You Know You Want to Ask: Is the Mile High Club Real?

I know this is a predictable topic, but it’s a predictable question. That’s kind of my job here, right? Everybody really does want to know about the Mile High Club. It must be the most asked question about my job. Does it really happen? Haven’t you ever been tempted?

Before I answer, let me ask you this: do you think airplane travel is sexy? I don’t mean in theory. I don’t mean the idea of it. I mean, literally picture yourself getting on board…

You push your way past all the people randomly standing in the aisle scratching their bums and people-watching at leisure instead of stepping into their rows, you scramble to find bin space for cramming your bag, shimmy into your 90-degree angled seat, nudge a smaller bag underneath with your toe because you can’t actually bend over in the space provided — oh, or access the armrest situation. The person in front of you reclines into your face. The flight attendant’s hip bumps your shoulder as she navigates the narrow walk space. Every. Time.

Now — don’t lie! — you’re feeling sexy, aren’t you? You’re suddenly in the mood for some lavatory lovin’, amirite?

There’s your answer.

There is why, I think, almost all talk these days regarding the Mile High Club is just that. (Private flights don’t count! There’s no challenge there but money.) I can certainly promise you that, despite the classic fantasy, it would never be flight attendants doing it. The famous incident of the Qantas stew and Ralph Fienneswas a bizarre, celebrity-motivated exception. It’s almost a secret motto of our profession — the lavatories are the last place any of us would want to risk bare skin pressing against anything! We’ve all said it. Guh–ross.

Amorous passengers have only happened two (three?) times in my whole career. The last time I saw a couple trying to fit into the bathroom was over a decade ago. Coincidentally, just this morning on a professional Facebook forum a colleague posted, “When is the last time you caught someone joining the mile high club?” She then answered her own question by stating that she caught a couple that very night. So there is love in the air somewhere! One flight attendant commented that she’d once opened the lav door on two girls fooling around, but she didn’t mind because, “at least they weren’t bitching at me like half the rest of the plane was,” so she just closed the door. That’s the spirit!

There are colleagues who would paint a different story than me, coworkers who claim it has happened to them many times. Even then, it doesn’t necessarily happen the way you’d think.

One of those colleagues has two particularly memorable stories. One is the tale of a couple on a full 757 to the U.S. from an island nation. It’s broad daylight. A call light goes off mid-cabin above the head of an aisle passenger twisting in his seat trying to catch a crew member’s eye. When the flight attendant approaches, the guy starts pointing into his row. There is a woman in the middle seat, with her head down, doing, -erm, an intimate favor for the guy at the window. When the flight attendant stops them, they apologize and explain that he’s just been released from jail and they are on a celebratory trip and got carried away!

Story two occurs en route to the U.K. A 50-ish year old woman is in a row with a 20-something fella, an empty seat between. In brief, they become friends and — as it turns out — have had lots of fun surreptitiously sharing copious amounts of duty-free liquor. Sometime during the night, the crew notices strange movement in the cabin. She’s sitting in his lap. I’ll leave it there. The crew had to separate them, and let’s just say a certain 24-year-old daughter was very embarrassed when she picked her mother up at the airport.

I’ve seen people making out in their seats, yes, but it usually stops there. Maybe I just work boring routes. I was stuck on the New York-Paris route for fourteen years straight, so I can say it’s not happening there. If you consider that’s a honeymoon-heavy route, we might conclude that people joining the famous Mile High Club these days are less about romance and more about “headed for rehab.” A scan of news archives on the topic supports this sadly unsexy hypothesis.

Sorry to disappoint, friends. If you’re really keen to find Mile Highers, your best bet is to look for passengers from last week’s column. I have a pretty strong hunch these stories travel in pairs.

[Photo: iStock]