The Vomit Comet

Passengers Do the Darndest Things

- Les Abend

Mainstream media and social-network users have not been kind to the airlines over the past several months. In some cases of less than exemplary customer service, the negative publicity is well-deserved. That being said, the handful of edited YouTube snippets being broadcast on network television can be mis characterized, overblown, distorted and taken out of context.

I won’t use this forum to otherwise defend or condemn my industry. However, when you cram people into a long, narrow aluminum tube for an extended period of time, the worst in humanity is sure to surface. And in some circumstances, the results fall into the bizarre category of “You just can’t make this stuff up.” I had the pleasure of being the captain on one of those flights.

Shortly after our exit from the company ramp at JFK, and partly into my first movement of the tiller to steer our 777 onto a parallel taxiway, the alert chime rang in the cockpit. A momentary glance at the text on the bottom of the center-console control display unit screen indicated that the purser, our lead flight attendant, Joanna, was calling.

Taxiing the aircraft is considered a sterile environment, an operational phase of which flight attendants are aware, so the interruption implied that the forthcoming communication was not good news. That being said, I had earlier briefed all 11 flight attendants that the sterile period can be violated in case of pertinent circumstances.

I raised my eyebrows and gestured at the interphone. Jack, my first officer, unsnapped the handset from its cradle on the center console while I continued the business of keeping 14 wheels on the concrete of the taxiway.