When Flight Attendants Steal

This is the stuff that flight attendant infamy is made of: Rachel Trevor, an Endeavor Air (owned by Delta) stewardess, stole 1,500 liquor minis and attempted to sell them on Craigslist for $1 a pop. I find the story as shocking as you do. That’s a lot of minis!

I’ve been asked a few questions about theft by cabin crew. Our job is hard to get. People who succeed are usually incredibly focused on wanting this job. Even those who don’t seem to like it anymore sure are loath to leave. So why would you risk it on a silly scam like that?

I wouldn’t be surprised if Ms. Trevor justified her actions using low wages and fatiguing work rules as factors, especially being both early in her career and at a regional carrier (where those conditions are probably the most extreme). Then again, you do find some people who just love to pull off a heist. Either way, she may have been prepared for the firing, but I bet she didn’t expect the worst of it: being charged with grand theft of property worth over $10,000, as the bottles are being valued at the $8 apiece they would have sold for in-flight. Ouch.

Over the course of a flying career, we all hear a few stories like this — and most of them don’t make the news. Just a few years ago, there was a flight attendant at my airline busted for stealing Duty-Free items. She even had warnings on the flight where she got busted that she was being watched, but was still caught red-handed with a load of various products taped to her body underneath her uniform! That’s an, ahem, uncomfortable scheme! Another FA was caught pocketing the money of passengers purchasing Duty-Free cigarettes and replacing them with cartons she’d bought in the Caribbean (where they’re cheaper). I once heard of someone (caterers, I think) wheeling off entire carts full of first class dishes to sell to airline collectors online. One flight attendant at another airline was known to be selling the china at yard sales in Kew Gardens. I wonder if he’s been caught yet.

These tales are famous for a reason, however. They’re exceptional and rare and stunning in their brazenness. We tell these stories shaking our heads in disbelief — and a feeling of relief that such an untrustworthy colleague is no longer among us. You can bet that a person who is selfishly reckless is not easy to work with. In my experience, if someone is open about their lack of conscience regarding the job, that callousness will probably extend to co-workers, too. No crews enjoy having this sort among us.

Thankfully, the only kind of airline theft most of us ever see is a crew member nicking a soda, a bit (to go) from an open wine bottle that’s destined for the drain anyway, or maybe a snack from leftover catering. Even that personal use sort of theft happens much less often than it did at the beginning of my career. These days, most domestic layovers aren’t long enough for even a single drink and international crews don’t want to risk a tangle with foreign customs (we get semi-regular emails that U.K. customs, in particular, will arrest us for even having trash from the airplane in our possession, even though we have written permission to take leftover perishables! It makes zero sense, but there it is).

So the kind of theft from Ms. Trevor’s story is really “something special in the air.” What I’d love to know is how long it took her to steal 1,500 bottles. Was she squirreling away a few after every flight, or was she dumping the whole liquor drawer into her bag each day? This question serves nothing but my curiosity as to what kind of thief she was — angry and brazen or poor and feeling justified? Either way, she’s part of airline folklore now.

[Photo: Getty]