The worst flights I've ever worked

Telegraph

15 hours ago

At the back of the plane, the rival stags lunged at each other, their aggression fuelled by one-litre bottles of duty-free alcohol, suspected drug use in the toilets, and the whoops of their lairy mates. Clutching the phone receiver as she repeated her call for urgent assistance from the cockpit, Kristina Galvydyte, 32, watched as her tiny fellow stewardess plunged between the men in a bid to break them up.
'It was just absolute chaos, they were screaming – imagine a night out in any British town at midnight on a Friday,' she says. 'It was like that.'
Only this wasn't some high street, it was 30,000ft in the air on a flight packed with passengers somewhere between Edinburgh and Alicante.
There were three stag groups on board – and just four stewardesses. One group had become verbally abusive after draining their duty-free faster than the crew could confiscate it (it's prohibited to open onboard). The second group took offence, sparking a confrontation. 'We were absolutely outnumbered,' says Galvydyte.
Thankfully, her colleague's brave intervention worked – though the pandemonium continued until police boarded after landing. 'It was the worst flight I ever had,' she confirms.
However, competition for that particular title is fierce. On another flight, she was 'asked to strip' by a drunken passenger; on a different occasion, a woman who'd mixed beer with medication projectile vomited on her.
More tragically, she recalls colleagues working a flight where a passenger overdosed on cocaine. 'Other passengers were complaining to the crew about them,' she says. 'That's when they decided to get rid of the evidence.'
She pauses, then explains how traumatised one former colleague still is. 'The whole crew was… they all had compassionate leave.'
Galvydyte cuts a small figure but is no-nonsense – she makes it clear she's not easily intimidated. Yet she quit her job as a stewardess for a British-based airline (which she prefers not to name) three years ago, and says a friend still in the industry is now desperate to leave 'because of the behaviour of passengers'.
Could it be even worse now? 'That's correct,' she says curtly, her disgust unmistakable.
This month, Ryanair announced it would fine passengers removed from flights due to their behaviour a 'minimum' of £500 – and will continue to pursue civil damages. It's the latest move by Europe's largest airline to address an escalating, industry-wide problem.
Chief executive Michael O'Leary has already called for a two-drink limit to be enforced at airports, telling The Telegraph last year: 'We don't want to begrudge people having a drink. But we don't allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet.'
A stewardess for six years, Galvydyte points to destinations such as party island Ibiza – where some airlines now operate a 'dry bar' – as well as Turkey and the Canary Islands, especially Tenerife, as hotspots for 'horrendous' flights. But these days, she says, any journey can take a turn.
While she believes British passengers are the worst offenders, it's not just men who become aggressive. Women do too. 'They target your appearance, your accent – they observe you. It was a woman who made me cry.'
She recalls that the middle-aged culprit was part of a hen do. Taking over the back of the plane, the group were loud and sweary, repeatedly shouting the 'B-word' – 'b------ on tour,' she remembers.
'I was like, 'Hey, you can't swear like that. This is a family-friendly flight…'' – but it continued.
As passengers waited to disembark, the woman cornered her. 'She started telling me I was really bad at my job, that I shouldn't be working here, that I should just quit. And… really personal insults,' Galvydyte recalls. Once they left, she broke down in tears.
Another stewardess tells me she was punched by a female passenger in her 50s. Still in the job after more than two decades with a British-based airline, she's asked to remain anonymous.
'She was drunk, and I'd told her I wasn't serving any more alcohol. But then she made friends with others in the row, and they gave her some,' she recalls. 'Her behaviour got more aggressive, so I told her it wasn't acceptable – and she just launched into a tirade, calling me a c---.
'We were coming in to land, and I think I asked her to sit down… and then she just stood up and punched me.'
The stewardess saw it coming and turned so her face was narrowly missed – the blow landed on her shoulder instead. She and her colleagues managed to get the woman back into her seat.
'They had to bring a wheelchair because she was so leathered, she couldn't walk,' she says.
Of course, there are the stereotypical lads, too. One group of young men had managed to drink so much before boarding that one vomited violently before departure and was escorted off.
'He couldn't speak, he could barely walk, he couldn't even hold his head up… I don't know how they'd got him onto the aircraft,' she says. Once in the air, two others vomited all over themselves, too.
But it could just as easily be middle-aged men.
'You go to a destination like Portugal where you get groups of golfers, there is a kind of testosterone-fuelled, alcohol-induced mentality… I've had to deal with passengers in their 50s who have behaved like schoolchildren,' she says.
Rowing couples also add to the charged cocktail of booze, altitude and tension. On one flight, she had to approach a 'middle-class' couple in their 40s who were loudly arguing. Fearing the woman was vulnerable, she and her colleagues coaxed her to move – only for the aggression to turn on them.
'She was saying we were flirting with her husband, that we wanted to get him on his own [so] we could get his number,' she says.
Another couple's drunken row escalated into a punch-up with a father seated in front.
'The language had become unacceptable and the father turned around and said, 'You need to shut up,'' she describes. 'And within minutes you've got arguing, somebody throws a punch.'
She explains how surrounding passengers often get involved. In this case, the father hit the man, and she was forced to step between them.
The whole atmosphere is a tinderbox which can be sparked by as little as a reclining seat, or the yank if someone pulls on the chair in front as they stand. She explains while aeroplane doors can never be opened during flights due to air pressure, cabins are a dangerous environment in the wrong hands due to their confinement and heavy objects onboard, such as fire extinguishers and oxygen cylinders.
'Since Covid, [the bad behaviour has] stepped up a level,' she says. 'I just think people feel more entitled. Then you put them on an aircraft where they feel out of control; they're in a confined space, they're sitting around people they don't know, and there's also alcohol involved and I think [more] people are taking medication, whether prescribed or not prescribed.'
The mix is lethal.
While she acknowledges that alcohol consumption at airports is a problem, she believes the drinks served onboard are too large.
'The measures we serve are double measures,' she explains.
Although crew can refuse service, it's a 'double-edged sword' because, at some airlines, cabin crew earn commission from sales.
Galvydyte adds that the miniatures bought in duty-free are particularly tricky to confiscate, as they replicate the drinks served onboard.
Former British Airways captain Nick Eades, who retired two years ago, explains that when he started out, learning to restrain a passenger was never part of training.
'But in the last few years of my career we were actually taught once a year how to use restraining kits,' he says.
Only the captain can authorise their use, and only after a verbal and written warning.
'It's almost like the cabin crew have become sort of policemen,' he adds. 'Handcuffs can only be used on the authorisation of the captain once the aircraft has actually started to move on its own power, so once you taxi it away from the terminal […] You don't want to do it.'
In the later stages of his career, he refused entry to passengers more frequently and admits that as long as there were three pilots – meaning two could remain in the cockpit – on some occasions he 'walked to the passenger's seat to try and quell a problem'.
Whether O'Leary's new measure will make a difference is doubtful, given disruptive passengers already face hefty fines, possible criminal charges, or even prison sentences.
Those caught drunk on an aircraft can be fined up to £5,000 and face up to two years in prison. If charged with endangering an aircraft, they could face up to five years behind bars.
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says disruptive passengers who cause a diversion could be fined more than £10,000.
The anonymous stewardess describes how police presence at destination airports has become a regular occurrence. In fact, officers appearing on the air bridge before take-off as a deterrent is now more common.
Yet, as we head into peak summertime, little seems to be changing.
In recent weeks alone, reports have highlighted disturbing cases, including video of an easyJet flight to Ibiza overrun by raucous Britons dubbed 'English animals' by a Spanish passenger, and a passenger escorted off a flight from Gran Canaria to Birmingham for allegedly punching crew.
The stewardess is braced, she admits. 'We get so used to it,' she says, sounding numb. 'To me, that's just part of my working life.'