Hey there pilots, flight attendants, scheduling, and all manner of airline employees,
By the time you read this, you will all have had a part in transporting my mother-in-law to Philly for our family Thanksgiving- she insisted on traveling the day of for the cheapest ticket which I’m sure tells you everything you need to know about her.
She’s come to eat soup at 4pm and belittle me in front of my children, and she’s all out of soup
To everyone in management/the gate agents who had to calm her down upon reading the fake doctor’s note insisting on a free First-Class upgrade for an “unspecified lower lumbar injury”, my deepest apologies. She saw a suggestion thread on Reddit and refused to heed our mortified pleas to NOT.
To all the pilots she encountered on her 3 connections (did we mention her miserly booking process?) who were told very bluntly that their ties were ugly and their flights were too bumpy, we see you. We know it’s a cloudy and therefore turbulent time of year. She thinks because you’re the pilots you control the airline, and assumes if she screeches loudly enough she’ll get miles- in her defense, it worked at her local Applebees.
To specifically the female pilots, we cannot apologize enough when she inevitably shrieked at your laziness for “never coming out to help your fellow stewardesses”, and/or attempted to deplane in a panic upon realizing via your announcements that you, a woman, were flying the aircraft…though really, that might have been better for you.
To all the flight attendants, we know you had to list off your beverage list 7 times each service only for her to berate your lack of Lipton Iced Tea, and we know she made at least one of you cry because you ran out of sandwiches. If it makes you feel any better, we’ve been hosting her for 12 years now and my wife still weeps in the pantry after the inevitable stuffing critique.
We send this along since, we honestly don’t know how you all do it on a good day, let alone a holiday, let ALONE a holiday that is supposed to be all about thankfulness and generosity. We can see you all have both qualities in spades, or why else would you be a willing participant in all of this?
We see you transporting aisle yoga enthusiasts, and people who insist on booking seats for their cellos or celebrity dogs, passengers who decide to watch My Girl and sob audibly in the middle seat, people who start collective sing-a-longs, businessmen who order gallons of apple juice, and worse. And you fly them around every day for very little thanks (sometimes they hand you full diapers which feels like the exact opposite of thanks).
And scheduling, you unseen and unsung work horse that’s plowing this entire operation forwards, we see you too. Juggling more flights than ever before, with your 97th sick call on the line, and a nor’easter up the coast, and you, just a single mom who works too hard, who loves her kids, and never stops…
…that last part was indeed the intro to the hit show Reba, sorry, I got a little off topic; my mother just arrived and my wife is hyperventilating.
Just know, we see you all, we thank you all; if it’s any consolation, she’s no longer your problem, and we’ll be thinking of you as I down my 3rd glass of red as the very woman who prompted this letter asks me incredulously if I’ve had enough, and informs me that my father had more money and hair at my age, while my wife carves the turkey with a disturbing amount of gusto.
Happy Holidays to us all!
To be fair, scheduling, we think you too have gentle hands and the heart of a fighter