Lechery at 30,000 feet
from page 201

Relegated to yet another all-night flight from Los Angeles to New York, my bleary eyes suddenly swam into focus when two impassioned passengers, who had been cuddling in coach began kissing and groping like actors in a low-budget porno flick.

Ensconced in a row by themselves, they thrashed together unrelentingly, oblivious to the sidelong glances of my colleagues who kept cruising the aisle to get a closer look. The cabin was dark save for a few passenger reading lamps that back-lit the performance like tiny, misguided spotlights. With so few passengers, most people were stretched across several seats and sleeping soundly, unaware of the escalating passion that seemed destined to redefine the concept of a "satisfying" flight.

In a display of erotic audacity, the woman threw one leg across her boyfriend's lap, straddling him with such enthusiasm that her skirt canopied like a quick-open parachute. As the couple continued to suck face, they made a mystifying attempt at camouflage by draping a blanket over their heads. The blanket could not, however, disguise the woman's sudden, mischievous movements–she began a slow grind in her boyfriend's crotch, accelerated to an equestrian gallop and in less than two minutes she was jouncing up and down at warp speed.

Peering at the action from behind the aft bulkhead, just a few feet away, I heard muffled moaning and the barely-audible thwack-thwack-thwack of colliding flesh. When our female flyer arrived at her final destination–when her call-light went "ding!" when the Earth shook despite being thirty-thousand feet below–she let loose a shriek that echoed through the cabin like a gun shot. She then collapsed into her boyfriend's arms just as startled passengers sprang upright in their seats.

Welcome to the Mile-High Club.

Throughout sixteen years as a commercial flight attendant, I've witnessed numerous inductions into this infamous society of airplane passengers who engage in fellatio, cunnilingus and various forms of sexual communion at high altitude. Though in-flight copulation is often thwarted by storm-trooper flight attendants who threaten to summon security upon arrival, many of my colleagues are like me–they turn their back on passenger lasciviousness (and then find a good place from which to watch), just as long as it doesn't disturb the other passengers.

Mile-High Club liaisons are most common late at night, when lights are low, crowds are minimal, and the threat of discovery is less likely. The overtly courageous–or woefully tacky–seek membership in the comfort of their seat, cloaked by blankets and pillows and prodigious amounts of nerve. (Rumors of two-minute galley "quickies" are rife throughout the airline industry, though I've never walked in on an episode.) Nevertheless, in keeping with a tradition that began soon after Wilbur and Orville wobbled across the skies near Kitty Hawk, most MHC wannabes are anointed in an aromatic airplane lavatory that only a contortionist could love.

On a recent flight from Osaka to Los Angeles, a flight attendant opened an unlocked lavatory door and got an eye full. "One of my crew members saw a woman straddling a man on the toilet seat," she said. "She quickly closed the door and locked it from the outside." A group of flight attendants poked their heads out of the galley to watch as the Japanese couple emerged. The man returned to his seat on the right side of the plane, the woman took her seat on the left. "Later," said the flight attendant, "we noticed the woman was holding the hand of the male passenger seated next to her."

A similar tryst occurred on a flight from New York to San Juan. A male attendant was tending to first-class passengers, when a well-known sportscaster seduced a woman right in front of her boyfriend.

"After he finished his meal, the boyfriend went into the first-class lavatory," the attendant said. The woman–who was visibly inebriated and undeniably star-struck–"exchanged a look with the sportscaster. They walked to the back of the plane and entered an aft lavatory together." Some fifteen minutes later, the disheveled woman returned to her seat, followed, seconds later, by the smug-faced sportscaster. The boyfriend flew into a rage. "You screwed him, didn't you – you bitch!" he said. And to the sportscaster: "I know what you did to my girlfriend, prick!"

Upon arrival in San Juan, the boyfriend bolted, so did the sportscaster, leaving the woman alone and in tears.

A twenty-year flight attendant says she has witnessed every imaginable in-flight sexploit. "I've seen couples going at it in seats... usually the man sitting down and the woman on top. In bathrooms... with the woman screaming as though she was in pain and the flight attendants knocking on the door. I've witnessed a co-pilot and flight attendant having sex in the cockpit, guys masturbating, women too. I've seen many blow jobs, and a couple of men going down on their women. And one lucky guy had two women going down on him."

Lately, the airline industry has been besieged by more sinister manifestations of passenger outrageousness: physical assaults against pilots and flight attendants, the destruction of aircraft interiors, urinating and defecating in the aisles. While these hostile acts seem to be growing in frequency and intensity, victimless infractions like in-flight sex often go unnoticed.

But at an airline cabin-safety symposium, a Singapore Airlines official expressed great concern. "The increasing number of sexual offenses," he said, is a "particularly worrying trend." Newspaper reports suggest that at one point, a whopping one-third of Singapore Airlines' passenger misconduct cases involved sexual transgressions.

A few years ago, a South African Airways captain threatened to divert his jumbo jet due to an onboard orgy that was gathering momentum. In a two-year period at London's Heathrow Airport, fifteen passengers were reportedly detained by police because of in-flight sexual misconduct. Here in the United States, where industry disclosure about sexual activity is as likely as a lobster meal in coach, only one major airline offered cogent remarks. "Although no one is getting hurt," said a United Airlines spokesperson, "this type of activity is not to be tolerated. We treat it like any other form of passenger misconduct."

Though the FBI responds to reports of terrorism, in-flight assault, and "interference with a flight crew," local authorities are responsible for handling complaints about lewd and lascivious behavior–a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison in many states. (If a child under sixteen witnesses the act, the crime could be upgraded to a felony.) Unwilling to subject themselves to embarrassing publicity, most airlines are reluctant to pursue even the most contemptible cases.

In 1998, aboard a South African Airways flight from Johannesburg to London, a business-class couple reportedly disrobed from the waist down and began having sex in full view of other passengers. Mortified onlookers summoned flight attendants who, despite their best efforts, could not get the couple to disengage. Ultimately, the captain was forced to intervene. The high-flying exhibitionists finally geared-down, but only after the captain yelled, "This is not a shag house!"

While most airlines deplore onboard "shagging," at least one major airline seems to embrace the concept. A Virgin Atlantic Airways billboard once featured the perpetually horny Austin Powers (Mike Meyers) straddling the fuselage of a jumbo jet. The caption read: "Virgin Shaglantic... Yeah, baby." Richard Branson, Virgin's outspoken head honcho, once exclaimed: "We're not the type of airline that bangs on bathroom doors." Claiming to have lavatories which are "larger than on other airlines," Virgin may soon develop a reputation for having lavatory queues which are longer than on other airlines.

But why are people so eager to have sex on an airplane these days? Especially in lavatories which are only marginally more accommodating than an outhouse? Christina Lawrence, a practicing psychologist who spent thirty years as a flight attendant for United Airlines, cites disinhibitors (drugs and alcohol), airplane density (people think they can get away with bad behavior on a plane full of strangers), and a relaxed dress code as possible reasons for mile-high mania.

"Years ago, airline passengers were more inhibited because of formal dress standards," she says. "There's a certain behavior that goes along with conservative attire." Nowadays, it's not unusual for passengers to walk around the cabin in miniskirts, shorts, see-through blouses, sweat suits, tank-tops, flip-flops or no shoes at all.

I once saw a passenger traipsing around the aircraft dressed only in a slip. When the light hit just right, you could see that she wasn't wearing panties.

Mix audacious clothing with unlimited alcohol, darkness, a long flight, and smatterings of bored, sexually depraved human beings–and there's bound to be lechery in the aisles.

During a flight from Auckland, New Zealand, to Los Angeles, a flight attendant noticed "a man leaning back in his seat, eyes closed, with such a look of ecstasy on his face." The blanket across his lap was "moving up and down," she said. "Soon, the blanket fell off, showing a woman actually giving the guy a blow job."

At this point, one of the flight attendants tapped the passenger on the shoulder and said, "this type of behavior is not appropriate in business class." To the crew's amazement, "the lady giving the blow job was so into what she was doing, she didn't even notice." She continued her stellar performance until the recipient forced her to stop. They both stared up at the flight attendant who repeated her warning: "This type of behavior is not appropriate in business class." The woman, "with drool hanging out of her mouth and all (seriously now), asked 'Can we take a seat in coach?'"

Crew members are no less immune to high-altitude sins of the flesh. The problem is, when we get busted, a flying career can suddenly crash and burn. That's exactly what happened to a pilot at one airline.

While taking a scheduled break from his duties in the cockpit, the pilot retreated to his designated first-class rest-seat and, according to sources, started "smooching" with his flight attendant girlfriend. The couple then disappeared into a lavatory for "quite some time." Reports were filed, management reacted, the pilot lost his job.

Years ago, a New York-based flight attendant was terminated by her airline after being accused of prostitution. She did not perform her services aboard the plane, however. This is where she met potential Johns. While serving drinks and dinner to businessmen in the first-class section, she zeroed in on those who looked as if they wanted company for the night. Paid company. After settling on a price, the John agreed to meet in her room at the layover hotel. Once the dirty deed was done, the flight attendant went on to work another flight. But airline management soon caught wind of this lucrative undertaking. Posing as a lonely first-class businessman, an undercover airline operative caught the attendant with her skirt up. Literally. The next day her wings were clipped.

Despite the threat of dismissal–or in the case of brazen passengers, the threat of embarrassment or worse, a one-year layover in the slammer–sexual impropriety aboard airplanes may soon reach new and more astonishing lows.

British Airways was among the first to introduce a first-class seat that reclines 180 degrees–effectively becoming a six-foot, six-inch bed. Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Lufthansa, American, US Airways, Japan Airlines and others have implemented sky-beds of their own. While British Airways calls them "flying cradles," United refers to the cushy thrones as "first suites" and Singapore Airlines has adopted the magnanimous appellation,"skysuites." "The industry moniker is "sleeper-seat," but no matter what you call these airborne mattresses, they're a frisky-flyer's dream come true.

The most coveted sleeper-seats are single units which slant toward the window on each side of the plane. The module's high back wraps almost completely around the passenger, creating an atmosphere of unprecedented privacy. Airline companies, in their single-minded quest to pamper first-class customers, have no idea what kind of plebian possibilities they've unleashed upon the traveling aristocracy.

But Richard Branson knows. He's even upped the sky-bed ante. Upper-class passengers on all Virgin Atlantic flights can book a seat that converts into a double bed. That's right. For around $5,500 round-trip, New York/London passengers can stretch out, roll around, even join the Mile-High Club–all this, behind the ramparts of a retractable "privacy screen."

As a courtesy to passengers and crew, let's hope the privacy screens are soundproof.

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