Flying with the Rich and Famous: True Stories from the Flight Attendant who flew with them (2 page)

But to this day, every time I buckle myself in and we are sitting at the end of the runway preparing for takeoff, I’m truly excited to hear the initial roar of the engines winding up their powerful turbines preparing for our blast into the sky. I suppose it’s the anticipation of the unknown, and it’s at this moment I am truly peaceful. There’s never been a doubt that I am where I am supposed to be.

Chapter 2: Sky Roads

What a Private Jet Is Really Like

Business aircraft have been in use for years, but most people are not aware of their existence, let alone the magnitude of their impact. Beginning in the early 1900s, corporate flights were started by a farmer’s innovative aviation interest. He built a plane out of wood and fabric and flew it from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. Then, the end of World War II contributed to the transformation of military jets to business jets.

There are roughly 11,000 business jets in the world, mostly in the United States. A private jet can be of enormous value, mainly because of the freedom it allows the owners to go where they want when they want.

There are many different types of business and personal aircraft. They range from a small plane like Sheila- my father’s
Bonanza, all the way up to large jets like the airlines fly. Some fly even farther and faster than the airlines. The airplanes I fly are roughly the size of a motorhome. They are tall enough to accommodate a six-foot man and vary greatly in width and length.

The movie studios have fleets of jets, and some have jets on both coasts, ranging from helicopters all the way up to the “big dog” airplanes. If the studios are promoting a new film and the film stars are going on tour, they might take one of the jets. Sometimes they take a mid-size jet that would not have the need or room for a flight attendant, but if it’s across the country or overseas, then they take the large jets, the Gulfstreams and Challengers, the jets that I fly.

Many celebrities, like John Travolta have their own jets. He’s a plane enthusiast, and he has had a Gulfstream, among other aircraft in his private fleet, for years. Tom Cruise, Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, and Oprah Winfrey, just to name a few, all
have private jets. Many major corporations own jets—American Express, Hewlett Packard, Disney, Wells Fargo, and Sony, for example and there are many, many more. In addition, a great number of wealthy individuals have private jets, some renowned and some low profile. And let’s not forget Air Force One, which is any plane the Unites States President is in but usually a Boeing 747.

Just like anything else, private jets vary in price. A brand new Global Express or Gulfstream can cost upwards of fifty million dollars. An older Gulfstream or Challenger can be picked up for under ten million dollars – but watch out - some of them will break down all the time, some of them are too noisy for popular destination cities, and some of them are major gas guzzlers!

A corporation purchases them mainly for business use. If a major corporation has a meeting in a rural destination that takes three commercial airline legs (number of connecting flights) and
six hours to get to, they are certainly going to take their own private jet that will get them there in two hours. Or if they have to be in Europe on a specific date and time, they are again going to take their own aircraft. Not to mention it is safer for the CEO of a major corporation to be with his private security on his private jet than on a commercial airplane. Plus they can get a ton of work done on the way and have a much better dinner! They also use them for vacations and other side interests and hobbies, or they may “loan” them to their friends who have a special need for a private jet – this is the case when I get “loaned” too. They also loan them to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and other philanthropic organizations.

Then there are companies that obtain them in order to charter them for a hefty fee. Let’s say you are a regular private jet customer and your regular private jet charter has chartered all their aircraft that weekend. You want to take your new date to San Francisco for the weekend (think the movie
Pretty Women
here). The charter company will call everyone they know in order to get you a jet. “
Sorry we don’t have one available
” is not an answer! Private jet charter is a very viable and lucrative business when the economy is good, however not so much when the economy is bad. Look at the last ten years...

Then there are those individuals who just have a lot of money. These guys – or gals, are usually a blast to work for. Normally, they are very easygoing, drama free, down-to-earth, kind and sweet as the day is long, etc. -
usually
. Some of them can be the most demanding pigs on the planet. I have always been lucky with these kinds of owners, really lucky. Almost all of them have treated me so incredibly wonderful - as you will learn later on. All are different to work for within the realm of corporate aviation.

A corporation-owned aircraft is often more desirable from the crew’s point of view because, plain and simple, they have more money. The almighty dollar—yen, euro, yuan, franc,
riyal, pound, real, posada, peso—is a vast consideration in this business. It affects airports, transportation, fixed base operators (FBOs), hotels, catering, pay, everything, which affects our jobs and the passengers we fly.

A charter outfit either owns the jet outright or manages it for another company or individual. It’s relatively common for a corporate or individually-owned jet to charter when it’s not in use, to offset the cost. Just parking an aircraft overnight can cost more than $2000 depending on where you are in the world. The management or charter operation can provide everything for the jet, including crew, maintenance, and inventory or they can provide nothing but shelter. A huge benefit to working charter flights is the tips. A charter client will often tip the crew - some of the tips are an outstanding bonus on top of our regular pay.

Having a private jet available to you and your desires is a profound convenience for those who can afford it. It’s profound to me, and I have to work the flights! There’s no security, no
timeframe, except for those pesky cities that have noise abatements and don’t want a forty million dollar dog whistle awakening their residents at three in the morning. There’s no one to tell them “no” to anything. If they can pay for it, they can do it. They can drive their car or limousine right up to the airplane, get out, get on, and go away. Well, they do have to take two pilots with them. They can take a flight attendant or not, or a flight engineer/mechanic or not, up to thirteen (some hold more) of their best friends or not. They can take twelve strippers and a monkey if they want!

These airplanes are kept at fixed base operators, or FBOs. This is where the airplane fuels up, gets catering, maintenance, a bath, or whatever else it needs. They’re usually located across the tarmac from the terminal or at one end of the runway. Some aircraft are housed inside the hangar (airplane garage) and some outside. Passengers start and end their trips at the FBOs if the airfield has one. Some airports have a few FBOs and some have
none.

When you first step aboard a private jet, it’s awe-inspiring. It is truly the ultimate in travel, sophistication, comfort, elegance, and spaciousness. There’s plenty of room—room for everyone to spread out and get comfortable and do so in the most luxurious surroundings. You might become aware of a crisply dressed flight attendant standing in the rear, waiting to meet your every desire, and two cocky pilots—oops, I meant competent pilots—tending to your luggage before they whisk you away.

These airplanes have long, sleek lines of striking wood panels and large plush club seats surrounded by exquisite head and sideliners and custom, fire-retardant carpeting. The club seats are on either side of the plane and there’s an aisle down the middle from the cockpit through the passenger cabin, galley, and into the lavatory (although, some have forward galleys and/or lavs). These jets are sparkling clean and neat like a formal living room, but once in the air they can morph into a quaint theatre, a
cozy bedroom, a five-star restaurant, an important boardroom, or a lavish celebration, all while soaring through the sky at 500 miles per hour.

No two jets are alike. Unless ordered from the get-go by a corporation, they are all completely different, except that they’re all fabulous. There are many options in the interior configuration. Besides the inviting club seats that recline and swivel, there might be a stylish divan where a weary traveler can stretch out and read a book or have it made up into a bed for a serious snooze on Egyptian cotton and cashmere. There can be a four-top table, fundamental for a vital meeting or a rowdy game of poker—way fun!

Some airplanes have a credenza overflowing with fresh flowers, an abundance of appealing snacks or the latest issues of the world’s leading magazines. A larger private jet might have a full-size bed and maybe even an entire bedroom. Let me tell you, lying on a bed as you lean and sway with the airplane is the
ultimate in sleeping pills. The lighting and music can be adjusted to create a comforting and peaceful ambience, especially at night.

The galleys are a gleaming combination of polished wood drawers and cabinets and lighted, overhead partitions where the crystal stemware hangs. These gorgeous galleys blossom into gourmet kitchens with everything one needs to prepare a mouthwatering meal at 35,000 feet. They carry exquisite china and cutlery and unique wares for all sorts of ethnic creations. In the rear of the jet is a beautiful, over-sized lavatory with all the necessities one can imagine.

The resources used on the inside of these deluxe modes of travel vary greatly. I have seen one hundred percent goose-down-stuffed seats, baby-soft lambskin-covered seats, the finest ultra suede head and sideliners, raw silk head and sideliners, twenty-four carat bathroom fixtures, exotic wood cabinetry and paneling from the depths of the Brazilian rainforest and even granite galleys, which are very expensive due to weight. The
carpet is usually quite unique with maybe a company logo or pattern of some sort in the weave. I have seen crystal so delicate and thin that, if you sneeze, it breaks. The linens on a private jet can be of the utmost quality, so fine and expensive that it pains me when one spaghetti dinner reduces them to rags. I have folded the softest cashmere blankets and hand washed exquisite silver cutlery. I have also hung the most outrageous full-length fur coats and gawked over large diamonds that would barely fit on a perfectly manicured finger.

Operating the stereo and DVD equipment on an airplane can be the most trying challenge on the planet or as simple as using a car stereo. One aircraft I flew had such intense stereo/DVD equipment I felt I needed an engineering degree just to turn it on, let alone get it to function. On a favorite Challenger of mine, if the DVD wouldn’t play, you would have to bang on the bulkhead behind it, and then, magically, it would come alive. I have found that the best eclectic crowd-pleaser movies to have
on hand are the classic Johnny Carson Tonight Show interviews, especially when a few people onboard are waiting for late arrivals (someone is always late). It’s difficult to be irritated while you’re watching Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and Frank Sinatra in all their glory. A motto for my life would be “Hurry up and wait!” because that’s exactly what the crew does. I have waited for passengers for hours and hours and hours and hours. I am not exaggerating – we as a crew once waited six hours for a family to show up. We were told every hour that “they were on their way.” They actually did show up – no kidding – six hours late. And we still had to fly a five hour flight. Never forget your book in this industry or you will go stir crazy!

When a private jet is ordered, we have to design the interior configuration, deciding whether the galley should be forward or aft and what it will include. Some galleys are very small and hard to work, and some are large and equipped with most everything you need to please even the most finicky
connoisseur. We have cold storage like a refrigerator, but it’s the outside air blown in that keeps it cold. We have standard ovens, microwaves, coffee makers, and toasters. There’s hot and cold running water and some have instant-hot spouts that deliver boiling hot water in minutes (a huge help with tea drinkers). Some sinks are small and it’s nearly impossible to do dishes in them, and some are large and take up too much counter space, which is usually sparse to begin with. Depending on owner preference and logistics, we may do all dishes onboard or none; they can be given to the FBO to do for us – we usually let the FBO’s do them for the sanitation purposes. There have been times when I had no choice but to do the dishes in a bathroom sink in the middle of nowhere - you do whatever it takes. There are ice bins for clean ice and ice bins to keep the sodas, water, beer, and wine cold - aka- dirty ice. We have pantry-type space and we carry a smaller, vastly more expensive version of what’s in your kitchen right now.

I designed a couple of galleys I thought were pretty darn close to perfection, but everyone has an opinion, therefore every galley is completely different. The only standard in the industry is that there is no standard. Some galleys make sense while you’re working them, and some you might be moaning about the whole time: that the trash bin is in a stupid place or the ice drawer is too small or the coffee maker is hard to get to, or, or, or—every flight attendant bitches about something in the galley.

One aircraft might be perfectly organized and one might be a haphazard of nonsense everywhere. Inventory has no rhyme or reason from one aircraft to the next. Even if you’ve flown a particular airplane before, the next time you come aboard it might be completely rearranged. Every flight attendant thinks her way is the right way. So, when you’re on descent and it takes a while to find the hot pad to remove the cookies from the oven, the cookies slowly slide to the front of the baking sheet, creating some very funny-looking cookies.

The private jets I fly carry only the finest quality products available. Standard issue includes fifty to one-hundred-dollar bottle wines as well as premium liquors, nuts, chocolates, and designer water. The cuisine can be spectacular! Usually, we order a selection of food we’d like to serve from the finest caterers in the city we’re in. We can order just about anything, and the caterers deliver the food directly to the aircraft, where I will arrange it to meet my in-flight needs. These catering bills can be staggering, jaw-dropping expensive, but the result is outstanding. I almost always have a fruit and cheese tray or a crudités platter for nibbling, on top of all the dry snacks we carry (no munchies left behind). Basically, I am the purchaser, hostess, maître d’, line cook, waitress, busboy and dishwasher, and high speed snack technician. Let’s not forget nurse, safety guru, and your-way-out in the event of an emergency.