My Favorite Flight Attendant

I’m sure you’ve read the news that airline employees are required to get vaccinated or face losing their jobs. At my airline, the percentage of those vaccinated is very high; only a few hundred are refusing. One of the few is my friend (and favorite flight attendant), who I’ll call Lola to protect her privacy. 

Lola lost her job this week.  

I don’t know if I’ve ever shared how lonely this job can be, especially working for a large airline. Flight attendants are like an army. There are thousands of us, and our schedules change on a whim. So making friends can be hard. Even after 26 years of being based in SFO, I still show up on the plane and have to introduce myself to most of the crew. My husband used to say that I’d come home from every trip with a new best friend. It’s true that for however many days the trip lasts, we often get close. We share our stories, hang out together, and have each other’s backs. But afterward, we may go years (or forever) without seeing each other again. 

That’s what happened to Lola and me. I first met her on a trip to Hong Kong over 20 years ago. We hit it off instantly and spent the layover together, but then she disappeared. When we finally ran into each other, she said, “Oh my God, I’ve been looking for you for years.”  

She and I are kindred spirits. We like to do the same things, and we laugh at the same things. Well, mostly, I laugh at her. Lola is full of mischief and curiosity, and she can make any trip fun. Like Hong Kong! After running all over the city for two days, we deadheaded home together in first class. (When you deadhead, you get paid to fly as a passenger.) In those days, employees had to wear business attire to sit in first class. Since I hadn’t packed a dress, Lola encouraged me to wear my nightgown. It was opaque, and it really did look like a dress. I hope! Anyway, I remember sitting in my pajamas drinking Dom Perignon with her for most of the flight. We must have been getting too loud because I also remember the crew looking a little nervous.  

The next time I had the privilege of flying with Lola, we went to Vancouver. Lola’s favorite corset shop happens to be in Vancouver, and she needed to get her corset serviced. So, off we went to try on corsets. After that very fun errand, we ate and drank our way through the city and the rest of the day. We stopped in a donut shop, an oyster bar, a regular bar for drinks, and a restaurant for dinner. After all that, I really could have used a corset.

In fact, the next day, Lola wore her corset under her uniform -rendering her completely useless. She forgot that flight attendants don’t just stand around looking curvy and pretty. I had to pick up everything she dropped that day because she couldn’t bend over. In fact, I had to do all the bending, lifting, pushing, and pulling while she just stood there looking curvy and pretty. 

Too many years later, Lola and I worked a Paris flight together. She had plans to meet up with some guy she met on a dating app, but I talked her into canceling. I pointed out that she didn’t know if she even liked this guy but already knew she liked me. She agreed with my reasoning, and we took off to Monet’s gardens and former estate at Giverny.       

And that’s it. In 20+ years, we’ve only flown together three times, but those three layovers are some of my very favorites. You just don’t meet a kindred spirit every day. It’s rare. She’s rare. And I hope she gets her job back after this pandemic finally ends, and we get to have more adventures together. She’s an excellent flight attendant. The company is lucky to have her as an employee; passengers are lucky to have her as a crew member, and I’m lucky to have her as my friend.