The One Question Flight Attendants Lie About — And Why It’s Honestly Hilarious

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When they’re put in charge of a few hundred passengers, flight attendants wind up getting a lot of questions. And because their “audience” is different from flight to flight, they tend to get the same questions over and over. I’ve been told some of the most popular are:

• Do you get to take a break during flights? Do you eat the same things we do?
• After I’ve used the lavatory, where does it go?
• Do flight attendants often date pilots?
• Is it safe to drink airplane coffee?
• How much do you get paid? (OMG, really?!?!)
• Have you ever seen passengers try to join the Mile High Club?

As long as they’re not inappropriate, flight attendants will answer most questions relatively truthfully. But there’s apparently one question where that’s not typically the case.

Where/what are we flying over?

Here’s a little secret – most flight attendants have no idea what or where the plane is flying over at any given moment. After all, when you’re 35,000 feet in the air and you haven’t been watching a map or talking to air traffic control, most of the time it’s pretty impossible to tell. That’s especially true when you’re looking through a tiny window that’s 5 feet away because there are 3 people between you and it. If it’s a large swath of something recognizable, like maybe the Grand Canyon, they might know. But those small and mid-sized towns you’re going over? No idea.

But passengers ask. Often. And some flight attendants might not feel comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” So what do many flight attendants do? They lie. They pick a random town name.

Oh that? That’s Clarkesville.

It’s not a big lie. It’s a little white lie where you’re never going to know the difference anyway. You know, sort of like when you’re trying to get a toddler to use their inside voice.

“Shhhh! The baby bunnies are trying to go to sleep!”

So now you know. If you ask a flight attendant what or where a plane flying over, they’ll most often either be truthful and say they don’t know…or they’ll lie and just make something up.

Feature Image: Delta News Hub (Chris Rank/Rank Studios) / flickr / cc by-2.0

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