This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@juno.com. Sex and Absurdity in the Not-Always-Friendly Skies February 13, 2002 By JOE SHARKEY ELLIOTT HESTER'S new book has gone into a second printing, and that's probably a good sign. It suggests that we are starting to come out of it. Though the commercial aviation system remains under the tightest security measures ever, and new warnings keep coming about terrorist threats, the book's success shows that we can at least laugh again about the fundamentally miserable, and altogether unnatural, experience of traveling by air. The book is "Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant's Tales of Sex, Rage and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet," published Jan. 14 by St. Martin's Press. "It was originally supposed to be released Oct. 3," said Mr. Hester, who has been a flight attendant since 1985. But early October was no time to be promoting a book that has chapter titles like "Payback for a Condescending Jerk," "Pass the Defibrillator, Please," and "Lechery at 30,000 Feet." So it was delayed for three months, till things calmed down. Another terrorist attack would, of course, revoke this immediately, but now, deep in the winter of 2002, there is a sense, especially among business travelers and other frequent fliers, that flying is starting to return to normal. Calculating traffic route by route, a few major airlines have been quietly rebuilding flight schedules that were cut as much as 20 percent after Sept. 11. Yesterday, for example, America West Airlines said it had restored flights between Las Vegas and New York, Boston, Dallas and Denver. And in a definite sign that normalcy is struggling to break out, United Airlines customers have been growing increasingly worried about the possibility of disruptions from a threatened strike by the airline's mechanics. • Mr. Hester sees normalcy returning in the way that frequent fliers have resumed old habits. "Initially, right after the skies reopened in September, there was this tremendous sense of camaraderie,"he said. "People were making a point to talk to the person in the seat next to them. People would say, `God bless you' to the flight attendants; they would shake my hand. It was clear that passengers realized, for the first time, that we were literally all in this together." He added, "I've had guys come up to me privately and say, `Look if you need any help, let me know.' " Lately, that overt foxhole fellowship has waned. "People have sort of fallen back into their old routines," Mr. Hester said. "And that's good in a way." It's certainly good for a flight attendant who, like Mr. Hester moonlights as a writer dependent on the amusing, if sometimes annoying, foibles of the traveling public (not to mention his airline colleagues), for the anecdotes and observations in his book, and in his monthly syndicated column, "Out of the Blue," which is published in several daily newspapers. Material comes from all sections of the airplane. But business travelers, who of course fly more than most people (and are therefore exposed to far more, shall we say, stimuli from the airlines) often provide the kind of anecdotes that leave flight attendants fuming and muttering dark imprecations to one another in the galley. "High-powered people sometimes get on an airplane and feel insulted by the fact that a 22-year-old flight attendant is telling them what to do" or not hopping fast enough in response to barked orders, Mr. Hester said. Among the secrets Mr. Hester shares is one that might annoy business travelers who live for those upgrades to the first-class seats that airlines routinely bestow on frequent fliers. Flight attendants receive a passenger information list that has pertinent information on it about the customers, including who is an "upgrade" and who has paid the full fare. "I hate to say this, but when you have trouble, it's usually from an upgrade," Mr. Hester confided. Still, flight attendants tend to be egalitarian in their assessments. Most customers, regardless of the fare they paid, are courteous and pleasant, but it only takes a single stinker or two to ruin someone's day in a crowded airplane 30,000 above the ground, and Mr. Hester says that trouble can start anywhere. "I've come to the conclusion that 2 percent of the traveling public is certifiably insane," he writes, adding: "The percentage is slightly higher for airline crew." As regards his book, long-suffering frequent fliers are probably less interested in flight attendants' gripes about one another or about the customers, and more interested in the suggestion, in the "Tales of Sex" that Mr. Hester cites in the subtitle, that some other passengers are having more fun, and it has nothing to do with a mileage upgrade. But isn't the fabled "Mile-High Club" - membership supposedly restricted to those who have had sex at 30,000 feet and higher - mostly an urban, or tropospheric, myth? Absolutely not, Mr. Hester insists. "Mile-High Club liaisons are most common late at night, when lights are low" and take place in isolated seats or in cramped lavatories, he writes in the chapter, "Lechery at 30,000 Feet." Many details ensue. Mr. Hester says that though such behavior is "often thwarted by storm-trooper flight attendants who threaten to summon security upon arrival, most of my colleagues are like me - they turn their back on passenger lasciviousness just as long as it doesn't disturb other passengers." Mr. Hester quotes a United Airlines spokesman who told him, "Although no one is getting hurt, this type of activity is not to be tolerated." Another chore for the overworked flight attendant. Still, Mr. Hester says, he would not trade his day job with one of those highflying grunts hunched over a laptop and a Scotch in the first-class cabin, or the frolickers in the back seats. "Over the years I have traveled to probably 40 different countries on my own, not counting layovers," he said. "I live the life of a wealthy man without having to have any money." http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/13/business/13TRAV.html?ex=1014633070&ei=1&en=0e99891e20ce2f9b HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company