Flight Attendants Have it Rough

I feel the job of flight attendants--essentially Waitresses/Waiters in the Sky, who must service customers at 30,000 feet while trapped in a tube-- has got to be one of the most trying jobs on earth. I've got a few attendants (formerly "stewardesses") in my very own family, and they, unlike I, must have dispositions perfect for it or I'd hear more complaining from them. Regardless, our flight attendants deserve more respect. Their responsibility bites. People suck.

Here's an excerpt from Salon on bad passengers by Elliot Neal Hester on my favorite gross airline passenger, Gerard B. Finneran. Click here to read the rest of the article about more ridiculous passengers.


April 13, 1999 A few years ago on a United Airlines flight from Buenos Aires to New York, Gerard B. Finneran, an investment banker, went totally bonkers. Newspaper accounts said that after becoming intoxicated, Finneran demanded more alcohol from the flight attendants. When they refused, he began helping himself to the liquor supply. After being cut off a second time, he became visibly angry. He pushed one flight attendant (federal offense No. 1), verbally threatened another (federal offense No. 2), interfered with a third who was assisting a sick passenger (federal offense No. 3), then walked up to the first-class cabin, dropped his pants and defecated on a service cart in plain view of the passengers and crew. Then he stepped in his own feces and tracked it through the main cabin (federal offense Nos. 4, 5 and possibly 6).

Finneran was arrested upon landing in New York. He subsequently pleaded guilty to assault and was sentenced to two years probation. In addition, he was given 300 hours of community service and a $5,000 fine and was ordered to pay more than $50,000 in restitution to the airline and to reimburse fellow passengers for the price of their tickets. (Not surprisingly, Finneran's lawyer said his client was "ill" when he committed the now infamous in-flight atrocity.)