‘Oggy oggy oggy!’ shouted the Italian flight attendant over his intercom, and all the hen party ladies on the plane squealed with delight. I’m a nervous flier, so as I strapped myself into my seat I was already hyperventilating. It was not ideal that I was sharing my flight from London to Cork with a hen party and a head steward who was acting like he was off his rocker.
The blonde girl in the seat next to me was giggling and shouting to her friends, and jumping up and down in her seat. I was about to tell her she really was going to have to stop doing that when she said: ‘We’ve been in the Wevverspoons in the departure lounge all afternoon! I’m absolutely wasted!’
I mean, look, it’s Ryanair, and while I love Ryanair because it’s so reliable and cheap, you get what you get. Also, if you’re Antonio the flight attendant on a basic wage, you are going to go for it when 25 drunk women on a hen do get on your plane on a Saturday night.
‘I fly this a-route-a twice a day every day,’ said Antonio, apparently now telling us his troubles, and starting to sound emotional, ‘so I-a hope-a you have a very good a-flight with us and we all gonna have a good time together…’ His address cut off. I think a colleague had snatched the mic off him.
A few seconds later, he came back on: ‘I wanna say I hope you enjoy yourself tonight and maybe if you like my jokes you can record me and put me on TikTok and make me famous!’ Cheers from the ladies.
He started joking about how he was sure the plane was going to get to Cork early because the pilot was going to take a few short cuts… pause for audience laughter… ‘Blown there in half the time, more like,’ I muttered, because we were flying a day after the worst storm in memory.
He said he was going to come around and if anyone wanted anything, anything at all, they should ask him… pause for cheers from all the girls…
He went on with this routine while his two female colleagues, looking exhausted, walked up and down the aisles making sure people had their seatbelts on and the bags weren’t falling out of the overhead lockers. All I could think was: ‘This is what happens before a plane crashes. It’s too happy and ironic. It’s boding ill.’
Once airborne, Antonio was back on the intercom. He wanted everyone to know he was going to be a-coming round with the drinks-a trolley and a fantastico selection of duty free. ‘I am having to tell you one very important thing,’ he said, suddenly serious. Here we go, I thought. The turbulence was going to be bad… ‘We don’t have any cigarette on board tonight. No a-cigarettte a-ladies and gentlemen. No a-cigarette at all. Nothing to smoke. Naaarthing. But we do have gunpowder…’
‘What the actual hell?’ I shouted. And the girl next to me giggled. ‘…Gunpowder whisky! Ha ha! Yes, ladies and gentleman it’s my-a favourite-a whisky and it’s on a-special offer for you tonight! Along with a range of…’ And he started listing perfumes and what they smelt of.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake shut up!’ I shouted. I was absolutely wetting myself with fright and he was distracting me from the difficult business of keeping this plane in the air by staring out of the window, fixing my gaze on the wing and muttering prayers. Doesn’t the stupid man know I’ve got a plane to fly?
Every time the fasten seatbelt sign went on I braced myself and prayed. ‘Oh please oh please oh please oh please OH NO OH PLEASE!’ I cried as the plane went from smooth cruising to bumpety bump to swervy floaty veering. The engine sounds too loud, the engine sounds too loud, I tormented myself. And all the while the flight attendant laughed and told jokes as he pushed his trolley up and down the aisles between seatbelt warnings, selling the hen party ladies drinks and shouting ‘Oggy oggy oggy!’ until I thought I would throw myself down in the aisles and scream myself senseless.
At one point he served a drink to the girl behind me and shouted: ‘Down in one!’ I made a face like Mary Whitehouse and proclaimed loudly: ‘I don’t actually think that’s allowed.’ The blonde-haired, collagen-lipped drunken cutie sitting next to me said: ‘It is a bit much, innit!’
For the next half-hour I talked to this sozzled twentysomething reception teacher from Croydon to try to stave off my nerves but as we crossed the Irish sea, the pilot came on and told us we were about to hit turbulence of a sort that required us not only to fasten our seatbelts but to do them up tightly. He used the word ‘unfortunately’ as he explained that we had to ‘go through the weather’. I slid forwards so I was half-sitting, half-lying and braced myself rigid with my arms. ‘Oh no oh no oh no…’ I muttered, the tears coming.
The girl from Croydon, drunk as a skunk, slurred: ‘Yeah! It don’t make it better when they tell you that does it? I mean…’
And the plane suddenly lurched and I screamed. It went back to normal, then it lurched again and I screamed. Then it started doing floaty, veering, sideways and downwards. ‘I bloody knew I shouldn’t have watched that Colin Firth drama about Lockerbie,’ I said, and she said: ‘Wassat?’
The pilot came on and told the flight attendants to make sure they were fastened into their seats. ‘That’s it, we’re going down…’ I said. ‘Oh are we?’ said blondie, and she rattled on about how she was so drunk and tired she didn’t want to go on a hen night in Cork city any more (and I thought, well you might be in luck) until the wheels hit the runway with a series of thumps and she said: ‘Oh! You were right! We’ve landed. That’s a quick flight, innit?’
Which only left Antonio to switch on his intercom and tell us how much he wanted us all to have a fantastico evening…
And he was still telling us as I walked past him out of the door, my legs wobbling as I flopped like a rag doll down the plane steps.
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