Passengers in Perspective

Perhaps I'm more aware of the passengers in the back than my captains tend to be. They've all been doing this so much longer than I have. I'm sure they're desensitized somewhat, and certainly we never let passenger inconvenience get in the way of the aircraft safety. But I couldn't help but feel badly for those 45 poor people who had to sit back there all the way to Terrace (almost 2 hours), then watch the scenery retreat behind us as we turned and headed all the way back to Vancouver. The tragedy of it was, there wasn't a cloud in sight. It was the middle of August. But, dense valley fog is just as prohibitive to us as a driving storm. Apparently, telling them that the Smithers and Prince George turned back as well made them feel a little better. Let me tell you, after 3.8 hours in the air, that lavatory needed servicing when we arrived back at the gate. Phew.

Our passengers are a varied bunch. Most of them are quite nice. One guy brought the entire crew footlong Subway sandwiches on his way to Terrace. Apparently he does this every single flight. I enjoyed mine immensely while in cruise at 25,000. The next day, our Captain told the flight attendant and I, "You two missed the best part: there were cookies at the bottom of the bag!" He shared them.

In retrospect, it struck me that this was quite a dangerous thing to do, bringing food to the crew. How did we know that this guy hadn't bought these sandwiches, spiked them with PCP or cyanide, and them handed them to us? Security doesn't take food away from passengers. If I was a more paranoid person, I would be really afraid right now.

But this guy was just a nice person who liked to show his appreciation to his flight crew for taking him home. And we appreciated it. What's wrong with that? Let's hope no one ruins a good thing.

On the other end of the spectrum: I've had a passenger who suffer from anxiety and literally had to be hand-held by our flight attendant; a young child who knew more about warplanes than I did; a mining worker who was so drunk we almost denied him boarding; a girl who tried to make a cellphone call as we were climbing through 12,000 (I knew no one listened to those announcements); and one particularly nasty woman who complained about our flight attendant to the Captain, while the poor flight attendant was standing right behind her (a word about that: I could never do their job). All types travel by air. And because of the flight-deck-security rules, I never seen any of it. We hide in our little room-with-a-view up front, and occasionally catch a glimpse of the back if the flight attendant comes up to visit.

It's getting easier to forget to that there's an immensely large airplane following along behind me. The simulators were so real that once the flight deck is closed, it's hard to tell the difference. Every now and then, especially when I look over my right shoulder out the rear side window to see my wingtip and engine following along behind, I get a glimpse in my mind, like a flash of lightning outside a window illuminating a dark room, of just how much of the machine is back there out of sight. Not to mention the 51 people a mere 5 feet behind that door. Sometimes at those moments, I get a quick flash of the same feeling I had during training: "Why I am here? I don't deserve to be here. I'm such a pretender. POSER..." That's not true, of course. I'm good at this job. I've gotten lots of compliments from colleagues and training staff, not to mention the odd jumpseat rider. But it's a welcome reality check.