‘I used to be flight attendant – celebs are horrible and sure routes want booze ban’

On May 30, 2024

You might think there is no better feeling than getting on a flight to Las Vegas for a long weekend with the lads.

But while you are giddy at the prospect of free booze in the sky having spent months planning your big trip, the cabin crew staff are likely bracing themselves for what is to come.

This leads us to Skye Taylor, 48, who dedicated 17 years of her life working for Virgin Atlantic. And in an exclusive interview with the Daily Star, she spoke to us about the most traumatic routes.

The mum, who quit after getting insomnia from gruelling hours, told us that alcohol being free on long-haul flights was a huge problem.

She said: “There are a lot of crew who campaign to have certain routes where alcohol is not supplied to people because it used to get that bad. For us it would be mainly the Thursday Vegas and LA and sometimes random routes like the Caribbean and stuff like that.

“The main problem I think you have is McGregor fights and big events in Vegas where it is rowdy and it is mainly men on the flight. I have had loads of incidents of just rudeness, they don’t listen, they congregate in the cabin and it is really really dangerous.

“I’ve never been attacked, but verbally? All the time. It is horrible up there. Sometimes it feels like it is going to get out of control and it is not a nice feeling.

“I’ve had people hide alcohol, smoke vapes in the toilet, being really rude to the cabin crew, trying to grab the cabin crew, people screaming in your face. You go out to the galley and people are helping themselves in the bars. It can be absolutely horrendous.”

But it is not just booze that Skye highlighted as a concern. She feels that post-Covid there have been even more passengers on prescription drugs.

She used to advise them to be careful mixing drinks with sleeping pills as they may react differently because of the altitude.

Skye even said she had witnessed travellers whose personalities “completely changed” during a flight. And, giving us a bleak insight, she remembered: “I have had incidents where people have been so rude and so horrible and fall asleep eventually and they wake up and are like ‘oh my god why was I behaving like that?’ There are not enough studies done on prescription medication in the air.

“Especially on LA routes, it used to be quite traumatic for some crew. The people can be on quite a lot of substances like Xanaz and all this kind of stuff coupled with drinking is just a recipe for disaster.”

She also said a major issue was people buying alcohol in duty free – before sneakily opening spirits while 40,000 feet in the sky.

The former flight attendant, who ditched the job for a much racier career, explained how she would find bottles of vodka discarded on seats once passengers left the craft.

She said bringing on booze from duty free gives travellers an “excuse to be completely drunk” and she believes alcohol needs to be handed in to staff at the start of flights to take away the temptation.

Skye never did the short flights to places like Ibiza but believes you “can’t expect those passengers to be sensible” with duty free booze.

But from her own experience, it was actually the upper class customers who were the most difficult to deal with.

“I would say a lot of the incidents I found were with the upper class passengers,” she explained. “If you have big names in the upper class they would take advantage of that. They know they are important and they have paid an awful lot of money to be refused a drink.”