Former Flight Attendant Shares Bizarre Stories from the Skies
Ann Hood, an American novelist and former flight attendant for TWA in the 1980s, recently spoke to CNN about her unique experiences during the tail end of the golden age of air travel.
Airlines in Transition
According to Hood, when she was hired, flight attendants were still largely seen as ornamental fixtures on planes. However, as the 1970s progressed, the industry was transitioning, with the term "flight attendant" becoming the gender-neutral term for what was once known as "stewardesses" and "stewards." Additionally, the U.S. government was preparing to deregulate the domestic airline industry, paving the way for major changes.
Despite these shifts, air travel in the 1980s was still largely a glamorous and elaborate affair, with flight attendants serving as "beautiful, sexy decorations," as Hood puts it.
Stereotypes about flight attendants wearing revealing uniforms and flirting with male passengers persisted, as popularized by books like "Coffee, Tea, or Me?"—a memoir supposedly written by two flight attendants, later revealed to be a fabrication by American Airlines marketing executive Donald Bain.
Weight and Marriage Restrictions
Becoming a flight attendant in the earlier days came with some outrageous requirements, including age restrictions and the threat of termination for getting married or pregnant. While these had been lifted by the time Hood became a flight attendant, other bizarre conditions remained.
One of the most shocking, Hood says, was the requirement for female flight attendants to maintain the weight they had at the time of their hiring. "Every airline sent you a chart with your job application. They looked at your height and your maximum weight, and if you were over what was considered the ideal weight, they wouldn't even interview you," she said.
Once hired, female flight attendants were not allowed to gain weight, at least not at TWA. Hood says she had to remain 10 pounds below her hiring weight. "My roommate was fired because she gained weight. It wasn't until the 1990s that that rule was lifted, which was really terrible," Hood said.
Training and Plane Preferences
Hood was one of 560 people hired as flight attendants by TWA, then a major U.S. airline, in 1978. She and her fellow trainees had beaten out approximately 14,000 other applicants for the positions. TWA was later acquired by American Airlines in 2001.
Hood's job began with an intense training course in Kansas City, where flight attendants learned everything from aircraft parts to emergency medical procedures and the safety protocols for seven different planes. This included the Boeing 747, then known as the Queen of the Skies.
The 747 was daunting to Hood because of its sheer size. It had a spiral staircase leading to the first-class cabin, which she had to navigate often, increasing her risk of falls. Her favorite plane, on the other hand, was the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, which was used in the U.S. only by Eastern Airlines and TWA. The L-1011 TriStar was a wide-body aircraft with a convenient two-plus-four seating arrangement that made it easier for passengers to get in and out. It was also a passenger favorite.
She says flying in those days was still a glamorous and luxurious experience. "People dressed up to fly, and they remembered the food on an airplane in a very positive way. Air travel was a very different thing than it is today. It was more like being in a luxury hotel or maybe on a cruise ship," Hood said, adding that she wore uniforms designed by Ralph Lauren and served passengers gourmet meals like steak, Russian caviar, and lobster Thermidor with Dom Pérignon champagne.
Behind-the-Scenes Realities
The job wasn't all glamour, however. Smoking on airplanes was rampant, creating challenges for flight attendants. "If you worked a five-day trip, which was not uncommon, you would pack an extra uniform because you would literally smell like an ashtray when you got off the airplane," Hood said.
What about passenger intimacy? "It was not uncommon on international flights to watch a man go into the bathroom and then a minute later, the woman sitting next to him would go into the bathroom," Hood said, adding that such incidents weren't typical but did happen occasionally.
"International flights were far less crowded than they are today, and in the middle section of a 747, which had five seats across, you would see a couple pull down the armrests, put blankets over them, and kind of disappear into it. I don't know what they were doing, but it couldn't have been anything good," she told CNN.
Passengers hitting on flight attendants or asking them out on dates was also common. "I did go out with passengers, but it usually ended in disaster. It was never what I thought it would be like. The one exception was in 1982, I met a guy on a flight from San Francisco to New York. He was in seat 47F, and I ended up dating him for five years," she said.
Over the course of her career, Hood witnessed no shortage of strange things on airplanes. On one flight, she saw a woman in first class who appeared to be breastfeeding her cat. On another, a passenger rode a bicycle up and down the aisle of a 747 flight between the U.S. and Frankfurt, Germany.
"I would say 80% of the job was fun and 20% of it was boring. On some flights, especially flights that weren't very full, there was a lot of time to kill. You could only serve people so many meals, so many drinks, show them so many movies. Mostly, I made my job more interesting by talking to people. I love to connect," Hood said.
Hood left her job as a flight attendant in 1986 to focus on her writing career. By then, the airline industry had changed dramatically. Airline deregulation, which had begun in the late 1970s and culminated in the complete removal of government control over pricing and routes, had a profound impact, permanently altering the way Americans traveled by plane.
Despite the changes, Hood says she is incredibly proud of her service in the skies and encourages anyone who qualifies to consider a career as a flight attendant. "I was 21 when I was hired, and it gave me confidence, it gave me poise, it made me think for myself. I think being a flight attendant for a couple years can really change your life," she said.