I read an article the other day that was published in Mental Floss about 10 shocking secrets of flight attendants. Â While most of them were things that were not all that shocking (flight attendants will notice if you try to join the Mile High club?!?!? No way!), there were a few that I found interesting. Â It looks like this article was originally published a few years ago, so you may have already seen it, but I’m sure some of you are like me in that it’s new
The Diet Coke “problem”
According to the article, “Diet Coke takes the most time to pour—the fizz takes forever to settle at 35,000 feet. In the time it takes me to pour a single cup of Diet Coke, I can serve three passengers a different beverage”.  I had not heard that before, and I’m not sure I really understand why the carbonation in diet Coke is any different from other pop’s carbonation.  Personally, I generally go for Diet Dr. Pepper.
The other 9 “shocking secrets”
The article also mentioned how their seniority affects everything about their job, including how long their skirts can be. Â The complexity of airline union contracts are one of the reasons that Lucky wrote about why United is flying a 787 domestically (instead of internationally)
Some of my other favorite ones involved dead bodies, how flight attendants get paid, and extreme turbulence. Â Read the whole list here at Mental Floss.
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This blog is once again living up to its reputation of tacky clickbait titles. It’s really insulting to your readers
I consider myself to be a professional diet coke drinker. I have found the best way to knock down the fizz is by adding some Woodford.
@Tony What did you think the article was about? I’d rather read clickbate articles than DB troll comments who live in their parents basement and think they are internet clever.
LOL – thanks for having my back! :-). I agree – to me, clickbait is when the title says one thing and the article says something totally different. In this case, I thought the title pretty accurately described what the article is about!
concur, and happily too. Sometimes we need a diversion to the fiz stories — and this one actually quite interesting and plausible. (esp. #’s 2 and 8 for me. Re. #2, happens my son just “landed” a part time gig with Delta, very part time — and for peanuts — but took it for the flight perks, which apparently parents get too…. ) Re. #8, and the fight against human smugglers, well that’s remarkable and worthy too.
Thanks for feeding my adhd. 🙂
Oh, and #10…. re. “extreme turbulence,” been there, done that….. now that might be fun to see a thread where folks share stories…. like a Nov. 1992 flight on Gulf Air from Manama to Paris…. by way of the Dragon roller coaster. Funniest part of that was the passenger reactions amid the EXTREME turbulence. We figured we all had our tickets punched (so to speak), so most of us “rode the wave” — hands up, down, yaaaaaeeeeeaaaah. (and lived to not tell the tale) Ok, in appreciation to crews everywhere, I’ll order tomato juice next time.
Sweetened soda syrup is heavier than diet soda syrup, so it’s easier for the gas bubbles to form and move to the top of your glass. What’s left after the gas escapes is the syrup that made up the surface of the bubbles. With less weight, the remnants of the diet soda bubbles take longer to return to the liquid below them.
But that doesn’t explain why Diet Coke would be fizzier than other diet carbonated drinks
@kyle, With all due respect, you’re discussing my two favorite beverages. While each a stellar treat in its own right, DC and WR should never be combined. I would suggest, however, that if pouring my diet coke is holding up my FA, s/he is more than welcome to LEAVE THE DAMN CAN! This refusal to give a guest who has paid hundreds or thousands of dollars the other half of a 25 cent can of coke totally baffles me. (Yes, I understand scale. Go ahead and scale it up, then compare it to airlines’ profits last year.) I could swith loyalty to the airline that revived the “give a guest the can” rule.
LOL I agree! I do get a can sometimes but not as often as I don’t. I did hear something once about them not supposed to give cans to passengers because they could somehow separate the top and make them into weapons, but I’m not sure if / how much I buy that explanation
Re: FAs & Diet Coke orders
If it bothers you to pour a diet coke just give me a can and glass and I’ll pour it myself.
As a former F/A of 27 years (TWA/AA) I can tell you that not one of the
4-5000 thousand F/A’s I worked with ever complained about Diet Coke fizz. Why? Because we were smart enough to open ALL the Coke can products before we even pulled the liquor cart into the aisle. Hence, no fizz problem.
Now Ginger Ale is another matter, that would really piss us off!!! Why? Because on certain segment flights (any SLC flt. for one) everyone would order Ginger Ale (Watzupwitdat, they don’t drink it at home) other flights zero orders for Ginger Ale. Hence once again, we would run out of it because there never was enough boarded on those liquor carts (that’s what we call them.
Response to Juan above, if you give everyone a can, you run out of product when serving the back of the bus. Airlines in my day were too cheap to overstock flights. Otherwise we couldn’t give a flying fart about giving you a can. Easier on us. Want a can, just ask nicely, just don’t be a dick about it. Words to live by in general.
FYI When I started flying in 1976, Beer and Wine were .50 cents and Miniatures were a buck. Drinking alcohol was soooo much more prevalent. At those prices you would still average $60+ in sales on a business man filled plane. By the time I left in 2003 you would average 3-4 alcohol drinks sales a flight.
If you ever have any F/A questions (even xxx rated, just ask, yes sex drugs and rock n’ roll always happening in this job)
Thanks for all the info! Didn’t realize ginger ale was such a problem! 🙂