Cousin Kaitlyn the Flight Attendant

Finishing making up the coffee and confirming how much milk and sugar Kaitlyn liked, I carried both cups into the living room and handed Kaitlyn hers.

"Thanks," she said, taking it from me and having a sip.

I became aware that the house was a bit stuffy, probably from having been closed up for a fortnight. "I'll just let some fresh air in," I said, opening the living room blinds and sliding open the window, looking out at my small front garden with a variety of plants, and across the driveway to the adjacent unit where the retired couple who lived there had kept a watch on my place and collected the mail.

"Oh no, that's no good!" I said.

"What's that?" Kaitlyn asked.

"Where's my view of the Pacific Ocean and Surfers Paradise?" I laughed. "Or my view of the Brisbane City skyline from my hotel there?"

Kaitlyn laughed. "Time to start saving up for your next holiday I think."

"It would be so interesting to be a flight attendant, getting to travel as part of your job," I said as I sat in an armchair near Kaitlyn. "You must get to travel to so many different places."

"Well in the past six days, I've been to every state and territory in Australia."

My eyes went wide. "Wow! How did you manage that?"

Kaitlyn elaborated. "Well, on Sunday my schedule was Adelaide to Sydney, then Sydney to Canberra, then back to Sydney and finally back to Adelaide in the late afternoon. And the weather was so different. It was fine and sunny at home in Adelaide, very wet in Sydney and humid and overcast but not raining in Canberra."

"What about Monday?"

"Well, on Monday it was Adelaide to Perth, then Perth back to Melbourne - and we flew over Adelaide I could see it from the plane - then Melbourne to Adelaide and back in time for tea."

I was impressed. "Where can I sign up? I want to be a flight attendant too!"

Kaitlyn laughed. "On Tuesday it got really interesting. I was initially on the early morning Adelaide to Brisbane and then supposed to go to Sydney and then back to Adelaide, but when we arrived some flight attendants who were supposed to be rostered on Gold Coast to Adelaide in the late afternoon called in sick and they were scrambling to find covers. So they asked me if I would like to go down to the Gold Coast airport and take that flight instead, so I said yes. Because there was so much time I caught the train down there, then had lunch in this café in Cavill Avenue, saw the sights around Surfers, had a browse around Pacific Fair in Broadbeach and then on the bus down to Coolangatta and on the flight back home to Adelaide."

I was astounded. "So you were in Cavill Avenue having lunch on Tuesday? What time?"

"Around about noon."

"I was down there too around the same time. That's amazing, we could have been just meters apart."

Kaitlyn was also amazed. "It's been one of those weeks, that's for sure. Us meeting for the first time in 15 years, and Melinda and Belinda."

"When did you go to the Northern Territory and Tasmania?"

"On Wednesday, my flight was Adelaide to Darwin in the morning, then as there's only one flight to and from the Northern Territory and South Australia each day, we had a bit of time to pass, so we caught the shuttle bus into town and had lunch in Mitchell Street. It's transitioning from wet to dry season up there at the moment, so it was a hot and sunny morning, a humid and rainy afternoon. Darwin's really great, all the tropical vegetation, lots of colorful characters and amazing sights. Like when we were in the city, we saw a cattle truck go by with a water buffalo in the back."

I laughed. "You must see some amazing things."

"That's very true, sometimes on planes, other times in airports and other times in the cities where we stop. Finally on Thursday, it was Adelaide to Hobart, Hobart to Melbourne then back to Adelaide and Tasmania was getting an early blast of winter. It was windy and freezing cold, rain teeming down and it was one of those flights where you have to embark and disembark on the runway. I couldn't believe I'd been in Darwin where it was so hot just the day before."

I was envious. "It sure beats doing balance sheets, profit and loss and cash flows in an office all day. I wish I was a flight attendant too."

Kaitlyn gave me a smile. "Be careful what you wish for, it might come true."

"So how long have you been a flight attendant?"

"Since 2003, so this is my sixth year now."

"What made you decide on that career?"

"I've always worked in hospitality type roles and never nine to five," replied Kaitlyn. "I was a waitress in my teens, then I worked at a hotel in Adelaide on the front desk reception. I really liked that job and did it for a few years, but when the hotel was taken over by an overseas company I was one of the ones made redundant in the restructure. From there I was working casual shifts at a news agency at the airport, but while I did like that job it wasn't a full time role and wasn't going to lead to a long-term career. I'd seen the cabin crews going through the airport and I thought that a flight attendant might be a good fit for me, so when the airline was recruiting I applied."

"Was it hard to get into?"

Kaitlyn nodded. "Oh yeah, but I was one of the lucky ones. I got short listed for an interview, selected for the training program and qualified first time. The entry requirements and training are very intense, a very high attrition rate. I remember one girl in the training program, she'd applied nine times and this was the first time she'd got in, but she didn't make the grade in training. I felt so bad for her."

Kaitlyn stretched and then said, "Mind you if I'd still had the same health problems I had when I was a kid I wouldn't have gotten anywhere near being accepted. But in my late teens I outgrew my asthma and my eyesight improved. I still wear contacts, but my eyes are way better than they were back then."

"It must be such a rewarding career," I said.

"It sure is," Kaitlyn agreed. "There's some things that you never get tired of, like the descent into Adelaide you go low over the city and the parklands around the Torrens River with the Lofty Ranges in the background, I see it most days and always love it. And this week, every day has been a breeze, the only weird thing was that guy wanting tea and coffee mixed together when we were serving beverages. Other times, when passengers do any of my pet peeves, then it's not such a great day."

I smiled. "And what are some of Flight Attendant Kaitlyn Miller's pet peeves?"

My cousin laughed. "It's not just Kaitlyn Miller's pet peeves, its most flight attendants. Passengers who are late to board the flight which by the way costs thousands and dollars and chaos for the control towers at both airports if we leave late, passengers taking off their shoes and having smelly feet, passengers who won't watch the safety demonstration, passengers who argue about opening the plane window shades during landing and take-off, passengers who block the aisle when we're trying to get the food service carts up and down, parents who won't control their children and passengers who are rude."

"You must have a lot of patience to deal with the rude passengers."

"It does take a lot of patience," Kaitlyn assured me. "Like when people click their fingers at me, that's so obnoxious. Or physically touching me. It's bad enough when they grab my arm, but trying to get my attention by tapping me on my arse as I walk by, that's just not on."

"That's awful, don't they have any manners?"

"It they do, they leave them at home," said Kaitlyn. "It was worst on the Bogan Express."

"The Bogan Express? What's the Bogan Express?"

"That's what we called the shuttle service to Bali and back. We all hated getting rostered on for those flights. It went something like this. Load plane with bogans in Australia. Fly bogans to Bali. Unload bogans in Bali. Fill plane with second consignment of bogans. Transport bogans back to Australia. Rinse and repeat the next day."

"I didn't know you had international services, I thought your airline was only Australian domestic flights."

"Most of the time yes. But we've had a New Zealand service for quite a long time, flights to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch but they only operate out of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and I've never worked that route. The Bali flights, that was to try and get into that market but it never really worked that well, too much competition from other carriers and wasn't really profitable even out of Perth. Then there was the GFC, so the Bali service was cancelled and good riddance too."

"Bali isn't your preferred tourist destination then?"

"No way," said Kaitlyn. "And I used to dread those flights. Bogans yelling at me, 'Hey Trolley Dolly, get me a fucking beer!', bogans singing 'Oh why are we waiting?' when there was a delay, bogans having burping and farting competitions, bogans making homophobic comments to male flight attendants, being told I was nothing but a glorified waitress by bogan mothers I had asked to control their unruly kids, and some creep telling his teenage sons not to listen to anything I said when I told them to stop mucking around as it was probably my time of the month."

"What a lot of pigs," I said, appalled that anyone would behave this way.

Kaitlyn laughed. "I think transporting a plane full of pigs to and from Bali would have been easier than the bogans. But there's some challenging enough passengers on domestic flights too."

My interest was aroused. "What sort of passengers?"

"Some are just weird," Kaitlyn said. "Like one time, a morning flight from Sydney to Perth, we were delayed taking off and this guy kept complaining that daylight saving was the reason that he was going to be late getting back to Perth. Don't know how he figured that one out. Actually, daylight saving is another problem. Like on the border of New South Wales and Queensland where they have it in New South Wales but not Queensland, you get people late to or missing flights from the Gold Coast Airport because they got the time wrong. And they tried it in Western Australia the last few years, but not the same times as in South Australia and the Eastern States, and the locals didn't seem to like it much and I think this was the time they're having it. It should just be standard across Australia, but I think there would be too many problems with confused cows and roosters and curtains fading."

I remembered in childhood Kaitlyn and her parents didn't like daylight saving time as it might anger God if men meddled in such things, but thought it best not to bring that up and listened as Kaitlyn continued.

"Other passengers are just inconsiderate," said Kaitlyn. "Another time there was a family with a number of kids on a flight from Melbourne to Perth, and the kids kept playing the theme song to a show starring a big purple dinosaur over and over and over again."

I laughed. "That sounds painful."

"It was. Each time that we asked the parents to turn the music down they would apologize and do it, but then the music would go up again. Worst of all, it took three days for me to get that bloody song out of my head."

Again I laughed. "It's stuck in my head now, so thanks. What other bizarre things have you seen?"

"On one flight Perth to Adelaide there was this fat guy. I mean really fat, morbidly obese. More than 450 pounds easily. They had to have a special crane to get him aboard the plane on the tarmac, and he took up three seats in an exit row, wearing this giant smock over an adult diaper for supersized people."

"That's so embarrassing," I said.

Kaitlyn nodded. "Yes, but worse was there was a big group of teenagers flying home to South Australia after a sports competition. They kept laughing, making fat jokes and taking photos of the fat guy without permission. The fat man's mother was getting really upset, and then his back was playing up and he was moaning and wailing and his mum ended up in tears."

I shook my head. "Kaitlyn, you seem to be jinxed with Perth."

Kaitlyn smiled. "I actually really liked Perth, I had a holiday there once. I wouldn't want to live there, but it's nice for a holiday. But yeah, most of my worst flights aside from the Bali route involved Perth, maybe because it's such a long way away from the other cities? When I was first starting out, a man on the Perth to Sydney red eye had a heart attack. Lucky there was a doctor on board, and there was an ambulance waiting on the tarmac when we arrived. But the rudest passengers I've ever met were on an evening Brisbane to Perth flight last year."

"What were they like?"

"They were a group of six girls flying back to WA. When you've been doing this job a while, you get an instinct as to what passengers are going to be like. I'd seen these girls in the terminal, and I just knew they were going to be trouble. I'd seen them drinking in a bar, and then they bought two bottles of wine from the young guy at the wine sales stall, but when they boarded they didn't have any wine with them, so I suspect they secretly drank it in the airport. I wouldn't have boarded them but it wasn't my decision so we were stuck with them on a five and a half hour flight across the country."

"Were they as bad as you thought they would be?"

"Worse," Kaitlyn confirmed. "Rich bitches, complete and absolute spoiled brats, every one of them. Rude, disruptive and demanding, putting their seats right back and their bare feet up on the seats in front never mind the other passengers and they sure didn't take it well when we refused to serve them more alcohol. Worse still, there were really strong headwinds that night so the flight took closer to six hours. Anyway, we're finally there and descending down over the Darling Range. The seatbelt signs are all on, we're just doing some final things before taking our own seats when the alpha girl in that group - this blonde bitch - takes off her seatbelt and pushes past us and into one of the toilets."

My eyes were wide. "What happened next?"

"Well, you can't land with a passenger sitting on the toilet so we had to notify the pilots and abort our landing at the last minute and circle, causing problems for the airport staff, control tower and other flights. That little brat was on the toilet for over 20 minutes taking her own sweet time. When we finally landed the captain was furious obviously as were some of the airline managers in Perth, and there were some words exchanged. That girl was unbelievable and completely unrepentant, she said, 'Okay then, so next time I'll just sit in my seat and shit my knickers' and then she warned us about making a big deal out of this. You know, she trotted out the 'Do you know who my father is?' line, he was apparently some prominent politician in Western Australia. He did a really great job raising his daughter I have to say."

"That's so dangerous to do what she did, I hope she got banned from your airline."

Kaitlyn shrugged. "I don't know what ended up happening, but I think Daddy would have saved his daughter's arse from any serious trouble. That girl and her friends are good examples of what happens when you never use the word 'No' to your child."

"So was she your worst passenger?" I asked, finding it hard to imagine anyone worse.

Kaitlyn shook her head. "No. You get intense training on emergency procedures like the cabin depressurizing or evacuating the plane that you hope you never have to use, and fortunately I've never been in that situation, but there was one passenger who completely lost it one day. That was terrifying, really dangerous."

"Was that on a Perth flight as well?" I asked.

"No, it was only Sydney to Canberra so practically straight up then straight down again. But it didn't make it less scary. I'd seen the passenger when we were boarding, he looked a little bit nervous but that's not unusual, otherwise he was just a guy aged in his mid-30s, shirt, tie, trousers, glasses, skinny build and clean cut, looked like a public servant. Anyway, we take off from Sydney and we couldn't have gone any further than the Blue Mountains when he starts up, shouting out about Osama Bin Laden and September 11, how much he loved watching the planes crashing into the World Trade Center and the twin towers burning and then collapsing. He said how he wished that more people had died, that the Pentagon had been completely destroyed too and that the fourth plane had hit its target."

I was shocked. "He sounds like a psycho. You don't say things like that, especially on a plane unless you want to go to prison."

"You don't say the word bomb on an aircraft either, but he did that too, getting out of his seat while the plane was still in ascent and yelling that plane was full of bombs that were going to explode at any minute. He then said that he was going to break into the cockpit, kill the pilots, take control of the plane and crash it into the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Opera House or Sydney Tower, or that he would take it all the way to Canberra and fly it into Parliament House."

"You know, I remember hearing about that on the news," I said. "It was a big story at the time. I can't believe you were on that flight. That would have been so terrifying."

"Believe me, it was," Kaitlyn conferred. "We tried to restrain him, but he was really strong and broke free and was ranting and raving about how Asians were spying on him and giving the information to the police and army so they could hold meetings about new ways to plot against him; and about how black people were stalking him, and wanted to abduct him and make him live on a UFO."

"What happened next?"

"Well, the captain wasn't sure whether we should turn back or keep going, but because the Australian Capital Territory was close air traffic said to keep going, rather than have other planes circling over Botany Bay for us to get back. Lucky there were four federal police officers who were on the flight, they helped us capture him and he was arrested. All the way he kept right on screaming about September 11, planes blowing up and UFOs, and we were not only met in Canberra by the police but psychiatric services too. The passenger got carted off in a straight-jacket to the loony bin, where I hope he remains to this day."

"I've changed my mind, I don't want to be a flight attendant anymore," I laughed.

"I don't blame you after hearing about that," agreed Kaitlyn. "But like I said, far more good things happen than bad things in my job so I wouldn't change what I do for the world."

"Your parents must be really proud of you," I said. Kaitlyn had not mentioned her parents as yet, so this seemed a good way to broach the subject.

For the first time, I noticed a crack in Kaitlyn's composure, and her body language became stiff and defensive, if only for a second. "Yes, very proud," she said quickly before asking, "So how are your Mum and Dad, Aunty Lorraine and Uncle Don? And Aunty Jean and Uncle Richard?"

"They're all really good," I said. "How about Uncle Neil and Aunty Mary? What are they doing nowadays?"

Again, Kaitlyn seemed ill-at-ease when I mentioned her parents, and her response was again short. "They're fine". Then once more, she diverted the topic again. "How about Grandma? I mean I heard Grandpa died a few years back but only weeks after his funeral and I'm sorry about that, but I never heard anything more about Grandma."

"Oh, Grandma's great," I affirmed. "She's living at a retirement village near Oakleigh, really fit and active and bright for her age. She's 90 this year would you believe?"

"Wow, 90-years-old where have the years gone?" Kaitlyn mused.

At this moment my mobile phone rang, and I looked at the screen, seeing my mother's caller ID. "It's Mum, probably wanting to know I got back safe," I said. "Haven't I got big news for her?"