Braniff Chronicles
"Go behind the galley curtain with inside stories from flight attendants of the 20th century's greatest airlines. From the glamour of the 60s to the high-flying 80s, these are the untold tales of the crews who navigated the heyday of major commercial flight."
Braniff Chronicles
The Ultimate Braniff Reserve
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Erica the Dallas based Reserve who flew everything without ever having seniority! Europe, Mexico, S.E. Asia & the Concorde.
Copyright: 24 Hour Entertainment, Inc. 2025-2026
Music Licensed by: Pixabay
Music by: Nerdy Boyz
Song: Dance Energy
Tempo: 120.0
SPEAKER_03What life was really like at 30,000 feet. We're taking you behind a curtain to share the secret histories of the crews who defined an era. Travel from the chic elegance of the 60s to the high flying energy of the 80s. An era of disco, icons, world-class service that will never be seen again. Welcome to the Brad of Chronicles.
SPEAKER_02Welcome everybody to the Brad of Chronicles. My name is Chick. My clock number is 41352. I used to be based in DFW L A X F S A T, and I have Erica Womber with us here on the Chronicles today. How are you doing, Erica?
SPEAKER_00I'm great. Thanks.
SPEAKER_02You promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, Branett.
SPEAKER_00As long as I may be able to plead the fifth somewhere in here.
SPEAKER_03Well, when you become president, you can plead the fifth.
SPEAKER_00Okay. We get deal.
SPEAKER_02So my first question to you is where were you living? And how did you find out about Braniv and why did you apply?
SPEAKER_00Um, so I was working at Lorden Taylor. I was a rep for both Lancome and Clinique Cosmetics. And a guy came in and bought a bunch of uh Clinique products for men from me. His name was Howard. And he said to me, I think you would make a really great flight attendant. He said, We're interviewing tomorrow for flight attendants. Would you come to an interview? And I said yes. And I went in and interviewed. Um wasn't my idea really to ever fly, but I I basically got recruited, is what happened. So I went in the next day for the interview, and there were about 300 of us, and lo and behold, I made it to the final 50, and then they cut us down to, I believe, about 20. And basically that's how I was hired. That's a cool story. And yeah, I've got a couple, I've got a couple of those in my back pocket.
SPEAKER_02And what city were you living in when you were working in Lord and Taylor?
SPEAKER_00I was um living in Dallas in North Dallas. I was working at uh what was called North Park Mall at the time. Right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I used to go there a lot. What year was that that you got hired?
SPEAKER_00Uh I was hired in 1979. Oh, okay. All right.
SPEAKER_02And so you went through training. You lived in Dallas, so you were already there. You went through training, you came out of training, and um you went on reserve. And how was that when you were on reserve?
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing about reserve is that I used to get the best trips from the schedulers. So, as an example, my very first trip out. Um, back then, if you remember, we all had beepers, and we would have to look up our trips in this huge log. And so my beeper went off. Uh, I was out on reserve, my beeper went off, and I called into scheduling and they said, You're on 603. And I, of course, had no idea what 603 was. And I looked it up very quickly in the logbook, and I was going to Frankfurt, Germany, for very first trip out. So eventually, what scheduling learned about me was that I was really able to make like a 45-minute call to the airport. And because of that, I got a lot of good trips. That in conjunction with a couple other things that I did for scheduling.
SPEAKER_02So, your proximity, you were really close to DFW.
SPEAKER_00No, actually, I was in North Dallas. I just could get my act together very quickly. I always had two sets of clothing packed, basically, something for like winter and something for summer. Um, a couple times, however, I will tell you that I got caught sort of with my pants down, meaning that I would end up someplace like Honolulu and I would have all winter weather, you know, winter clothing packed, or vice versa. But um scheduling got to know me pretty well and they knew that I could make really short calls. So um I was one of their, how do you say, sort of favorites in in a strange kind of way because they knew I could get there.
SPEAKER_02You were one of their go-to girls.
SPEAKER_00Pretty much. That was pretty much it. So it got to the point where that I could literally call scheduling when I knew I was on duty and asked them what trips were open, and they would look and tell me, and then they just say, pick whatever you want.
SPEAKER_02So you're always picking, like, you know, London, Frankfurt. We well, what were some of the trips you were picking? There were long hauls, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh, they were all long hauls. I didn't really care that much about flying domestically because I figured I could always pretty much see the US on my own. Um, the trips that I wanted to do were were all the international trips. So I would, you know, call scheduling and ask them what they had open. Nine times out of ten, they had a whole bunch of international stuff open, and I would ask them to put me on it. And I I ended up getting really great trips that way, not to mention the parties that I invited them to.
SPEAKER_02And how was that? Would you just like how did the schedulers make it to your party? Because I mean, they were basically what, like maybe one or two on the overnight, and then the rest were on during the day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, mainly to be honest with you, it was the males that would make it to the parties, not the female schedulers. Um, I guess they were a bunch of party guys themselves, and the females didn't seem as interested in making it to parties as the the males did, but it was mainly the you know the the guys, right?
SPEAKER_02Okay, well, this is what I remember of the guys. Okay, there was Tom, Alan, there was Bill, um and I remember on the female side there was like Jackie, uh Charlie. Um but who else who were the other male schedulers that you remember?
SPEAKER_00You know, you named the you you named the big ones already, so I don't want to like rehash that one, but you did forget Barbara on the female side, right?
SPEAKER_02Right. But was who else was there besides Bill and Tom uh that were the males?
SPEAKER_00Bill Tom Charles Charles Charlie. Do you remember him?
SPEAKER_02No, I remember the female Charlie, but I don't remember the male Charlie.
SPEAKER_00There was the female Charlie, and see, I don't remember her at all.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, yeah. And then there was Jackie. I always like getting a call from Jackie early in the morning.
SPEAKER_01She was a good one to rise you up.
SPEAKER_02Oh you're there. Okay, you broke up for a minute now. Yeah, so yeah, the sexy was sexy was good back then, you know, it was that 70s, 80s thing. Anybody that had a really good voice. And it was normally people that had a smoker's voice. I mean, you got a good sexy voice. I mean, are you a smoker?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so anyway, that was basically how I got a lot of the trips that I was getting. And I feel like I was really fortunate. Um actually to be on reserve, most people didn't like it. I did.
SPEAKER_02So, what did you do when you were able to hold a pattern? Did you like try not to hold a pattern? I mean, the seniority was getting, you know, pretty expansive back in 79 and 80.
SPEAKER_00No, I could never hold a pattern with Braniff. I I I've never ever been able to hold a pattern. Okay. So I how do I say I was probably what the third or fourth last graduating class?
SPEAKER_01I know you guys have one.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Right? So I was class of 779.
SPEAKER_02Wow, so you were a real junior in a big base.
SPEAKER_00Correct. Exactly. So, and I used to, you know, fly with very, very senior people, especially internationally. So but I mean that that was the way I got great trips. Right.
SPEAKER_02And what was it like when you went through training? You were at the new college, right?
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. Crazy intense. You know, we'd be up all night studying, just pound pounding basically. Uh and what was that like? That was like four months worth of 24-7 training.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah. Yeah. I I didn't really know the new college other than what we would fly in, we would lay over out there. Um that's where they would put us up.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So you so you didn't train there?
SPEAKER_02No, I was down there at the Royal Roach Inn over there by Love Field.
SPEAKER_00Everybody talks about that place, and I have no idea what they're really talking about, other than it must have been sort of a dive-eam motel or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can get away with a lot of shit over there because you can go up and down Northwest Highway and go sneak out and do whatever you wanted to do. And out there, you guys are pretty isolated too, being out at the airport.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Exactly. So any anyway, that was, you know, basically how I got my trips. Um, I got to be uh, how do you say, kind of close to this uh quite a few of the schedulers? And I would just call them on my days off and say, What do you have open? They go through a list of about 10 to 12 different trips, and they basically got to know that I wanted to fly international. So they just say, you know, hey, this is the best trip I got going right now. Do you want it? And I'd say, sure, put me on.
SPEAKER_02And and what were the male schedulers like? You know, like they're not inside calling out, you know, to send you on trips. What were they like personally?
SPEAKER_00Are we talking about physicality or are we talking about anything else?
SPEAKER_02I'm just talking, I'm just talking about attitude. When they talk about stories about people they sent out on trips on that they shouldn't have sent out on a trip, or uh the demand of their schedule, or did they like, you know, hang out inside this in their own scheduling lounge and smoke cigarettes and talk bullshit? I mean, what were some of their backstories?
SPEAKER_00Um, you know, what's really tricky for me is I don't actually remember a lot of the backstories, except that they were when I would have them over for a party, they were like, how do you say, really, really fun? They were, they were, they they were pretty crazy guys.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I remember going to a party at Tom Allen's and uh at his house, and he would always sail to Bimini and he'd come back, and everybody go, Tom's back from Bimini, he's gonna have a party at his house, you know. And I turned him down quite a few times, and then I finally went in. And when I was invited to the back room to snort a couple of lines, I was going like, Hey, no, no wonder everybody comes to those parties.
SPEAKER_00Interestingly enough, I never got into that kind of stuff. So, you know, I think I was how do you how do you say pretty green, if you will, at that point. Um young and green, you know, or something like that.
SPEAKER_02And and and tell me about some of your trips overseas. I mean, you said you were pretty junior on a plane compared to the seniors, but you know, do you have any stories you can share with us, whether it's Frankfurt or Paris or London?
SPEAKER_00Um, okay, so Frankfurt, my very first trip out, 14 flight attendants on a 7-4, right? Um, we get over to Frankfurt, and all of these very senior people, because they've been flying it a lot, they don't want to go out and do anything, they just go straight to their rooms. Well, I had flown it with somebody else who was on reserve, and I think she was maybe a class or two uh senior to me. And we literally walked for like 14 miles that day all over Frankfurt. All these other people just crashed and went to sleep, but her and I looked at each other. We hadn't been asleep in I don't I don't I don't even really know how long. And we were like, well, uh-uh, we are not staying at this hotel. We are definitely gonna go out and pound this the pavement out there and see what's going on. Um I flew a Paris trip. It was a cancellation 14 days over Christmas, and I had flown Paris, yeah, and crazy with money, right? Um, I had flown Paris several times before that trip, but that trip in particular made me fall in love with Paris. So we I cannot remember the name of the hotel that we stayed at. It was the Meridian. The Meridian, you're right. Yep, you're right. The tall black hotel.
SPEAKER_02It was my it was my first uh it was my first engagement to a bidet.
SPEAKER_00Oh, oh my god. So here you now that you reminded me of that kind of story, okay. So here's the funny one. All right. Okay. So all of us got together that night and we went upstairs to the bar. Yeah. And one of the flight attendants said to me, Hey, did y'all tell the story? Hey, did y'all like that facial wash thing? And I was like, excuse me. She went on to tell everybody that she washed her face in the bidet, and everybody was horrified and laughing hysterically. So later that evening, a good story, huh? So later that evening, I don't know what makes people think what they think, but anyway, later that evening, um, we met four doctors um in the bar, and they invited us over. The next day was uh Christmas Eve, they invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner to their home. Um, and it was so much fun. The entire crew went, right? The cockpit, all flight attendants. And I remember on the way there, um, we were all singing Christmas carols. We got over to their house and one of them played the most, they were, he was amazing. He was so fantastic on his piano. He was playing all these Christmas songs, and we were all standing around the piano singing and you know, drinking wine and eating dinner. He they they made the most incredible dinner for us. And that from that point on, I fell in love with Paris. But previously, um, I had an issue with the Parisian people. They seemed not to like Americans and seemed to be very snotty towards them. Yeah, but that was the trip that broke me into Paris. Oh, that's a nice trip. Yeah, a two-week cancellation in Paris, you bet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so what happened to the to the flight attendant when she found out she was washing her face in a uh orifice toilet? Did she like run out of the bar and go scrub her face down in the in the in the actual bathroom or take a shower?
SPEAKER_00No, she looked like she was about to cry. She kept saying, Oh, y'all, I'm horrified. Everybody was just laughing. They were like, Don't you know what that's for? And she was like, No, I thought it was to what to wash my face. I was like, Oh my god, what you did what that's hilarious.
SPEAKER_02That's a classic story. Oh my goodness, I love that story.
SPEAKER_00Jeez, very innocently innocent set. Um I flew London several times. I liked London. What I didn't care for, believe it or not, was their food.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I remember going right to somewhere to eat, I don't remember, some little cafe or something, and I ordered a grilled cheese sandwich, and it was nothing more than like two pieces of white bread with a little like slab of cheese, and that was it melted. And it was just barely melted. There was no, they didn't toast it, it wasn't grilled, it was just strange. And I remember thinking to myself, the food here is really awful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there wasn't anything that was sensible to eat except it was fish and chips, or like one guy told me in a pub, hey, you're not supposed to come over here and eat, you're just supposed to come over here and drink.
SPEAKER_00Oh, really? What absorbs all that liquor that you're drinking? I wonder.
SPEAKER_02Oh, whatever it is. But yeah, I mean, I had a good time in London. I remember seeing uh the American werewolf down in uh Piccadilly Circus. There was a movie house there. And uh I saw that movie there, and what other movie did I see there? I saw oh no, no, no, I take it back. I saw the movie The Fury with Kirk Douglas, and he was like seeing CIA guy or whatever. It was a bizarre film. Um maybe I did see American Werewolf in London there too. I just remember getting all freaked out and scared because you know London got like really foggy, and we were at that hotel at Hyde Park, and I remember we were walking back. Um we'd taken a bus somewhere, and then we got off and we were walking back, and it had that real eerie London, you know, Jack the Ripper environment. Um, but I had a good time in London. Um historically, I liked it because there was a lot of global history there. So, but I only flown that a couple of times when they first started flying that route. I never did the Frankfurt, I did Paris. Um but then when they when the flights moved up to the Boston base, did they ever deadhead you up to Boston and work the flights out of there?
SPEAKER_00Um, I don't remember deadheading to Boston. I had a couple Boston layovers. Um, Boston was actually one of my favorite domestic layovers. Um but going back, I want to take you backwards for a minute. Did you fly Amsterdam?
SPEAKER_02No, if I had, I'd still be there getting high.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, you can come out to California for that. Anyway, um my way. Anyway, um, the the the food in Amsterdam, because we were talking about food for a moment there, right? Uh was crazy good. Um, so the entire crew, we got over to Amsterdam, my very first first trip over there. We took did the um I had just done a Hong Kong trip and I bought this really gorgeous ring that had a ruby in it in Hong Kong. And so I was wearing this ring and we did the um canal tour, right? And when the canal tour was over, I got out of the you know, little boat or whatever, the gondola, and looked at down at my hand and the uh stone, the ruby had fallen out, and I was so bummed out. But that night we went out to dinner and we went and ate Indonesian food, and I could not believe the spread of food that came out of this place's kitchen. It was just crazy good. And we were sitting at a table which was probably about 12 feet long, and the entire table was nothing but food. Wow. That sounds really the food just kept coming out of the kitchen, it was amazing too.
SPEAKER_02Hey, so tell me about the Hong Kong trip. Tell me about how you how you flew that. They did they bring you out to LA? Did they say, hey, deadhead out, or were you were you based out there with us? Did I miss you out there on that?
SPEAKER_00Um, no, I was based at DFW the whole time I flew. You're gonna you guys are gonna hear it. You're gonna hear a very loud train coming through in the background. I apologize for the noise. Thank you though.
SPEAKER_02Were you flying Hong Kong when we first started where we were deadhead to LA or Seattle and then we would fly from there, or did they deadhead you out and you would fly with an LAX crew?
SPEAKER_00You know what's really funny that it's strange that you asked me that question because I cannot tell you for the life of me. I believe we flew it straight out of DFW, but maybe we did not. Okay. The only thing I know is that we would land in Seoul Korea and refuel and then continue on to Hong Kong.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, all the trips originated out of LA. Uh, so you had to they had to deadhead you because I remember they would deadhead crews out there, and until they actually established the base, they would deadhead us out there, and then we would work the trips out, and then when they opened the base, well, you know, then we all kind of showed up, and I think there were only like 200 of us that were based there. They thought it was gonna go real senior, and it went like junior, but I had the seniority to hold. I think I was like number four at the base. Uh, I know I was in the top 10, but I know when I arrived, it was a little scary for the base managers because they had already heard about my reputation at DFW.
SPEAKER_00And what reputation was that? Will you please describe that for us?
SPEAKER_02Well, I was the CPO, I was a chief party officer at DFW. So if you I guess I missed out on that. He flew with me or didn't fly with me. You were always going to be partying with me at some point. And so when I got out there, Ildico and Pat, you know, they met with me briefly and they're going, Yeah, Chick, you know, we're really happy to have you out here. And you know, we we know you got a little reputation coming out of DFW. And we just, you know, we want to make sure we get off to a good start out here. We're working with a lot of foreign carriers and we're going to a lot of new places, and we just want to know if you'll behave nice.
SPEAKER_00You obviously had a reputation. See, I don't think I had any kind of reputation. That's the difference.
SPEAKER_02Hey, well, look, you never have a reputation until somebody says you have one. I mean, I didn't create one, I just was myself, right?
SPEAKER_00Here comes the training. Um, hopefully you guys will be able to hear me over it. I'll hear you fine. So tell me about when you went to Hong Kong. What was that like? Fascinating. Um, so um I love doing things. Oh shoot, like high.
SPEAKER_02Oops. I'm pausing for a moment here with Erica. Yeah. What's your clock number by the way?
SPEAKER_00Hold on. Welcome to Carlsbad, California. Uh we're noisy here. Um, you know what? Somebody sent it to me a while back, and I think it's 42681.
SPEAKER_02That sounds about right for that for that graduation period, yeah. 42681. Anyways, we like to log that in just in case somebody's looking for your retirement check.
SPEAKER_00Which will never which will never got right.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so tell me about Hong Kong. Tell me, so you get to Hong Kong, we lay over at the Hyatt Regency Kalum, you've been basically raised in Dallas, you come out into the streets of Hong Kong, and what's your first impression?
SPEAKER_00Um, there was, you know, it was such a mix of stuff. There was um, how do you say things that were obviously um Asian? No, no, no, no, Asian, very good. Okay, so some of the best buys I ever made were in Hong Kong. Right. Um, so there was a lot of there was a lot of poverty, and there was also a lot of things that were exquisite and and uh you know exemplified wealth, right? So if you went to the peninsula as an example for how commune for their tea.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, for their tea.
SPEAKER_00Tell me about that, right? Tell me that. Well, the whole the whole lobby is is nothing but I believe 14 karat gold.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I mean it was fascinating. It was just uh it was like mind-blowing. Okay, and then there were other how do you say in Kowloon, obviously, there was a lot of uh poverty as well. So it was such a strange mix of of stuff.
SPEAKER_02Um and there was if you left off Nathan Road, you would come across well, would what we would have considered poverty, but it would have been kind of their common living. But um, I love the peninsula because I would go over there and I would do all kinds of shit at the peninsula. It was like one of the classic places for me to hang out. You know, smoking Dunhills, having brandy, having breakfast. I remember I think on an earlier brand of Chronicles, I would have one of the other flight attendants call me from the Hyatt about an hour after I left. They said, call me because they would it would bring over a silver tray with the phone on it, and it'd be the bell hop with his hat on, and he'd be ringing a little uh whiteboard with your name on it, and then you'd go, I'm over here, and Mr. Cruz, you have a call, and everyone would look at you because the guy would be walking with this tray with like about a 20-foot wire, and they would plug it in at different parts of the of the lobby and in the restaurants, you know, it wouldn't be like so. They could get you the phone, and I would pick it up, like, oh, he's important, he's got a phone call at the peninsula. Yeah, that's a great hotel.
SPEAKER_00So, did you ride the ferry across to the Hong Kong site?
SPEAKER_02All the time, all the time.
SPEAKER_00Okay, there you go. That was another highlight. The the most interesting thing is I I remember the strangest things. Like, uh, here's an example. Same thing in Hong Kong that went down in Germany. So we get to Hong Kong, and everybody goes to their room, and then they announce basically to every you know, the entire crew, hey, do you guys want to meet at McDonald's? And I was like, What? McDonald's of Hong Kong? And there was actually the McDonald's, right? Right. So they all went to McDonald's, and me and somebody that I had flown with, who is again very junior, decided to walk all over Hong Kong. And uh, you know, and it is just that's the way things happen for me a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, did you go so when you took the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong proper, did you ever go to that restaurant, that floating restaurant, Jumbo, that big floating restaurant?
SPEAKER_00No, but now you're making me want to go.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that place was crazy, man. That place was insane. Huge restaurant, tables of 12. You'd go to another floor, there'd be a cabaret, you'd go to another floor, there would be like mahjong games, it would be slapping those freaking mahjong chips everywhere, people smoking cigarettes, they'd bring these little bar carts by, you know, we were like, hey, it's a bar cart just like ours, and it'd be these bar carts, and there'd be like these dumpling bar carts, liquor bar carts, you know, flaming crepes. I mean, this like that fucking jumbo restaurant, man. It had it. You could spend hours in there, literally hours. And you could go in there at daylight and come out sometime in the middle of the night. Wow.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I guess I missed that one.
SPEAKER_02That's okay. That's all right. How many trips did you do to Hong Kong?
SPEAKER_00Did you do quite a few or um, I think I did about three or four.
SPEAKER_02That's good.
SPEAKER_00Something like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and tell me about Seoul Korea. When you got to Seoul, what did you think about that on the layover?
SPEAKER_00Um, I did we actually didn't lay over in Seoul. We just landed and refueled. Right. Um, but the thing that I noticed was all the military out on the the um tarmac. Yeah, yeah. That was weird to me. That was very weird to me.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah. That was a tense place. That was very, that was very tense, unless you were hanging out with me.
SPEAKER_00I don't think I ever flew with you. Did we fly with you?
SPEAKER_02No, I would have remembered you. I would have remembered you.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna I was gonna say I didn't fly with you, so I don't really know. Yeah, yeah. Um, did you live over in Guam? Did you ever do a Guam trip? No, no, no, unfortunately, because yeah, my understanding of it is is that you know it's really beautiful, and I I would have liked to have done that, but no.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that was a place that everybody got really insane there. That's the pilots, everybody like yeah, the Guam was like being in, you know, Fantasy Island without the midget and without Ricardo Manteban.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02But see, the thing about Guam is it had 13 uh communities, they had a name for them, but there were like 13 of them. Um like little counties or whatever, but they each one celebrated their month with a festival each month. And there's only 12 months in a year, okay. Right. So somebody got to double up, and so every time you flew there and laid over in Guam, there was gonna be a festival. So if you laid over in February, one of the little colonies would have a festival. If you laid over in March, I mean there was always something going on there, and um we would suck down on betel nut, which is like an aphrodisiac high. If you sucked on too much betel nut, it would eat away the enamel on your teeth and eventually, you know, would give you gum rot. Uh but that was kind of like their organic, you know, get high kind of stuff. But they drank a lot of beer there, a lot of San Miguel's. Um but yeah, you would have been good at guamp. You know, you're like you got the bathing suit thing going on, which is cool. I have the what? I'm sorry, the bathing suit look for the being look, you're like perfect for that. Perfect guam.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Come on, I mean, you know, hey.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I'm gonna send you some some other ones. How's that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's perfect.
SPEAKER_00That'll be great. We we will we all appreciate that. Okay, all right. So so I flew a lot of international. I also got um called to do a lot of charter stuff. That was the other thing that I got a lot of.
SPEAKER_02And tell me about those. What were you what charter were you flying the Asty Charters out of New York? Were you flying Miami Charters or Hillbilly Charters from Oklahoma?
SPEAKER_00I uh so two different ones I remember in particular. Um, the first one was flying the Kansas City Chargers back from a game that they played in Dallas. Yeah, and that was real crazy because four of them decided to pick me up and put me in an overhead bin. Um, yeah, you know, I don't know why they thought that it would be fun to put me in an overhead bin, but they did. And then the other one was the Club Med charter that I flew to um out of DFJ. No, we went from, I'm sorry, out of it was JFK, yeah, it was JFK. Okay, so we um ferried a DC to JFK. We picked up all the club Club Med people, and I flew that trip by the way with Lori Ennis. Oh yeah. Do you have a picture of her right now? I'm finding more so she was my room roommate for a while. Yeah, I have to look around. Okay, well, when you and I talk privately, I'll point out exactly who she is because you have it right now. I'm looking at her.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you got her on one of the chronicles or on one of my uh on one of my postings.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so right now I'm looking at you. Okay, you can't see me, but she's behind you on in the picture. Behind you.
SPEAKER_01Oh, she's over, she's over here. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, I flew. She's right there. No, she's the blonde. Yeah, right there.
SPEAKER_01I got my finger on it on the back there.
SPEAKER_00That's yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. All right, so yeah, her and I were inmates for I want to say a year or two, something like that. Wow. Um, all right. Yeah, I I met her. I met her on the this particular charter that I'm speaking of. All right. So we picked up a bunch of Club Med, really heavy party people. These people party like nobody's business, right? Yeah, they were the swingers of the 80s. Correct. And we flew them down to Portavallta, but we stopped in Mausalon, I want to say. Yeah. Is it Mausalon? Okay, and they weren't allowed off the aircraft, but we were. So she had roller skates with her, and she had an extra pair. And back then I was pretty good on roller skates. So she said, Do you want to entertain the passengers while we're refueling? And I said, sure. So I put on the skates and we went down on the tarmac and literally skated underneath and all around the aircraft with the passengers looking out the window, cheering us on. That was a fun trip.
SPEAKER_02And that's what Brande Friday tenants were all about.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, we used to do all kinds of crazy stuff. We would have lobster races in the aisles on a Boston trip, you know, returning from Boston. We'd buy a bunch of lobsters, right? They'd be packed in seaweed. We'd take them out, we'd mark mark them right on the on their backs, like we'd have a marker, and we'd mark them, and then we'd have the first class passengers bet on which lobster would make it, you know, down the aisle the fastest. I love that. Everything, everything, everything was about, you know, basically about entertainment and and having a good time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I love that. We always had something going on in cabin like that. I mean, we would do those Asty charters out of New York down to Jamaica, and there'd be like five of us working on a DC 861 or a 51 series, and we would do like, okay, everybody, you're gonna need extra cash. And we do this to Vegas too. You need extra cash. Okay, we want you to guess your seat number on your on your napkin. Uh uh guess the combined weight of all five flight attendants, and then who's ever you know the closest wins. And if if two people are close, then they both could split the pot. And they'd all put in a dollar, and so I'll put in five dollars, and I'll put in ten, and I want 10 choice, whatever. And we go, okay, we'll be back with you guys, and we'd be gone for like 20 minutes in the back galley. We'd we'd cut like 15 off the top, and then we'd pick a winner.
SPEAKER_00I remember that, or the combined age. That was a good one.
SPEAKER_02But that would be the combined age of the flight attendants and the pilots.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I so yeah, I remember a lot of that kind of stuff. Um, I also remember flying the Concorde. Yeah, tell me about the Concorde. What do you want to know? How my my very favorite aircraft ever was that aircraft.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, you know, Gene White was the in-flight, you know, supervisor to oversee any problems. So, what kind of problems did you have?
SPEAKER_00I didn't have any problems. I I my my whole thing was the takeoff on that aircraft was phenomenal. Really? I remember hanging from the aft jump seat, right? Because okay, so the jump seats on that aircraft in the back are all aft facing. Oh, right. So on takeoff, that uh oh here, oops, here we go. Sorry about that. The trains come through here about every 20 minutes, right? Um so on that particular aircraft, as I said, the the jump seats all face aft. Okay. So on takeoff, when the when you roll down, right, you're rolling out on the runway, you literally take off at like a 90-degree angle. It's like being on a rocket. Yeah, I mean, you're almost straight up. And I remember looking at the flight attendant that was across from me because there's two separate aft jump seats, and literally mouthing to her. Oh shit. I mean, I was, and my eyes were just, I'm sure, popping out of my head. Um it's an amazing aircraft. That's all I can tell you. Uh it's not a how do you say it's not a big aircraft. Um, so when passengers would come on, if they were over six feet tall, they would literally have to duck.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was really yeah, it wasn't very tall in there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, six feet, that's it. Right. That's cool. You got to go. Um, and it all first class service, which I really enjoy. Pardon me? Yeah, I mean, it was great, but it was always it was all first class service, no matter what. Yep. All of it. China crystal, sterling, all of it. So that was a lot of fun on flight. Um, it was, but it was how do you say well worth it? And it was expected. It was also expected. Yeah. Yeah, I should, I should have worked that. I should have worked that flight. Oh well. Were you were you concord qualified?
SPEAKER_02I didn't go to that. I didn't, you know, I I like passing over on that, but I should I should have gone to get qualified and done my thing. That's all right. Hey, well, listen, I'm gonna let you go. I want to thank you for giving us some time here on the brand of Chronicles. The lovely Erica Weber. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Hopefully, you guys could hear me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, if I can hear you, everybody else can hear you. But listen, okay, thank you so much. And uh take care of yourself. What are you doing now? You're like living out on the ocean, right? Pacific Ocean, is that it? You're just kind of like tired hanging out.
SPEAKER_00I live about a mile from the beach, nice from the ocean, and I live on the lagoon. Nice, all right. Well, good for you. We're happy for you. We're happy for you. I feel uh I'm very grateful to be here.
SPEAKER_02Good, good. We're very grateful to have you on the Brano Chronicles. Take care of yourself, all the best, and uh we'll be in touch.
SPEAKER_00Okay, thanks, love. I appreciate it. I'm gonna send you a couple picks, okay? Thank you. Bye-bye. All right, bye now.
SPEAKER_03One flight, one crew, one layover.