Flight Confidential

This is a tale of mile-high grappling, trips to Las Vegas and high jinks of all kinds, 53,000 feet above the earth. Longani dishes the dirt on what it means to be a hostie. And for anyone who has ever flown or has wanted to fly, this is the insiders view.

After 12 years of flying as a hostie and cabin manager, Longani decided to hang up his smile and pick up his pen. What he details is life in a flying tube filled with the servers and the served. The servers are frequently tired from hopping continents and how they behave depends on how they feel. The served can behave but very often feel that if theyre paying, they need to be waited on hand and foot. Things get worse when alcohol flows or when the lady hostie has a glad eye.

Longanis method is to start with a story from his childhood or somewhere outside his usual flight path, which triggers a cabin memory, either good or bad. Ten hours or more of jet setting can result in many kinds of experiences that range from the obnoxious to the sadthough more vividness of dialogue and description would be welcome. Trendy words like gazillion just scratch the surface. The author is very clear that he is the man in charge who, while he might make a few sharp comments when he thinks the passenger deserves it, is rarely in the wrong. His sins err on the side of spying on people making out under duvets in First Class and inviting a bored crew to watch.

Air India in its early days would hand out a booklet playfully warning passengers that when they disembarked, their hostess would embrace them in true Indian fashion. What she would actually do is go through their pockets to check for stolen cutlery Air travel has stayed the same in some respects. Add to that the fact that toilets overflow and meal choices run out, and you have the ingredients for chaos. Passengers, Longani says, need to remember their manners when they are in a public space with 300 other people. Most of them are thankless and quite a few greedy and some of them drop deadas two very similar stories about immigrants tell us. Just remember whose hands youre in.