You won’t believe the tricks flight attendants play

HAVE you ever wondered what pilots and stewards get up to when they’re bored? Here are some of the best pranks they play on each other — and passengers — on those long flights.

Flight attendants and pilots play tricks on each other — and passengers.

HAVE you ever wondered what pilots and crew get up to when they’re bored?

According to Sarah Steegar, a flight attendant with a major US carrier for the past 15 years, they often play tricks on each other — and fellow passengers. So be nice to the crew , or you could end up their next target!

“The most traditional prank is probably the ‘air sample’ trick, where new hires are sent running through the cabin wafting a trash bag overhead, which they dutifully deliver to the cockpit for ‘air quality testing’,” explains Ms Steegar.

If the pilots are doing the pranking, they can order this air sample and/or ask for it to be delivered to someone on the ground.”

The next prank involves a huge bin stretcher; the pilots claim they “forgot the keys” and that they could be lost in there. One problem: key starts aren’t actually required on commercial jets!

“I appreciate that, in hindsight, all of these seem so obvious, but as a new employee everything appears possible. Or it’s too scary to refuse. Ahh, the sweet gullibility bred by a probation period,” says Ms Steegar.

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Thankfully she didn’t fall for any tricks herself, at least not all the way. However, there was a time when the pilots called her to the cockpit as they approached Montreal, saying they needed her to translate the control tower’s landing instructions (as the on-board French-speaker).

“Luckily I had experience with the Québécois accent so I was able to stumble through for long enough — totally unconcerned that I was repeating fragmented jibberish since I didn’t know what kind of codes and numbers the pilots might be listening for anyway — only to catch on to their smirks and then have to pretend that I knew it was a prank all along.”

It’s more delicate to play with passengers, of course, but some can swing it. Ms Steegar says one flight attendant she works with is legendary for his tongue-in-cheek antics. “If he’s bored he might do his “Spoon Service” trick where he offers everyone in business class a spoon from a silver tray (“Would you care for a spoon? … Would you care for a spoon?…”), only to go right back and collect them again without having offered any food (“If you’re finished with your spoon, sir?”). There are lots of responses that give us a good giggle,” says Ms Steegar.

Spoons, anyone? Spoons???!!

“Also, back in the day when we had a full-on cheese board, he was known to bring a hunk of Velveeta (a highly processed and common American cheese). He’d make a little flag label for it and all. You’d be surprised how many passengers requested it alongside their brie and Roquefort. Not so posh after all!”

Sarah Steegar’s regular column, Crewed Talk, can be found every Tuesday on Flytertalk.com. She is happy to answer your airline and travel questions at @FATravelWriter.