Cathay investigates claim couple used crew rest area for sex
Simon Parry
Apr 19, 2009

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP...ng+Kong&s=News

Cathay Pacific (SEHK: 0293) is investigating claims that an amorous couple in first class were allowed to use the crew rest area to join the "mile-high club" on a flight from Toronto to Hong Kong.

A Hong Kong-based passenger says in a blog on the www.airliners.net website that the purser invited him and his girlfriend to use the off-limits area after he saw them getting intimate while sitting in seats that folded out into beds in the airline's new first-class cabin.

The passenger, a doctor, has posted pictures of himself lying on the bunk - used by crew to rest between shifts on long flights - on a detailed blog about his "amorous adventure" on the 15-hour flight on his way home from a Harvard University reunion.

It is unclear from the blog whether the rest area he claims to have been in was that for the cockpit crew or for the cabin crew, but his description indicates that the alleged incident took place in the pilots' bunks.

The unnamed passenger, an aircraft enthusiast who has posted a number of previous blogs describing his front-end flying experiences, says the romp on board the Boeing 777-300ER was made possible by an attendant he knew from previous flights. Three other passengers were in the first-class compartment.

The passenger wrote on his blog: "On these long, long flights there isn't really anything to do after the meal service so my gf [girlfriend] and I were cuddling and watching movies.

"With the magnificent large bed one thing led to another and soon my friend was at our side saying, 'Would you like the privacy of our crew rest upstairs?'

"My gf and I looked at each other and were like, sure why not? We haven't been in the mile-high club. Now THAT left me exhausted."

Cathay managers are examining the blog, posted this month, to see if the attendant broke the rules.

An airline spokeswoman said: "We are looking into the case. It is a company policy that the cabin crew and cockpit crew rest bunks can only be used by operating crew and not for any staff or passengers."

One flight attendant said he was convinced the blogger had invented the story, adding that passengers were not permitted in crew rest areas for various safety reasons. "Passengers are not permitted in crew rest areas because they are not trained in how to exit from it in the event of an emergency or a jammed door," he wrote on the website.

A senior Cathay Pacific pilot, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "I frankly think it's unlikely this really happened. On a flight from Toronto there will be someone in the cockpit crew rest area almost all the time. There are four pilots and two will be in there at a time apart from the breaks between shifts, which will only be about 15 minutes."