego airport, when I realized I didn’t have my crew ID badge. Flight attendant life is all about routines and systems, and one is that my important items always go in the same place in my bag to avoid losing them. I stick to this system so religiously that I never have to look for my ID or my passport, because they’re always there, right in the same pocket I left them in. But on this Sunday, on my way to the airport, something was amiss. I reached into the designated pocket and felt the stiff, shiny paper of my passport, but not my Crew ID. I checked all the other pockets of my bag, turning on my flashlight to get a better view. No dice.
Pushing the limits of what “on time” could mean, I was already running late when I made this discovery. The line of traffic from Terminal 2 stretched onto the road, and I sweated while I called my roommate and frantically asked her to please check in my bedroom and car for my missing ID. She didn’t find it, and though I dug through every pocket in my bag twice, neither did I. Great.
This lack of a crew ID badge makes going through security more difficult and for good reason—we can’t just have any random ho in a flight attendant outfit waltzing through TSA. So before going to security I had to go to ticketing to get a gate pass which would allow me to enter the secure area of the airport without my crew badge.
Keep in mind, I’m already late. These extra steps did not help.
Your Crew ID is kiiiiind of important.
A Working Theory
I make it through a very annoying security experience and arrive at my gate hot and out of breath. The stress of losing something, and being late, has acted as a heater in my abdomen, spread out through my armpits—unpleasant in polyester, and I feel the heat creeping up my neck, making the scarf tied around it wilt, making my cheeks flush. Luckily the gate agents in San Diego know me now.
“Welcome back,” they say.
“I’ll be ready in a second, you can board on time,” I say.
I board my plane, work my flight, and it mostly goes off without a hitch.
While I’m in the air, I open every pocket in my suitcase, my lunchbox, and my tote bag, again, to look for my ID, thinking it must be here somewhere. But it isn’t. I refresh my email obsessively, thinking maybe someone found it and turned it in and I’d missed the email. I realize that the last time I laid eyes on my work ID was on Friday, when I commuted home to San Diego from Boston. (For those of you who are new, a commuting flight is the flight I take to get to work. I’m not working, just transporting myself there. It’s like your rush hour highway commute, but longer.)
The day I commuted, I had to show my badge at security, and then again at the gate to get my boarding pass for the flight. I thought if someone found it during a security check of the plane or jetbridge it would have made its way to my inbox by now. But there was another option. What if it was in a place where nobody could find it?
On Friday, I had been lucky enough to get a business class seat for my commute home. I had a lay-flat bed of a seat and the one next to me was empty. It was not until Sunday night, worrying about my badge on the redeye I was working, that that I recalled something potentially important. At some point on my flight Friday, I heard a small clatter. Like something falling. I looked around, I had my phone, my ear buds, my charger, seemingly all my things. So, I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t think about it again.
Until this very chaotic Sunday night.
What if the something that fell was my badge? What if it fell UNDER my business class seat? Because of the design of the seats, you can’t see underneath them unless you push a lever and pull the seatback to manually move it. And nobody would move it manually unless they were looking for something. This was just the kind of place a crew ID could be lost and go unnoticed! And just like that, I had a working theory.
Could THIS be where my badge was hiding?
A Plan
Every one of our airplanes has a unique tail number; Like a Vin on a car, this is how we keep track of them. I found the tail number of the plane I commuted on Friday, and then I was able to search the system to see what flights that tail would be working Monday, when I’d be landing in Boston.
The plane could have been anywhere—LA, Fort Lauderdale, New York, but lucky for me, it was in Boston, and not due to fly out until later that afternoon. Score!
Here was one avenue I could investigate before dealing with the hassle of getting a brand-new ID. We were due to land at 5:12 am, so I figured after that I would find someone to check the airplane for my badge. This whole mess would be wrapped up by 6, and I’d be sleeping like a baby by 7am. I’d be well-rested, ID in hand, when I arrived back at the airport at 6:30pm to work my next flight.
LOL.
Make a plan and you're halfway there. LOL.
Jet Bridge Adventures
We landed early, blocking into the gate around 4:45am. But you already know we’re not here for a smooth sailing kind of story. The jet bridges in Boston—the long, moving hallway you walk down to get onto the plane—are notoriously bad. They malfunction A LOT. This is not a My Airline thing, because the equipment is owned by Massport, the Massachusetts Port Authority. But no matter who is to blame for the jet bridge problems, we—the crew and passengers—are always the ones to suffer.
Our jet bridge malfunctioned this day, and after an entire HOUR of several maintenance people trying to fix it, we were towed to another gate, in another terminal. We stepped off the plane at 6:09, had to carry our luggage up a set of stairs, and then I had to walk back to our normal terminal to complete my badge-finding mission.
Are you tired yet?
If there's one thing I love, it's a jet bridge adventure post redeye.
Have You Seen My Badge?
I walked myself over to the crew lounge, an underground lair where the administration and operation of our airline happens, and where crewmembers go to wait for flights, heat up their food, and sometimes take a nap. Because I didn’t have a badge and could not swipe myself into said lounge, I had to call the office and ask someone to come let me in.
I told a supervisor my tale of woe and he said he’d help. The airplane was in the Hangar, unfortunately, not at the gate, so he would have to “find a ride” over there to look for my ID. I have no idea who gave him a ride, or if this trip even happened. All I know is 20 minutes later, he was back in the office telling me he looked under every first class seat and there was no sign of a missing crew badge. Drats.
“You can have us order a new one for you,” he told me, “But it will take at least a week to get here. Or you can fly to JFK and get one same day.”
I thought about the trip I had that night, starting at 6:30pm, and the lack of sleep I’d be in for if I went to New York.
Then I thought about the four-day trip I would be starting at the end of the week. How annoying it would be to have to go to ticketing, get a gate pass, and go through regular security before each flight of my four-day trip. I thought about how annoying it would be commuting home without an ID. How I couldn’t even swipe myself into the bag room or crew lounge if I needed to.
I weighed the cost of one sleepless day and rough night at work against a full week of hassle.
“Wellp,” I said. “I’m already here. Might as well get it done.”
This wouldn't be as easy as I'd hoped.
To New York!
I took the 7:45 flight to JFK, which landed at 9:30 due to de-icing in Boston. Then I waited outside the door of the badge office until it opened at 10:00. It blows my mind a little bit that an AIRLINE—a business that never ever rests, has such cushy office hours. But I digress.
Getting a new badge was quick and easy. A total of ten minutes later, I was out of there, sporting the ugliest badge photo to ever grace the front of a crew ID.
It was 10:30, and the next flight leaving JFK for Boston was not until 1pm. Great, I thought. I can sleep for two hours while I wait.
I clocked in about an hour and a half of sleep, in a brightly lit room full of people.
The badge photo in question.
To Boston!
At 12:50 my alarm sounded, and I got up, gathered my things and went to the gate to board my flight to Boston. Thankfully, I got a seat. I flew back to Boston, then walked to my crash pad, arriving at 3pm. I hurried to change out of my uniform (still on since 9pm the night before), shower, unpack my lunchbox and get in bed, where I would sleep hard from 3:30-5pm. Then I got up and got ready for work.
To Work!
I arrived at 6:30, right on time and surprisingly spritely, considering my lack of sleep. It amazes me sometimes how well I can function on so little rest. Am I half robot? Specially equipped to handle sleepless nights? Or will this all catch up to me one day in the not-too-distant future? Am I a ticking time bomb?
All throughout the day—my morning ordeal, my trip to New York, and my chilly walk back to the crash pad—I dreaded the Denver turn I would work that night. It was a redeye turn, another night of vampire life, and I would be so ill-prepared. But the crew was great, the flights were easy, and I had plenty of caffeine to hold me over. I ended up having a really nice night at work.
Work, on this chaotic day, was surprisingly pleasant.
Home Stretch
When I landed in Boston, I again took the shuttle, then made the 15-minute walk, in 28-degree air, to my crash pad. It was so cold that when I reached in my bag to get my keys, I couldn’t find them. All the objects felt the same to my half-numb, sense-dead fingertips. I did find them, with the help of my flashlight, and I let myself in to thaw, to shower, to unpack, and to climb into my bunk bed for the next four-hour nap in my two-day series of naps.
At 10:30 am, I crawled out of bed, packed my bags to go home, and pulled myself together; then I walked twenty minutes to the rental car center at the airport. I rented a little economy sedan and drove thirty minutes north to Beverly, MA, where my favorite doctor practices, for a long-scheduled 2 o’clock appointment.
The woman at the front desk informed me my appointment was actually at 2:30. And by the time I’d finished up there, it was too late to catch my flight back to San Diego. I resigned myself to staying in Boston for the rest of the week. Instead of a long flight home, I spent the evening visiting with my dad and then a dear friend whom I haven’t seen in far too long. It wasn’t what I’d planned, but it turned out even better.
Driving back to my crash pad that night, fully packed suitcase in my trunk, running on 7 hours of sleep over two days, I felt good. Not only had I accomplished the things I needed to—the ID replacement, the doctor’s appointment, getting my work hours in, visiting loved ones—but I also had a full night’s sleep on the horizon. It would now be three more days before I’d see my own bed, but the top bunk isn’t so bad.
Chaos & cold: She'd ready for anything.
Constant Chaos
This week I experienced two days of pure sleepless, chaos. It was a quintessential “flight attendant life” montage and a Very Toni Week indeed.
In trapsing through these hectic two days, I couldn’t help but think back to the last time I needed an ID badge in a hurry, when I was living in Mexico City and commuting to Boston. Or some of the other chaotic situations I’ve been in as a result of being a flight attendant—and being me. This might sound rough, existing in chaos, but it’s reassuring to have so much experience to draw from. To be able to look back at a history of chaotic days and overscheduled weeks and more sleep-deprived nights than I can count, to see the evidence clear as day: You will survive it. You always do.
Having survived my chaotic two days, I am happy to report things have slowed down—as much as I ever allow them to. For the next seven days, I’ll be working, blogging, bidding my January schedule, and trying desperately to keep motivation on my November writing project. I’ll be squeezing in some fun, in San Diego and New York, and I’ll be attempting to get an average of 8 hours of sleep per night. I might not be able to do it all, but I’ll do what I can.
There is a part of me that wonders if I like it—The excitement, the chaos. The making it through another sticky situation—exhausted, frazzled, but largely unscathed. Like winning something you should have lost is more satisfying than planning ahead, reaping your expected reward. It is the difference between working however many hours it takes to earn $100 and finding a hundred-dollar bill on the ground. One is decidedly better.
I know I didn’t lose my badge on purpose. This horrific new photo makes me long for the lost one, and I could go my whole life without flying into JFK and be happier for it. But there is a quiet sort of satisfaction that comes from digging myself out of a hole. It’s a feeling good enough that I have to watch out for it in other areas of my life, monitor the ways I set myself up for a fall, and subsequent recovery—In matters of punctuality, in relationships. Some chaos is inevitable, especially when you work in aviation. But some might not be.
When all else fails, I guess I can blame my air sign.
There's plenty of chaos to go around when working as a flight attendant.
I hope this glimpse of chaos was fun to read from a distance. For those of you anxious folx, curled up in the fetal position reading this blog, sorry about me. I truly just can’t help it. If you’re interested in reading more chaotic stories about the wild world of flight attendant life, then check out some of the links below. I’ve linked my craziest flight attendant stories and some juicy personal ones, too. If this was too much for your Type A heart, then check out some calmer posts about travel and life in the sky.
Whatever your preference, thanks for stopping by and making it to the end. If you like this chaos or want to peak behind the veil of what it’s like to be a flight attendant, consider subscribing. You can get all the latest and greatest sent directly to your inbox. And if you like what I’m doing here and want to support the site, you can buy me a coffee at buymeacoffe.com/awheelinthesky. A gift is never expected and always so, so appreciated.
I hope you have the calmest, chilliest weekend ever.
(Unless you thrive in chaos.)
Some other bits of chaos and Flight Attendant life:
A Very Toni Week
My Craziest Flight Attendant Story Ever
A Day In The Life
How Much Fun is Too Much Fun? An Overscheduled Flight Attendant Wonders
Never Trust an “Easy Trip”: My Latest Flight Attendant Woes
The ‘One Day At Home’ Effect- What Flight Attendants Do On their One Day Off
A Bad Day At Work
Adventures of a First Time Commuter
Food Poisoning at 30,000 Feet: Welcome Back to Work
Less chaotic, still fun:
