Something special in the air: Flight attendants reunite to mark 4 high-flying decades
First came the “Charm Farm,” in 1986, where aspiring American Airlines flight attendants learned the basics.
Instructors “told us they would have to be able to see our lipstick from across the room,” flight attendant Zoe Cortopassi recalled with amusement.
“We had to have our hair, our nails, and our makeup done a certain way.”
Then came reality. Extinguishing a bathroom fire at 30,000 feet. Aiding passengers with medical emergencies. Calming travelers upset about a flight diversion.
Forty years after graduating from American Airlines’ flight attendant training center at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, Patti Carver, Mimi Gore, Donna Griffith, Sandy Koretos, Janis Pash, Stacy Schlehofer, Laura Suprenant and Cortopassi have enough stories to fill a novel and no regrets.
The close friends reunited in August to mark their anniversary by working a flight together from O’Hare International Airport to Dublin.
As purser, Gore gathered the team together for a routine preflight briefing. She realized, “I don’t have to tell you guys anything, you all know your jobs.”
‘The Charm Farm’
Arlington Heights resident Koretos gathered with Gore, Pash and Cortopassi to reminisce on Aug. 28 at a cafe in the suburb’s downtown.
Koretos, who grew up in Crystal Lake, bonded with New Jersey native Pash, south suburbanite Cortopassi and Iowan Gore during an intense six weeks of training.
The then 20-somethings juggled up to three tests a day on safety, medical and air emergency equipment, first aid, and cabin service.
“We had to know where everything was on the aircraft,” which included DC-10s, MD-80s and Boeing 727s to name a few, Gore said.
They also drilled on oxygen masks, deploying the emergency shoot, using the slide, and launching a raft.
At the same time, instructors insisted on correct deportment and appearance.
“You couldn’t walk down the hall and eat an apple, you had to be seated while eating,” Cortopassi remembered. “No gum chewing. Fresh breath at all times.”
Trainees were weighed weekly and told what makeup to buy, preferably high-end products from Estée Lauder and Lancôme.
Lesser brands were rejected as “play makeup.”
“We all knew we just had to do this to get through it, to get through training and make it to our bases,” Gore said.
Lift off
After earning their wings, the chums dispersed to various American hubs.
Gore, now a Chicagoan, recollected sharing a one-bedroom apartment in New York City with four other flight attendants and scraping by on $15,500 a year.
But at the airport, “it was so exciting back then. People thought we were glamorous,” Cortopassi said.
Not so much for the newbies who endured heaving stacks of glossy magazines and newspapers around the cabin for passengers to peruse and racing through terminals in requisite high heels.
“That’s why we have bunions,” quipped Cortopassi, who also lives in Chicago.
Over the years, they’ve coped with heart attacks and deaths on planes, irate passengers, and a fire.
“Fire is what I’m scared most of on an airplane,” explained Gore. She faced her worst fear once when smoke alarms went off on a Boeing 727.
The crew traced the source to a lavatory. “We opened the compartment where the trash can was and saw flames,” Gore related.
She realized that the cliche “when an emergency happens, your training kicks in — it’s true.” As one flight attendant got the pilot on the phone, another extinguished the fire, and a third calmed passengers.
“It’s teamwork,” Gore said. “It was handled very quickly.”
They later learned a passenger had thrown a cigarette into the trash.
Cigarettes have been banned on flights for decades, but a more recent problematic phenomenon is air rage.
“Occasionally, we have abusive or aggressive passengers,” Koretos said as her colleagues agreed. “We try to diffuse the situation but sometimes we have to divert and have the passenger removed.”
Celebrities in the air
Those incidents are largely overshadowed by the camaraderie between crew members.
“We used to say we’re leaving our families to go and spend time with our loved ones,” Gore said.
Other highlights?
“The Midwestern passengers are wonderful,” noted Pash.
“Warming up baby bottles,” Gore said.
And there’s the occasional brush with fame, including celebrities Tiny Tim, Walter Cronkite, Tony Bennett, Naomi Judd and Robert Redford, and former President Barack Obama.
Bennett’s “young girlfriend was painting his nails in first class,” Zoe recalled.
Koretos encountered Obama, then a senator, sitting in coach. “He was very kind, very conversational.”
Iconic news anchor Cronkite also traveled coach, Gore said. She remembered thinking, “he should be in first class.”
What’s next?
A lively interview punctuated with laughter, grew silent when the topic of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which downed American Airlines Flights 77 and 11, surfaced.
Getting back in the air was, “scary,” Cortopassi, Koretos and Pash each said. “I felt apprehensive,” added Gore.
The friends also weathered the COVID-19 pandemic, which further shifted the aviation landscape.
Those crucibles made the four-decade milestone even more meaningful. After months of planning, the group landed in Dublin to applause from passengers.
What’s next? None of the now 60-somethings are ready for immediate retirement.
“As long as I’m healthy I’m going to keep going,” said Pash, an Indianapolis resident.
“I would not be able to experience all these wonderful things if I was not a flight attendant,” Cortopassi said. “There was no way I could afford to see the world, like we have.”
mpyke@dailyherald.com