A former flight attendant revealed the most “traumatic” routes to work and why.
Skye Taylor, 48, worked as a flight attendant at Virgin Atlantic Airlines for 17 years before the erratic schedules caused insomnia and the drunk, drugged and unruly passengers pushed her to her limit.
“There are a lot of crew who campaign to have certain routes where alcohol is not supplied to people because it used to get that bad,” she told the Daily Star.
The traumatized flight attendant revealed that Thursday night flights to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and the Caribbean were the most dreaded among her crew.
“The main problem I think you have is [Conor] McGregor fights and big events in Vegas where it is rowdy and it is mainly men on the flight. I have had loads of incidents of just rudeness, they don’t listen, they congregate in the cabin and it is really really dangerous,” Taylor shared.
“I’ve never been attacked, but verbally? All the time. It is horrible up there. Sometimes it feels like it is going to get out of control and it is not a nice feeling.”
“I’ve had people hide alcohol, smoke vapes in the toilet, being really rude to the cabin crew, trying to grab the cabin crew, people screaming in your face. You go out to the galley and people are helping themselves in the bars. It can be absolutely horrendous.”
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However, the former flight attendant doesn’t believe it’s just alcohol that’s influenced passengers’ unruly behavior.
She claims to have noticed an increase in passengers taking and misusing prescription medications — especially sleeping pills — which have “completely changed” people’s personalities at times.
“Especially on LA routes, it used to be quite traumatic for some crew. The people can be on quite a lot of substances like Xanax and all this kind of stuff coupled with drinking is just a recipe for disaster,” Taylor said.
And just because they have a first-class ticket, doesn’t mean they have first-class behavior.
Taylor revealed that the majority of issues occurred with upper-class passengers.
“If you have big names in the upper class they would take advantage of that. They know they are important and they have paid an awful lot of money to be refused a drink,” she said.
And some passengers aren’t just refused a drink but aren’t even allowed on their flight. Another flight attendant recently shared the real reason why the crew greets you at the door.
“Did you know that your flight attendant greets you not only out of politeness?” Rania, a flight attendant with Hungarian budget carrier Wizz Air, wrote in the caption over footage of her making an inflight announcement.
She revealed that their greeting is “to check whether you are too drunk or sick to fly,” adding that it also is helpful “to see who could help us in an emergency.”
