Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Hey, it's Roy Wood Jr.
Speaker 1: Up Next is a special episode of our original podcast,
Speaker 1: Beyond the Scenes, hosted by Yours Truly. Today we're talking
Speaker 1: with union leader Sarah Nelson and Daily Show writer Cat
Speaker 1: Ratley to talk about how flight attendants are dealing with
Speaker 1: unruly passengers, flight delays, staffing shortages, wage negotiations, all while
Speaker 1: keeping us safe at thirty thousand feet. Have a listen
Speaker 1: and we're back. Welcome to Beyond the Scene season too. Baby, Look,
Speaker 1: we got a whole new batch of topics for you
Speaker 1: this season. I'm Roy Wood Jr. If you don't know,
Speaker 1: this is the podcast that goes deeper into segments and
Speaker 1: topics that originally aired on the Daily Show with Trevor No.
Speaker 1: This is what you gotta think about this as this
Speaker 1: podcast is a companion piece to the Daily Show. It's
Speaker 1: the jelly to the peanut butter sandwich. Without us, you're
Speaker 1: just eating an old piece of bread with peanut butter
Speaker 1: that sticks to the roof through your mouth, and now
Speaker 1: your mouth's all drying. Now you're struggling to pull yourself
Speaker 1: a glas that's the milk before you choke and die.
Speaker 1: So you need the jelly, and we bring that sweet
Speaker 1: goodness to the sandwich. And frankly, I don't think you're
Speaker 1: ready for this jelly. No, I'm not gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let you enjoy that joke just a second longer. I
Speaker 1: hope you all enjoyed your summer travel, because today we're
Speaker 1: talking about the role of flight attendants and how they
Speaker 1: faced turbulent times during the pandemics. What they did their
Speaker 1: flight turbulant, give me the clip. For years, flight attendants
Speaker 1: in America have complained about v two things. One idiots
Speaker 1: who pressed the coal button when they meant to turn
Speaker 1: on the lights, and too the way they get paid. Well. Now,
Speaker 1: finally Delta Airlines is taking care of one of those issues.
Speaker 1: Flight attendants with Delta will soon be getting paid a
Speaker 1: little bit more money. The airline says it will now
Speaker 1: start paying cabin crews during morning. Up until now, flight
Speaker 1: attendants did not start getting paid until the passengers were
Speaker 1: seated in the planes doors closed. That was the moment
Speaker 1: that their pay started. Delta says the change will start
Speaker 1: June second, as the company faces the possibility if it's
Speaker 1: more than twenty flight attendants forming their own union The
Speaker 1: change could increase some attendance wages by several thousand dollars
Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, believe it or not, flight attendance in
Speaker 1: America do not get paid during the boarding process, which
Speaker 1: is crazy. Just think about your at work doing work,
Speaker 1: but your boss is like, no, this is your free time.
Speaker 1: What I only pay you when the doors are closed.
Speaker 1: That's wild. It also sucks for flight attendance on Spirit
Speaker 1: airlines because they don't even have doors. What do they do?
Speaker 1: Do they work for free? How does that should work? Today?
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Emmy nominated Daily show writer Cat Ratley
Speaker 1: cat as a traveling comedian who's been on like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, fourteen flights in the last few weeks, So
Speaker 1: you are an expert on air travel, Cat, how you doing? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say expert slash survivor's I got PTSD from
Speaker 1: fourteen flights and I think five weeks um, So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was terrible. I don't know how you
Speaker 1: guys do it. That's just an average week cut I know.
Speaker 1: I was like, should I just collect a paycheck and
Speaker 1: help out? Like I'm here so much? Also joining us,
Speaker 1: the International president of the Association of Flight Attendance Sarah Nelson. Sarah,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thanks so much, Sarah. Let's jump
Speaker 1: right in. What are the issues facing flight attendance and
Speaker 1: the airline industry right now and how many of those
Speaker 1: challenges of because of the pandemic. Well, look, the pandemic
Speaker 1: created problems for sure, and we're seeing the COVID effect
Speaker 1: right now, but a lot of the problems that you're
Speaker 1: seeing in the airline industry were created pre pandemic. And
Speaker 1: it's really about uh greed, It's about corporate greed. After
Speaker 1: the bankruptcy is falling on to nine eleven, Contracts were slashed,
Speaker 1: people were working harder for last, pensions were terminated. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of bad things that happened. But when
Speaker 1: the airline started making money again seen and they were
Speaker 1: really cooking after the mergers and making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: all that the financiers wanted to do was to get
Speaker 1: more of those profits in their hands. So even while
Speaker 1: they were making billions of dollars, the people on Wall
Speaker 1: Street were demanding that they give them even more in
Speaker 1: stock buy backs. And so you may have seen a
Speaker 1: lot of those headlines about all the stock buy backs
Speaker 1: the airlines gave going into the pandemic, which meant that
Speaker 1: they didn't have cash on hand to be able to
Speaker 1: handle this massive drop in demand, and the entire industry
Speaker 1: almost collapsed. So what we're seeing now is the effects
Speaker 1: of what they were doing based on corporate greed prior
Speaker 1: to the pandemic, and that was cutting staffing level levels
Speaker 1: to a bare minimum, counting on people with overtime hours
Speaker 1: to make the operation run. Now you have people who
Speaker 1: are getting sick because of COVID and so they can't
Speaker 1: work those overtime hours or uh, they're so tired out
Speaker 1: because it's become such a conflict on board and everyone
Speaker 1: is essential the first time flyer today. So that makes
Speaker 1: the job of a flight attendant much much harder, which
Speaker 1: is part of why we love that segment from The
Speaker 1: Daily Show so much about that boarding process. And I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give these flight attendants a lot of credit because
Speaker 1: let me tell you something, man, people fly all the time.
Speaker 1: You see these people working hard, But I didn't know
Speaker 1: that they weren't getting paid while the plane you did.
Speaker 1: I don't know that they're really patient people. If I
Speaker 1: was working for free during the whole boarding process, I
Speaker 1: would have been way less friendly than yo. I would
Speaker 1: have been in that airport like some one. Zone one.
Speaker 1: Get the hell up on the plane right now, hungry,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get paid. Move, move me, move your
Speaker 1: dumb mass. Put the thing on the thing there man.
Speaker 1: And I saw yo, I swear I saw. If any
Speaker 1: of you broke as Zone four even trying to get
Speaker 1: in online right now, I will have the chance a
Speaker 1: water board. You get back Zone four, sit down, you
Speaker 1: know who you wish. Every time we go to board
Speaker 1: of flight, it's questions from everybody. Nobody knows the plan,
Speaker 1: they don't have of the population that used to fly,
Speaker 1: showing them how things are done and creating kind of
Speaker 1: a follow the leader, uh situation, And so it is
Speaker 1: really really tough. It's really tough because we don't have
Speaker 1: enough people and that was really created pre pandemic, but
Speaker 1: now we've got the COVID effect making it worse. In
Speaker 1: the airline's defense, those CEOs, they have a family of
Speaker 1: yachts to feed, so you know they do need the money. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you. Um So, I am really proud
Speaker 1: of something that our union did, though, and and the
Speaker 1: rest of the aviation unions, and this happened only in
Speaker 1: the airline industry because we're eight percent union and so
Speaker 1: we have the power to do it. But we capped
Speaker 1: their pay. So their pay is capped until March of
Speaker 1: and we banned stock by backs until September of this year.
Speaker 1: But it's about to get a lot worse. I'm we're
Speaker 1: starting to talk about this, We're talking about this with
Speaker 1: lawmakers that if you're if you're complaining about the operation now,
Speaker 1: it's about to get a lot worse when you have
Speaker 1: that stress from Wall Street saying that they want to
Speaker 1: take even more profits out just at a time when
Speaker 1: they really need to be reinvesting in the front line
Speaker 1: worker and in the infrastructure of the airlines. Um. So
Speaker 1: I'm about to get real serious here. But I'm also
Speaker 1: you know, the this is a this is a problem
Speaker 1: with Wall Street greed, and it's certainly the c e
Speaker 1: O s and and you know their family of yachts. Um.
Speaker 1: But but it's also much bigger pressure from hed hedge
Speaker 1: fund managers who were making billions of dollars, and the
Speaker 1: CEOs are kind of a little fish in a big
Speaker 1: pond today. So during the pandemic, we saw almost half
Speaker 1: a million airline workers either furloughed or let go or
Speaker 1: fired or forced into early retirement, and now we need
Speaker 1: those people because the demand is going up. What can't
Speaker 1: we just go back and get do we really need?
Speaker 1: Because I saw where the Delta pilots were protesting in
Speaker 1: Atlanta in front of Hartsfield Jackson earlier this year, and
Speaker 1: they're like, Yo, you're working us to the bone. We
Speaker 1: cannot cover all of these shifts. Can't we just go?
Speaker 1: This is what I'm saying, Sarah. I see the movies
Speaker 1: where they go find people in the mountains and they
Speaker 1: go the country Nietzsche, Why is the solution not as
Speaker 1: easy and just going back and getting the people who
Speaker 1: you let go? Well, look, first of all, not all
Speaker 1: those people were let go. One of the things that
Speaker 1: we talked about was you got to keep people in
Speaker 1: place because in the airline industry, these are highly skilled jobs.
Speaker 1: They're certified safety positions, and it takes a long time
Speaker 1: to have the training in place to be able to
Speaker 1: get people into these positions. So the adults pilots are right,
Speaker 1: I mean, the airline industry was counting on incredible overtime
Speaker 1: hours from everyone, and people are worn out they're worn't
Speaker 1: out from this pandemic. There weren't out from getting sick.
Speaker 1: There weren't out from all the effects on their families
Speaker 1: and their communities from the pandemic. Um we kept people
Speaker 1: in place, except that Congress had a lapse in funding
Speaker 1: from October to December. And guess what that created a
Speaker 1: major backlog in the training departments to be able to
Speaker 1: get everybody back on the schedule and back in place.
Speaker 1: And in addition to that, like I said, they created
Speaker 1: this problem pre pandemic by staffing levels, by cutting those
Speaker 1: staffing levels so low. So what the Delta pilots was
Speaker 1: saying is essentially what seven hundred thousand workers across the
Speaker 1: airline industry are saying. We put contract negotiations on hold
Speaker 1: in because it wasn't a good time to be talking
Speaker 1: about contract improvements. But today, guess what we had inflation
Speaker 1: go through the roof. We gotta attract people to these jobs.
Speaker 1: We gotta get them into the pipeline, get them into
Speaker 1: the training center so that we can start that process
Speaker 1: of staffing up. And if we don't have you know,
Speaker 1: good pay and benefits to attract people to these jobs,
Speaker 1: there's no way we're going to make that work either.
Speaker 1: So we have a short term problem with not enough
Speaker 1: staff right now and not enough support for the people
Speaker 1: in the operation able to do their jobs, and then
Speaker 1: a long term problem is just going to keep compounding
Speaker 1: the longer they wait to negotiate these contracts and make
Speaker 1: things better. So what we have is a labor crisis,
Speaker 1: which war often and not is not funny because at
Speaker 1: it at its core, it is people not being given
Speaker 1: the opportunity to provide. So, Kat, how do you make
Speaker 1: that funny? You all did a segment it was called,
Speaker 1: I think what was it, the throwdown for any down? Yeah,
Speaker 1: throw it down there the Airline for Assholes just explained
Speaker 1: that segment and what inspired that. It definitely came at
Speaker 1: that time. I want to say it was, you know,
Speaker 1: like one year ago, like mid when people were starting
Speaker 1: to fly again, and every time you went on Twitter,
Speaker 1: there was a new video of passengers going crazy, fighting
Speaker 1: with each other, fighting over fighting with the flight attendants.
Speaker 1: Like every day there was like a new TikTok video
Speaker 1: of passenger losing their ship and being a total asshole
Speaker 1: on a plane. So I don't know who at the
Speaker 1: idea or if it kind of came as a group mentality,
Speaker 1: but to do an ad for like an airline where hey,
Speaker 1: let's let all these air assholes fly, but like put
Speaker 1: them on one plane, um and just let them beat
Speaker 1: the ship out of each other. Do you want to
Speaker 1: travel and take out your pent up pandemic aggression on
Speaker 1: customer service employees? Hell, yeah you do, but society won't
Speaker 1: let you punch up flight attendant until now throw down air.
Speaker 1: The wheels are up, the ship goes down. It was
Speaker 1: super fun. It was a kind of thing like one
Speaker 1: of our head writers kind of wrote the script up,
Speaker 1: but it was one of those things where all the
Speaker 1: writers got to then go into the script and just
Speaker 1: like punch up and add jokes wherever they wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, add the color to it. One
Speaker 1: thing I was tried. I did come up with the
Speaker 1: tagline when the wheels go up, the ship goes down.
Speaker 1: So that was my contribution to the piece. I gotta
Speaker 1: tell you, we really appreciate that because we've got a
Speaker 1: major relief at a time when things were really stressful.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's scary for you guys those
Speaker 1: videos are you Your job is to keep everyone else safe?
Speaker 1: And now having to keep yourselves safe too, and these
Speaker 1: people are fucking assholes. Like yeah, as someone who's been
Speaker 1: in the airport and like seeing like these assholes out
Speaker 1: in the wild like I used to. Like Roy and
Speaker 1: I have both been traveling for a while, but it's
Speaker 1: like they people have gotten worse. People have become worse
Speaker 1: human beings out in public over the past two years.
Speaker 1: I do think that part of it is, like I
Speaker 1: have a I have a theory is that anybody in
Speaker 1: a form of service industry, the job of flight attendant
Speaker 1: is not exclusively service. It is part of it. So
Speaker 1: it falls to me in that same realm as as
Speaker 1: a waiter or a fast food worker in a sense
Speaker 1: that in my mind, you're here to do a service
Speaker 1: for me, and whatever whatever stressors happening to me outside
Speaker 1: of this moment, I could be having a bad boss.
Speaker 1: I like in those moments, I feel like that is
Speaker 1: the one opportunity that the customer gets to be the
Speaker 1: boss because someone else is bossing them or something that's
Speaker 1: stressing them, So I'm gonna take it all out on you,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't. I would argue that a lot of
Speaker 1: those moments are not solely exclusive to Oh, the waiter
Speaker 1: gave me bad service, you got my order wrong. It's
Speaker 1: that you had a bad day. You have a chip
Speaker 1: on your shoulder, you have bigger things un therapied, you
Speaker 1: have all types of stuff going on in your life,
Speaker 1: and you're taking it out on what amounts to essentially
Speaker 1: as an innocent bystander. Sarah, what do you think are
Speaker 1: some of the factors that contribute to all of this
Speaker 1: unruly behavior? I know, I'm sure in flight cocaine you
Speaker 1: all probably need to take that. Some people might like that. Um,
Speaker 1: what do you think contributes to all of this? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think listen, the stressors of the pandemic
Speaker 1: were huge, and having people the first time flyers, um
Speaker 1: where nobody knows what the program is was a major problem.
Speaker 1: You're you know, you're comparing this also to the what
Speaker 1: people on the front lines were facing, whether they were
Speaker 1: in a grocery store, working a restaurant job, or whatever else.
Speaker 1: And the only difference here is that for us, we
Speaker 1: were there primarily for your safety. Let me be very clear,
Speaker 1: and so if you act out on a plane, it's
Speaker 1: a federal offense. And one of the things that we
Speaker 1: said over the last two years is start prosecuting, make
Speaker 1: the a priority, prosecute, sit some butts in jail, and
Speaker 1: that finally started happen. Biden gave direction to Merrick Garland
Speaker 1: to make the su priority. They made it a priority.
Speaker 1: They had an m o U with that fa A
Speaker 1: about getting the reports over so they could speed up
Speaker 1: the process of investigating and prosecuting. And we finally just
Speaker 1: got some people sent to jail. And I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: it has a chilling effect, and so other people get
Speaker 1: the point and Cat I gotta say, you know, putting
Speaker 1: all the assholes on one plane is um is great,
Speaker 1: Like it's funny and we love it, and um, we
Speaker 1: got a huge release from that. But there's also some
Speaker 1: truth in it. There's thousands of flights that take off
Speaker 1: every single day, and frankly, this was a handful of
Speaker 1: people making a problem for everyone on board and and
Speaker 1: making and making the evening news every night and making
Speaker 1: it look like this is like everybody who's flying is
Speaker 1: out of control, and it's actually not true. Um. The
Speaker 1: truth is that most people come they want to follow
Speaker 1: the rules. They want to have a safe, fun, eventful
Speaker 1: of flight, and they want and they and they look
Speaker 1: to flight attendants for that leadership, And what happened for
Speaker 1: us during this time was that a few people were
Speaker 1: making it really difficult for us to express that leadership
Speaker 1: keep things in order, especially when everybody was essentially a
Speaker 1: first time flyer and everybody needed instruction and there were
Speaker 1: fewer of us, more passengers than ever before. How do
Speaker 1: we how do we expedite the process? Because I know
Speaker 1: alcohol plays a roll in it on some some airline bars,
Speaker 1: like in shout out to New Orleans chose to call
Speaker 1: at that airport. Oh my goodness, No, Louis Armstrong in
Speaker 1: New Orleans. Like I know, alcohol plays a rolling curtailing
Speaker 1: access to alcohol before you board a flight. But why
Speaker 1: can't we just get a no fly list? Why is
Speaker 1: it so hard to just establish it? If you don't,
Speaker 1: if you act stupid on a plane, you can't fly anybody,
Speaker 1: You can't fly any you know is or just because yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you can't at that flight attendants, they would
Speaker 1: not be happy about that, um, even though they were
Speaker 1: come on guys um. But in its roughly in spirit
Speaker 1: because they promote that right, come fly spirit for the
Speaker 1: first time every time. That's where the peak assholes go
Speaker 1: to fly. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, So shout out to those
Speaker 1: flight atones. They haven't they haven't actually anything harder than
Speaker 1: anybody else. Um, but you know, um, we worked really
Speaker 1: hard to get attention on this and and to get
Speaker 1: a no fly list. And the thing that is was
Speaker 1: incredible to us. You guys probably make it yourself. So
Speaker 1: you're like, I got Jerry on here. Jerry done, he's done,
Speaker 1: he's done. Um, no more coming on the plane drink.
Speaker 1: Can't do that, Jerry. And by the way, that is
Speaker 1: a federal regulation. Like some of this stuff was like airports,
Speaker 1: do your job, put the signs up, don't push alcohol
Speaker 1: on people. We had a huge problem because airports were
Speaker 1: trying to make money and they figured out during the
Speaker 1: pandemic with to go alcohol that oh wow, this is
Speaker 1: the way we can make money. So we're gonna actually
Speaker 1: we're gonna actually push this and tell people you can
Speaker 1: order alcohol at the gate. I mean it was insane.
Speaker 1: JFK has a robot. I mean, yeah, this is not helpful,
Speaker 1: this is not and it's not exactly sending the right message.
Speaker 1: So um So anyway, we here, we tried to get
Speaker 1: this no fly list. I mean, if you act out
Speaker 1: on a if you punch somebody on a plane, Uh,
Speaker 1: you don't get to go on another plane. Is that simple? Right?
Speaker 1: And we had all these people who were so for
Speaker 1: the terrorists no fly list, right, Um, like Ted Cruz
Speaker 1: who's like, oh no, we don't want to do this
Speaker 1: because he was really afraid that this was the people
Speaker 1: that he was representing who were a problem. He wouldn't
Speaker 1: be allowed to fly to. Can't That was so fear. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So all this all of a sudden, Yeah, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, these people who were like, yeah, every occasion,
Speaker 1: let's have a no fly list and let's be really
Speaker 1: like strict on these people and let's you know, treat
Speaker 1: this like everybody's in the military, all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they were like, oh no, we can't do this. We're
Speaker 1: gonna violate people's civil rights to be assholes on planes.
Speaker 1: So anyway, that's why we don't have no flylist right
Speaker 1: now for these people, um, is because those people stood
Speaker 1: in the way of getting it done. As an experienced drinker,
Speaker 1: I apologize on behalf of all of my fellow alcoholics
Speaker 1: because I can have my three beers before flight, get
Speaker 1: on and be perfectly pleasant. Oh listen, if people out there.
Speaker 1: If you know you can't handle your booze, save it
Speaker 1: for when you land. Hey and listen, listen, Cat, I
Speaker 1: I get that you are an experienced drinker and you've
Speaker 1: been trying this out in the last fourteen flights that
Speaker 1: you took, right, I'm a pro exactly, Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: so we're just gonna we're just gonna give you that
Speaker 1: bad um. But other people, listen, eight thousand feet in
Speaker 1: the air, reduced oxygen, they think they're pro drinkers. They
Speaker 1: get up in the air, it's a different story. In
Speaker 1: the year, there were more than seven thousand incidents of
Speaker 1: this nature of varying degrees of severity in the air,
Speaker 1: according to the f A Now and Catch Defense. Sarah
Speaker 1: cat is a former high school teacher. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's some sort of drink exemption clause. Yes, teachers,
Speaker 1: former teachers. Yeah, you know, that's an industry that's also
Speaker 1: primarily made up of women who are doing jobs side
Speaker 1: of their job description, Like teachers have to do so
Speaker 1: much more than just teach, So on the flight attendant
Speaker 1: side of that, Sarah, what are some things about that
Speaker 1: occupation that you wish more people just knew that you
Speaker 1: don't think we know, well, I gotta say. I mean
Speaker 1: you're you're bringing up to professions that have been traditionally
Speaker 1: defined as UM women's work. UM, and because of that,
Speaker 1: the professions have been devalued. We make less than you
Speaker 1: might think, and there's a lot of flight tense that
Speaker 1: because of that. Here's something that people should know. Um,
Speaker 1: most flight attendants commute by air to work because they
Speaker 1: cannot afford to live in the expensive hub cities where
Speaker 1: they're based. So when when these flights are full, that
Speaker 1: means that probably a crew member is not getting on
Speaker 1: the flight that they need to get on so that
Speaker 1: they can get to work and crew your next flight. UM.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's did they get charged for that or
Speaker 1: did they get to fly for free to get to work? Well, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we get to fly for free if there's
Speaker 1: a seat available, and you know, with all the automation
Speaker 1: and at the last minute selling seats, it's unbelievable. I mean,
Speaker 1: you can plan like we have for decades on getting
Speaker 1: to work on time and be watching these flights and
Speaker 1: they'll be half empty and you show up the next
Speaker 1: day at the gate it's completely full. Not to mention
Speaker 1: the fact that the airlines have had to pull back
Speaker 1: some flights at the last minute because they overpromised. They
Speaker 1: were trying to, you know, um schedule all these flights
Speaker 1: so they can compete with each other and get that
Speaker 1: market share at each airport, and they overpromised and couldn't deliver,
Speaker 1: had to pull back. So there's a cascading effect, not
Speaker 1: just for the passengers, but then if crews can't get
Speaker 1: to work, that makes things even worse. Right, So you
Speaker 1: have to do conflict de escalation. You gotta be a
Speaker 1: first responder in case the conflict doesn't de escalate. You've
Speaker 1: got to know how to get people off the plane.
Speaker 1: They and I would imagine at this point, are y'all
Speaker 1: taking combat training because like the air marshal might not
Speaker 1: be able to get to you. The air marshal lane
Speaker 1: on every flight they're not on the reflight. We're not
Speaker 1: supposed to tell you which flights they're on, but they
Speaker 1: always trying to guess, always like it's always the baby.
Speaker 1: You never think, but it's always the baby. Those babies, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta watch out. They are tough. Um. So, uh no,
Speaker 1: we actually take training from the air marshals. We we
Speaker 1: got this training. Just after eleven we were the first
Speaker 1: ones killed an eleven flight attends were um and uh,
Speaker 1: so we got this training and then um, it was
Speaker 1: mandatory the airlines had to provide it, and continental airlines
Speaker 1: at the time complained to George Bush and uh he
Speaker 1: found a way to make it voluntary and so then
Speaker 1: of course none of the airlines provided it because it
Speaker 1: was voluntary. So we got through T s A the
Speaker 1: Air Marshals to put together a program where we have
Speaker 1: crewment self defense training and it's voluntary for us to
Speaker 1: go get it, but at least the trainee exists. And
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, over the last two years, the
Speaker 1: sign up on those classes went through the roof because
Speaker 1: flight sense we're like, yeah, I need a little self
Speaker 1: defense training here to be able to do my job
Speaker 1: every days now can use a seatbelt like a nunchuck, Liken,
Speaker 1: just listen. The stuff that we learn in these classes
Speaker 1: is awesome. And um. They also the Air Marshals will say,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, rules of engagement and combat are of
Speaker 1: fair Like flight attendants, look around your surroundings. What can
Speaker 1: you use to destroy someone? But you don't, you don't
Speaker 1: have any time and you don't have any space and
Speaker 1: it's you were them. Yeah, and the duct taping thing
Speaker 1: is legit, right. You guys can duct tape people two
Speaker 1: seats like it's amazing about this. So it's not actually
Speaker 1: duct type. Um, the airlines would argue it is restraint tape.
Speaker 1: So let's be really clear. Okay, let's restraint tape. But
Speaker 1: some of the airlines have have tough cuffs on board.
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you everything goes down to
Speaker 1: a cost item um, so they have to have some
Speaker 1: sort of restraint device for the crew members. And uh,
Speaker 1: the restraint tape is the cheapest. So the airlines that
Speaker 1: only have the restraint tape, basically we're making a decision
Speaker 1: to have the lowest cost item for restraining when they
Speaker 1: get out of control. And so that's why you saw
Speaker 1: in Frontier that the passenger was taped to a seat,
Speaker 1: because that's what the fly ten has had. I could
Speaker 1: use duct tape in my classroom once or twice duck
Speaker 1: tape a kid to a chair, but they frown on that.
Speaker 1: You said you were an ex teacher, right, and that's
Speaker 1: why she's out of education. After the break, I want
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about union busting because I
Speaker 1: know that having a union is going to be one
Speaker 1: important said the postle. I also want to talk about
Speaker 1: how the role of the flight attendant has evolved. This
Speaker 1: is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back the role
Speaker 1: of flight attendant. It's evolved over the years. But there's
Speaker 1: been a history of sexism within your industry. And you know, Cat,
Speaker 1: you're an entertainment it's perfectly fine. There's no sexism over
Speaker 1: there now. It's very healthy. You can't relate to this.
Speaker 1: I'm only talking about seriously, put this one out. Is
Speaker 1: the sexism and gender discrimination is that still prevalent today
Speaker 1: in that industry? Sarah, Yeah, absolutely, we're still breaking through.
Speaker 1: I mean when the Me Too movement broke, I said
Speaker 1: to our comms people, I said, get ready, the phone's
Speaker 1: gonna ring. And they're like, what do you mean? And
Speaker 1: I said, because, uh, media is going to look around
Speaker 1: and say, who can we talk to, who maybe has
Speaker 1: experienced sexual harassment on the job. And I gotta the
Speaker 1: first thing I'm gonna say, let's call the flight attendants
Speaker 1: because everybody knows because we were not just objectified in
Speaker 1: our workplace like in a normal way. I mean, much
Speaker 1: like the entertainment industry. Um, we were sold. We were
Speaker 1: sold as sex objects. We were totally objectified. So people
Speaker 1: think that they can own us, they think that they
Speaker 1: can treat us a certain way. I've been a flight
Speaker 1: attendant for twenty six years, and I know what it's
Speaker 1: like to just do my job all day long and
Speaker 1: have people get my attention by tapping me on the
Speaker 1: rear end or um come up to me and the
Speaker 1: galleon start asking me about my hottest layover or start,
Speaker 1: or come up and start trying to massage me or
Speaker 1: touch me. And that's terrible. Yeah, they think they can
Speaker 1: do it. They think they think and when we have
Speaker 1: fewer staff on board to be able to deal with this,
Speaker 1: it's frankly really hard because our job is to de
Speaker 1: escalate all these issues in the air. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can't pull the plane aside and tell someone to get off. Um,
Speaker 1: you got to keep the temperatures down. So a lot
Speaker 1: of times. Uh. We did a big survey in our
Speaker 1: union and the response that we got from flight attendants
Speaker 1: was well, yeah, I don't I don't, I don't report
Speaker 1: at it um and I kind of just have to
Speaker 1: put up with it because um, there's I don't have
Speaker 1: time even to be able to deal with this. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of problems there and and we've made
Speaker 1: some huge strides in the last several years. And I
Speaker 1: want to really thank the women who broke the met
Speaker 1: movement because I gave us some space to push forward. UM.
Speaker 1: Prior to that, frankly, the women who were my mentors
Speaker 1: and who built this union UM knew that no one
Speaker 1: was ever going to make space for us at the table,
Speaker 1: that management held us in contempt. In fact, my very
Speaker 1: first week on the job, I was told listen, management
Speaker 1: thinks of us, and from a raspy voice of a
Speaker 1: flight who had been around smoking her entire career, because
Speaker 1: we had just gotten rid of smoking, right, and so
Speaker 1: she listen, Management thinks of us as their wives or
Speaker 1: their mistresses. In either case, they hold us in contempt.
Speaker 1: Your only place of worth is with your FAILI flying partners,
Speaker 1: and if we stick together, there's nothing we can accomplish.
Speaker 1: And I gotta say, you know, my my union was
Speaker 1: filled with a bunch of badass women who cut a
Speaker 1: path for us, But we never expected to get that
Speaker 1: respect from the public, from management, from anyone else. We
Speaker 1: were just going to take it for ourselves for what
Speaker 1: we could, and so when the me too movement broke,
Speaker 1: that opened up space for us to be able to
Speaker 1: push farther and say to management, this is unacceptable. In fact,
Speaker 1: I wrote a letter to CEOs and said you need
Speaker 1: to take this moment and denounced the sexiest past of
Speaker 1: this industry. Uh, say that there is a zero tolerance
Speaker 1: policy and hold up flight attendances as safety professionals. And
Speaker 1: three of them did it. So we made some progress there, uh,
Speaker 1: and we got some legislation through too, um, but we
Speaker 1: got a long ways to go. It's interesting that like
Speaker 1: your job is to like deescalate on the plane, and
Speaker 1: so like if you get sextually harassed, you just want
Speaker 1: to like kind of calm the temperature and move on.
Speaker 1: Which is interesting because that's kind of like what women
Speaker 1: are just trained to do in every scenario. Like as
Speaker 1: usually it's you know, a man harassing a woman, so
Speaker 1: usually it's you know, they have the physical size or
Speaker 1: strength advantage in most cases, so like we're just kind
Speaker 1: of women are in general just trained to usually just
Speaker 1: kind of deescalate, not make a big deal about it
Speaker 1: because you don't want it to become worse than maybe
Speaker 1: just an as tap or something like that. So it
Speaker 1: makes sense that you guys are de escalating for your
Speaker 1: safety and for everyone on the plane, where I feel
Speaker 1: like that's just such an a neat thing for a
Speaker 1: woman to do anyway, Like you guys are probably like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're used to having to do that anyway, because I
Speaker 1: feel like women are always having to do that absolutely,
Speaker 1: But I have to tell you, I mean, we're trying
Speaker 1: to change that. When we talk about the sexism within
Speaker 1: the industry, within your industry, and you know, cat jump
Speaker 1: in if it was similar to school teacher. I'm the
Speaker 1: child of an educator. My mother has been in education
Speaker 1: for thirty years. But it's it always seemed to me
Speaker 1: like flight attendants also had some level of regulation from
Speaker 1: the bosses on appearance. Has that changed from the past
Speaker 1: until the present, you know, like Hooters, Like there was
Speaker 1: a Hooters airline that was that was weird. But how
Speaker 1: was the regulation on women's outfits? How is that evolved
Speaker 1: over time? Oh? My god, I mean it used to
Speaker 1: be that every single flight attendant was handed the same
Speaker 1: pair of three and cheels that they had to wear.
Speaker 1: For example, um, and there were paper uniforms and UM
Speaker 1: marketing ads with uniforms where you take off different pieces
Speaker 1: of clothing throughout the flight. It was called the air strip,
Speaker 1: and so there were all these uniforms. Girdle checks like
Speaker 1: there used to be used to have to come and
Speaker 1: get girdle checks before you could go fly, and it
Speaker 1: was another way that you could sort of legally get
Speaker 1: harassed by management UM and put aside. And and then
Speaker 1: weight checks. I mean we had to step on a
Speaker 1: weight scale until UM so sorry. So if they wanted
Speaker 1: to humiliate someone, that would be like step on over
Speaker 1: here to the scale in front of everyone. Way, you
Speaker 1: in front of everyone, UM, and they just have to
Speaker 1: get on the baggage scale. They're like jump on, we'll
Speaker 1: do you next. Yeah yeah, sorry, you're over the limit.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to pay fifty bucks. So UM no,
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was really no, you're gonna
Speaker 1: lose your job, is what it was. UM. Or we're
Speaker 1: gonna put you on the weight program UM. And so
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to weigh in before every trip and
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to do that in front of everyone. UM.
Speaker 1: Flight attendants were pressured and even sometimes coerced by managers
Speaker 1: to take speed to try to lose weight. Um. These
Speaker 1: these are all the things that we had to fight through.
Speaker 1: And even by the time I was hired, luckily we
Speaker 1: had gotten the worst parts of that behind us. But
Speaker 1: when I was hired in X, you had to wear
Speaker 1: two on cheels in the concourse you had to go.
Speaker 1: I had to go through a day of makeup class
Speaker 1: where the men got the day off and the women
Speaker 1: had to not only go to learn how to put
Speaker 1: makeup on, but then you got judged every day about
Speaker 1: whether or not you had the makeup on. And if
Speaker 1: you didn't have makeup, like I was this sort of
Speaker 1: granola girl from Oregon. Um, just like totally clueless. Um,
Speaker 1: they made you buy it, so you had to also
Speaker 1: spend your own money to buy the makeup that they
Speaker 1: were trying to sit. It's just a nightclub or flying
Speaker 1: to trying to get somewhere. Why do I have to
Speaker 1: flirt with the men and then turn around and you
Speaker 1: wonder why the men and grab it asses We well,
Speaker 1: exactly and then they tell you, oh, you're lucky, you
Speaker 1: were one of two thousand people who applied for this position,
Speaker 1: and lines around the block, so you're totally replaceable too,
Speaker 1: so don't think about getting out a line. You know,
Speaker 1: so plain about these things. The dress code for teachers,
Speaker 1: I will say, was opposite. We were not allowed to
Speaker 1: show any cleavage and had to have long dresses. And
Speaker 1: I actually remember one day I had like a new
Speaker 1: dress that like my mom sent me, and I like
Speaker 1: put it on without trying it on first, and when
Speaker 1: I got to school, I realized that it was like
Speaker 1: super low cut and like my boobes are hanging out,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, ship, what do I do?
Speaker 1: So because I taught at high school and you has
Speaker 1: I'm super hot, so I had to I went and
Speaker 1: got toilet paper and tried to create like a fake
Speaker 1: tank top to like cover my cleavage, but it was
Speaker 1: just like toilet paper, and I was like, I think
Speaker 1: this might be worse. So opposite problems. But much like
Speaker 1: stand up comedy cat, the flight attended industry has no
Speaker 1: standardized guidance on how to report sexual abuse from customers.
Speaker 1: So when we talk about unionization, which also is something
Speaker 1: that's been impossible to happen in the world of stand up,
Speaker 1: what are the strategies, Sarah, Because like you see what's
Speaker 1: happening with Amazon, you know, in Starbucks where their employees
Speaker 1: are gaining a little bit of ground. And you know,
Speaker 1: right now, as it stands, right now, Delta is the
Speaker 1: only major US airline without a flight attendance union. And
Speaker 1: you know, and and they announced the was it earlier
Speaker 1: this year? Hey, we'll pay you while the door is
Speaker 1: open on the plane halftime. Nice. That was insane to me.
Speaker 1: I had no idea that was a thing. That you're
Speaker 1: not getting paid during boarding. That's crazy. Yeah, that's half
Speaker 1: of the ship goes. That's the worst part. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is why we organize, right So to that, to
Speaker 1: that point, Sarah, is what Delta is what they're doing
Speaker 1: because Starbucks and then you see what Starbucks is doing.
Speaker 1: Starbucks is like, oh, we're just gonna close. You're trying
Speaker 1: to unionize. Oh that's droving out of business fund to performance,
Speaker 1: whereas Delta is what Delta is doing. Is that part
Speaker 1: of a strategy to distract from unionization efforts or is
Speaker 1: it a step in the right direction. Oh it's both.
Speaker 1: I mean, so we we were thrilled this is going
Speaker 1: to set a new standard. I mean, if we keep
Speaker 1: organizing and we're all at the table right now, I've
Speaker 1: talked to other CEOs and I'm like, you realize they're
Speaker 1: all gonna have pay boarding pay now. And they're like, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we know, and ASA and you, we're allies at the
Speaker 1: negotiating table. We're going to demand more than til this pain.
Speaker 1: Yeah we know, we know. So, UM, this is what's
Speaker 1: going to happen. And UM, this is not a demand
Speaker 1: that really came to the table prior to nine eleven
Speaker 1: because we didn't Boarding just wasn't as hectic, you had
Speaker 1: more flight attendants, This wasn't something that was a huge requirement. Instead,
Speaker 1: what we did was we bargained for pay protections so
Speaker 1: that would have formulas to make sure that we're getting
Speaker 1: a minimum number of flight hours because our our pay
Speaker 1: is normally based on flight hours, and we were exempted
Speaker 1: from UM the Fair Labor Standards Act. That's the problem eight.
Speaker 1: The Congress set the standard here that pushed us out
Speaker 1: of any of the duty, um hour and rest regulations
Speaker 1: that a normal worker might get. So during this time
Speaker 1: staffing was cut, our planes got a lot fuller. The
Speaker 1: the mergers happened prior to the pandemic, and they cut
Speaker 1: a lot of capacity out of the industry. So it
Speaker 1: got harder and harder and harder for flight attense, not
Speaker 1: to mention the fact that our union was really successful
Speaker 1: in doing things like making sure that we have defibrillators
Speaker 1: on board. So our responsibilities around healthcare of the passengers
Speaker 1: just increased, Our security duties increased. After nine eleven, everything
Speaker 1: got harder. Um, but we weren't getting paid and so yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna get paid now. So is this is this
Speaker 1: good or is this a bad thing? It's a great thing,
Speaker 1: and we're saying great, this is why we organized. Delta
Speaker 1: did it to try to stave off the union drive,
Speaker 1: and we're so used to that. So they did it
Speaker 1: thinking they were going to kill the union drive. Actually
Speaker 1: what happened, Um, it totally backfired on Delta because what
Speaker 1: you were saying is exactly what happened. Delta thought they
Speaker 1: were gonna get heralded as the heroes and flight atens.
Speaker 1: We're gonna say, oh, we don't need a union because
Speaker 1: our management treats us so well. And instead the public
Speaker 1: was like, you weren't paying flight importing and they said, well,
Speaker 1: we're the only ones. And then the answer was still
Speaker 1: you weren't paying flight and um, so Frankly, I actually
Speaker 1: think that it just made our organizing drive pick up
Speaker 1: more steam because the flight attendants started to feel their
Speaker 1: power about what they could achieve when they came together
Speaker 1: and started trying to form the union, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: Delta did something that they said just three months earlier
Speaker 1: they would never do. Um. So when people start to
Speaker 1: feel their power and start to actually experience that they
Speaker 1: can make change, that only gets people more committed to
Speaker 1: getting that done. So the organizing campaign is just picking
Speaker 1: up steam, but Delta intended the opposite effect got them.
Speaker 1: What is it the four DS of union busting? Is
Speaker 1: it divide, delay, distract, and demoralize? Yes? Destruct? Oh no,
Speaker 1: not destruct, just demolish. Yeah, we can probably add two
Speaker 1: more ds. So who's driving that before we get to
Speaker 1: the break and start talking solutions. Who are the people
Speaker 1: that have been at the core of this change when
Speaker 1: it comes to unionize and this grassroot effort that's going on.
Speaker 1: You know, what would you say is the general makeup
Speaker 1: of this group of of employees. It's called people who
Speaker 1: know that no one laid out the red carpet for them.
Speaker 1: I mean, minors are un strike in Alabama for the
Speaker 1: same things that they fought for a hundred years ago,
Speaker 1: the eight hour day, vacations, sick time, a secure retirement,
Speaker 1: healthcare that's affordable. I mean, all of the things that
Speaker 1: they were fighting for a hundred years ago have been
Speaker 1: extracted from the workplace. And so people are understanding that
Speaker 1: more and more corporate power is a bad thing, and
Speaker 1: it's more and more inequality, and it's less and less
Speaker 1: opportunity for people. And so the same reasons that people
Speaker 1: formed unions a hundred years ago are the same reasons
Speaker 1: that unions are popular today. That average people, uh working people,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of people in this country, the working class,
Speaker 1: um know that nothing's nothing else is working, you know,
Speaker 1: if they can keep going to the polls and voting
Speaker 1: for people. But as long as the political process keeps
Speaker 1: getting tied up by the people with all the money,
Speaker 1: nothing's going to change. It doesn't matter how popular an
Speaker 1: idea it is. Of the public loves it. But you know,
Speaker 1: one person to the public says it's not going to
Speaker 1: happen because it's not good for us, then it's not
Speaker 1: going to change. And the only way to tackle capitalism
Speaker 1: is to tackle capital where it exists in the workplace.
Speaker 1: So you know who can take on a billionaire? Well,
Speaker 1: Chris Smalls, you know somebody who organizes their union can
Speaker 1: take on a billionaire, and that billionaire doesn't have to
Speaker 1: answer to anybody else. After the break, I want to
Speaker 1: talk solutions, and Cat, I want to talk to you
Speaker 1: about the things that you all weren't able to leave
Speaker 1: in the piece because of everything we've covered just now,
Speaker 1: How do you boil that down into just a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes. But Trevor, we are talking flight attendance and
Speaker 1: the importance of adding in flight shrooms to the food number.
Speaker 1: Beyond the scenes will be right back. You're dealing with
Speaker 1: an industry, Sarah, where you know greedy ceo s always
Speaker 1: undercutting the bottom line and making issues harder for you,
Speaker 1: which makes it harder for passengers who make it harder
Speaker 1: for you, the flight attendant who are there in their face,
Speaker 1: and then when you try to unionize, they undercut you
Speaker 1: by offering you crumbs. What can be done to improve
Speaker 1: the working conditions? And Cat, did you all explore that
Speaker 1: at all when you all were writing this segment in
Speaker 1: the show, Because it's so hard sometimes at the daily
Speaker 1: show where you can either talk about the causation or
Speaker 1: you can talk about the solution, but we rarely have
Speaker 1: time for both within a single piece. Did you find
Speaker 1: that to be the issue here? Yeah? I mean for
Speaker 1: this especially, it was like the and a lot of
Speaker 1: times it's about responding are responding emotionally, and this like
Speaker 1: the emotions of the videos, like looking at the anger
Speaker 1: of the passengers and seeing the real threats that we're
Speaker 1: facing flight attendants. I feel like we wanted to kind
Speaker 1: of capture the emotion that probably most viewers feel when
Speaker 1: they see that, especially as most people have had the
Speaker 1: experience of flying so they can relate. It's it's something
Speaker 1: everybody can relate to. So I think for this piece,
Speaker 1: we wanted to kind of get at that emotion of, uh,
Speaker 1: the pent up rage everybody has been feeling, but also
Speaker 1: like how to express that. I feel like it kind
Speaker 1: of came at a time where we were doing a
Speaker 1: lot of pieces of kind of like how to get
Speaker 1: back to real life and what does that look like?
Speaker 1: So I feel like we kind of came at it
Speaker 1: from that angle of like airlines and this industry is
Speaker 1: one more industry hit by the pandemic and also one
Speaker 1: more part of life that people are having to learn
Speaker 1: how to do again. So I think we kind of
Speaker 1: took it from that approach because, yeah, getting to what
Speaker 1: causes this, what are the solutions? I mean, we could
Speaker 1: do a whole week of shows on that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So you talked about what your union is doing from
Speaker 1: the legislative side, But what can we do just regularly
Speaker 1: me Roy Gold Medallion flyer O G much wows platinum
Speaker 1: and then they closed all the comedy clubs and status?
Speaker 1: What can we do to support flight attendant Sarah. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give some real practical things and then
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit more about you know, what
Speaker 1: the long term impact is here other than free massages. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I mean, frankly, recognize us as human beings. So one
Speaker 1: of one of the problems is that we don't even
Speaker 1: connect anymore as human beings. So when you're getting on
Speaker 1: a plane, just put the phone down. Second, let us
Speaker 1: know that you see us, we see you, and let
Speaker 1: us know that you have our backs. So if something
Speaker 1: goes down on the plane, we know you know who
Speaker 1: are helpers are. That's that's a huge help right there
Speaker 1: immediately on the plane. And then um, let us know
Speaker 1: when something is going wrong. When you see something, bruin,
Speaker 1: let us know as soon as possible, because there's fewer
Speaker 1: of us to see these things anymore. And the sooner
Speaker 1: we can get to issues and try to de escalate,
Speaker 1: the better off we're gonna be. Um. But long term,
Speaker 1: you know, frankly, uh, there's a contract of carriage that
Speaker 1: you sign off on when you buy your ticket, and
Speaker 1: any CEO would not go to work for an airline
Speaker 1: without their own contract and very clear about what they're
Speaker 1: going to make. And so talking to flight attendants about
Speaker 1: having their contract and getting engaged in their union and um,
Speaker 1: you know, giving us the power to fight for our
Speaker 1: workspace because that's your travel space too. Um, that's really helpful.
Speaker 1: And so cheering people on who are unionizing and cheering
Speaker 1: people on who are in contract negotiations. Um, that's helpful
Speaker 1: for the flight as sendance, and frankly, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: helpful for you as a passenger too. So we shouldn't
Speaker 1: just quarter planes like, yeah, hey, I'll tell you one
Speaker 1: of my solutions to hip flight attendants. They gotta stop
Speaker 1: putting yall in them this. Nobody respects of this. We
Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta overhaul a uniform. You gotta go
Speaker 1: club bouncers, singles, secret service earpiece, bomber jackets, that bomber jackets,
Speaker 1: the collar up if you if it's like nightclub bouncer
Speaker 1: type energy, I guarantee you people respecting. Right, you are
Speaker 1: combining two of my favorite things right now, because, um,
Speaker 1: you know the four DS. We talked about that before
Speaker 1: the union busting. So even if the unions there, management's
Speaker 1: still trying to bust the union all the time with uh,
Speaker 1: you know, divide, delay, distract, and demoralized, so distracting. Whenever
Speaker 1: there's contract negotiations, that's when they bust out plans for
Speaker 1: a new uniform because they're hoping it's totally going to
Speaker 1: distract people. So you are bringing my two things and
Speaker 1: putting them together. So you're saying some of the time
Speaker 1: when airlines changed uniforms, that's basically a couple going through
Speaker 1: some issues pretty much bought me a new ascot. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we got these uniforms. You know what, I'm I
Speaker 1: hope that the uniform committees at every airline, the uniform
Speaker 1: the union uniform committees are watching this and they're going
Speaker 1: to get some ideas, because you know, the uniforms always
Speaker 1: end up being um, a huge problem in terms of
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, yeah, I mean patricians, valet parkers. These are
Speaker 1: not people you're intimidated by. Uh, we'll get you out
Speaker 1: of here on this, Sarah. And it's a cliche question,
Speaker 1: but you're here and you've done this for many, many years,
Speaker 1: so why not ask you what's the weirdest experience you've
Speaker 1: had as a flight attendant? And you've got to vivy
Speaker 1: at We didn't even get into emotional support peacocks today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's the weird what's the thing? Give us one that
Speaker 1: stands out all time? Great? I know. So so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna pull from my personal repertoire because of
Speaker 1: course I get all the reports and I can tell
Speaker 1: you all the weird things. But you know, the weirdest
Speaker 1: one was when I was working a flight out of
Speaker 1: Vegas and it was an overnight flight and had no
Speaker 1: more flight attendants who were with me. Yeah. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this guy comes on, he's like six six, three fifty
Speaker 1: pounds and we're just trying to make space for everything.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I had these two. They were
Speaker 1: the first week on the job these two other flights.
Speaker 1: Once I was working with and then um, he starts
Speaker 1: acting up right after we take off. He goes in
Speaker 1: the bathroom, starts smoking, um, and it just keeps escalating.
Speaker 1: Then he peas all over one of the bathrooms, one
Speaker 1: of the labs. We had to lock that off. And
Speaker 1: then he decided he was gonna like pee on the
Speaker 1: back door. Um. Then he was going to try to
Speaker 1: open the back door. Then he decided he was going
Speaker 1: to do a strip tease in the middle of the
Speaker 1: aisle because you know, all the all the families with
Speaker 1: little kids that were on the plane thought that was
Speaker 1: really cool. Um. And I'm looking this is like real
Speaker 1: strongest man. Yeah. And I'm looking around. Remember I said,
Speaker 1: you know, put your phone down so I know you
Speaker 1: might be a helper. I'm looking around, Who are my
Speaker 1: helpers on this flight. I'm like, oh my god, there
Speaker 1: is nobody who can help with his three six but
Speaker 1: at six guy clearly on drugs. Um. So Anyway, I
Speaker 1: was a trained teacher yep, that's right, high school teacher. Um.
Speaker 1: And so I finally I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something. So I went to the back
Speaker 1: of the plane and I said to him in my
Speaker 1: best teacher voice. I was like, you s down, stop
Speaker 1: talking to other people, stop stripping, stop doing anything. I
Speaker 1: want you to keep your hands in your lap. And
Speaker 1: if you do that, we're gonna go to Chicago and
Speaker 1: you're gonna go off the plane in handcuffs in Chicago.
Speaker 1: If you don't do that, one more word out of you,
Speaker 1: one more little peep, and we're landing into one. You're
Speaker 1: is going to jail in Des Moines. And he sat
Speaker 1: quietly the rest of the flight, and then when we landed,
Speaker 1: the police came on, put him in handcuffs, took him off.
Speaker 1: Was like, choose your own prison, and he just picked
Speaker 1: Chicago over De Moines. He did, he did. I'm sorry
Speaker 1: De Moin, but um, yeah, that was what this dude, that,
Speaker 1: that was what got to him. And then um, the
Speaker 1: other two flights tends quit. Oh no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: love that. It's like it was like that Lady Hooks
Speaker 1: and the old Police Academy movies, a little soft spoken
Speaker 1: black woman. She finally hit up. She was finally fed up.
Speaker 1: Kat what about you? You've flown a lot. It's the
Speaker 1: weirdest thing you've seen. I would say, like the biggest
Speaker 1: asshole I've seen in the airport. It seems it's somewhat harmless,
Speaker 1: but it was this woman pushing her like Louis a
Speaker 1: ton luggage all stacked up, like pushing it around the airport,
Speaker 1: but not on a luggage cart, on a wheelchair like
Speaker 1: one of the airport wheelchairs. And so a man from
Speaker 1: the airport came over to her and he was like, oh, miss,
Speaker 1: you know you can't use the wheelchair for your luggage,
Speaker 1: and she discus, oh, no, it's fine, No one was
Speaker 1: using it. And I thought, I hope not like she thought.
Speaker 1: People were worried because like someone was using it. We're like,
Speaker 1: what we think you like dumped a body out of
Speaker 1: this wheelchair to put your bags on top. That's such
Speaker 1: a great like just answers. It's like the old days. Field.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, officer, I didn't know. I couldn't do that.
Speaker 1: I can't do that. This has been a wonderful, wonderful discussion. Sarah,
Speaker 1: I cannot thank you for being a part of this.
Speaker 1: That's all the time we have for today. Thank you
Speaker 1: to our I guess Captain Sarah, and thank you all
Speaker 1: for going beyond the scenes with this. Thanks right, Thanks Sarah,
Speaker 1: Thanks Ryn Cat. The Daily Show with Trevor No Ears edition.
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