mnemosyne, if the flight attendants were male, it’s a virtual certainty they were gay. My SIL used to work as a flight attendant, then later as director of scheduling, and the straight male flight attendant was a rarity indeed.
I would just simply never make such an assumption about someone. I’m happily married anyways - all men are either eye candy or not, regardless of their sexual orientation 
just for fun:
the Monty Python sketch of pilots playing games with the microphone
Speaking of ATC and radio discipline reminds me of this joke:
It was a stormy night at a very busy airport. Planes everywhere. The ground controller is trying in vain to keep everything straight when over the radio this is heard:
Pilot: I am really fucked up
GC: Who said that? Identify yourself!
Pilot: I maybe fucked up, but I’m not that fucked up.
Good thing this plane didn’t crash.
Investigators would have to search for the Blue Box!
[rim-shot]
My semi-cousin’s a flight attendant, and decidedly straight… Judging by the number of female flight attendants he keeps going on about :rolleyes:
Southwest is a no-frills airline with no in-flight audio and no movies. On the bright side, there are few annoying fees.
Well, at least he said Chicago was “partyland”. Makes this Chicagoan proud.
Ah geez. The hot mike / mis-transmit to an air frequency something that was meant for the cabin or cockpit is every pilot’s paranoid nightmare. It’s a major “Doh” moment generally mocked mercilessly by fellow aviators.
I could go into great detail with this, but the short answer is: There are two basic echelons in the airline world, “regional” and “major” airlines. The guys who work for the majors generally have vastly superior work rules, schedules, and pay rates compared to regional pilots. The Buffalo crash airline was a regional. At the regional level, pilots (junior pilots in particular) are under paid, over worked and generally exist in the crappy conditions as were depicted after that Buffalo crash. I’m probably a little over-aware of that side of the equation, as I’m a regional pilot. Most want to “pay our dues” at this level and move on to a major.
Comparing the two is almost apples and oranges.
As to whether there’s a fantasy playboy lifestyle? Most guys are just normal, faithful, family guys, and quite a few are grandparents already. But just like any sampling of the population, there are going to be some dogs in the mix. It’s an incredibly macho, male-oriented profession, and the pilot personality type is stereotypically type-A, goal oriented, and competitive. I believe a lot of the trash talk is just that, locker-room style dick measuring contests.
The pilot lifestyle of being gone for several days at a time and the easy mobility we have with our flight benefits just makes it easier I suppose. I’ve flown with a (married) guy who would bid for overnights in a particular city, as he had a regular, long-term girlfriend there. I’ve known guys who I know to be married have their wedding ring off while out on a trip. There are occasional workplace hookups- but then, I’ve seen those happen in the non-aviation jobs I’ve held. The drama is the same, just the location is different.
All that said? I’d be willing to bet most of the people on the frequency that day were probably somewhere between laughing at the guys screw-up, and thinking what a douche he was. =)
Not that kind of cruising.
Seriously, though, I think they were trying to start with “this was not a safety issue.”
I kinda feel for Southwest on the whole with this one. They have a long history of being a very safe airline with cheap fares and friendly service. A number of girls I went to college with became attendants for them afterwards and they had a high regard for the company and, especially, for then boss Herb Kelleher. Now, one supreme a-hole comes along and destroys much of that good will.
There is though one aspect of this story that disturbs me deeply. Despite the fact this pilot’s action was absolutely inexcusable, the TV station that broke the story, KPRC in Houston, has I think far outstepped the bounds of responsible journalism. I live in Houston and they’ve been my station of choice for years, but when investigative reporter Stephen Dean goes up to north of Ft. Worth and broadcasts from in front of the pilot’s home and poses next to the subdivision sign, identifies the two previous towns where the pilot lived, lists his alma mater, describes what items he can see through the pilot’s front door and even mentions that he is often seen jogging in the mornings, this is no longer just reporting on the egregiousness of what was said and the formal punishments he might expect. KPRC now has crossed over into providing information that will enable any individual with a grudge or vendetta against him to exact their own punishment against the guy.
Seriously, to what end is KPRC doing this? What do they hope to accomplish beyond sensational journalism? I’ve always like them in the past and this pilot was guilty of a terrible infraction but it’s not ethical for this station to out all the personal details about him like this. I’m seriously disappointed that they would stoop to this level.
While living in Goose Bay,Labrador in the mid 90’s I was friends with some Royal Canadian Mounted Police members. One told me a similar story where one quiet night 2 officers were driving around chatting about various local personalities not realizing that their police radio was transmitting every word they said to anybody with a police scanner. Their boss had to be woken up and then chase them down.