What It's REALLY Like To Be A Virgin Air Stewardess For 10 Years

Her sky-high exploits have been documented recently, with tales of champagne-fuelled parties around the world, run-ins with celebrities and mingling with Sir Richard Branson himself.

But for Mandy Smith, 40, from Teesside, Hartlepool, being an air stewardess with Virgin Atlantic wasn’t just about having fun and games in Upper Class and glamorous locations.

In fact, being groped, having food thrown at her and looking after a woman who’d suffered a miscarriage in the economy toilets – all the while maintaining an air of calm professionalism – were more common.

'We had fun but were always professional,' says Mandy, pictured here in her cabin crew days

Cabin Fever: The Sizzling Secrets of a Virgin Air Hostess published last month, is Mandy’s memoir of her 10-year stint as a Virgin ‘Trolley Dolly.’
And she doesn’t hold back about the on and off-board antics.

And you can forget the Mile High Club, according to Mandy it was the passengers who are the worst behaved mid-air.

‘The book charts 10 years and in that time I knew of only two instances where cabin crew messed about – one stewardess on my flight was caught giving oral sex to a steward but she was sacked on the spot, they take that very seriously.
‘The passengers behaved far worse, especially in Premium Economy because they think they’re better than Economy, but actually can’t afford Upper.

‘I had a man throw pizza in my face once because he said it wasn’t good enough for his son to eat.

‘And one businessman was travelling in Upper Class and getting it on at the bar with a fellow female passenger. They’d had a few drinks and had a few snogs. Literally five minutes later his wife walked through to see him. She’d been sitting back in Economy with no idea what was going on! We were shocked.’

And the mother of a very famous American star, travelling without her son, head-butted one of Mandy’s colleagues, causing her nose to break.

‘She boarded and threw her fur coat at me, ordering me to store it away,’ remembers Mandy. ‘I knew then that she’d be trouble.

‘It’s also public knowledge that she and her son don’t get on very well. She had a few drinks throughout the flight and took sleeping pills, then all of a sudden went crazy and had to be wrestled to the ground.

‘She head-butted my colleague who was merely trying to restrain her outburst, and her nose burst open and I don’t even think she ever apologised. We have to put up with a lot!’

In the book Mandy also describes having to sew up a man whose five stitches in his chest had burst open, and the trauma of finding a passenger in the plane's toilet, who had just suffered a miscarriage.

'I gathered plastic aprons, surgical gloves, face masks and cloths from our first-aid supplies in the galley and returned to the scene with more crew to help,' says Mandy.

'We have to be calm and helpful in all situations, nothing can faze us. No matter how upsetting, we are there to help.'

And it's not just unruly and amorous passengers that make it a difficult job –frequent flying and conflicting time zones take their toll. Constant wind, IBS and even missing periods are just par for the course.

During her hey day as as member of Virgin Atlantic's Cabin Crew, Mandy Smith, right, partied all around the world and even met Ronan Keating after a gig

‘Going up and down so often plays havoc with the gases released in your body and the different time zones and poor diet really mess you up too,’ says Mandy.
‘Every crew member has IBS and I didn’t have a period for seven months because my body clock was so all over the place.

‘And anyone who thinks stewardesses are sexy should know that it’s not stockings and suspenders we wear under our uniform – it’s support tights and girdles to prevent varicose veins!’

On the plus, travelling first class and having exotic holidays isn’t too shabby. Even when Mandy wasn't working she'd be upgraded on every flight and even took her mum on a seven-day shopping spree in Cape Town.

And week-long stop overs meant lots of partying. Mandy says: ‘We once had a week in St Lucia, staying in a top hotel for free. There was a group of us and it was one big party.

‘After a few drinks in our rooms we all went skinny dipping in the sea, but someone ran off with our clothes.

'Not only did we have to head back through the hotel completely naked, but one girl lost a bet so had to swim in every pool of the hotel, naked, before she was allowed back.

'It was like an office Christmas party, but lasting several nights every month.’
Mandy’s most raucous party was a stag do in the city of sin itself, Las Vegas, which she said was ‘too raucous’ to leave in the book.

‘The boyfriend of one of the crew members was on the stag do of a Calvin Klein model,’ she says.

‘They invited a few of us girls along. No expense was spared, he’d hired huge private marquees outside one of the biggest nightclubs in the city with drinks flowing.

‘Afterwards we all went back to their hotel suite which was massive. People were getting it on all over the place and drugs were lined up on the tables, though of course we didn’t touch them because Virgin do random drug tests.

‘We certainly took advantage of all the free champagne though!’

And Mandy recalls meeting Ronan Keating at a party Sir Richard threw for their inaugural flight to Toronto.

'It was a lavish white marquee on tip of the bay with a B747-400 fly over,' she says. 'There were huge cocktails, Ronan sang Richard even joined in with the backing dancers for a rendition of Raining Men when The Weather Girls performed!
'They all stripped off to Union Jack shorts for the finale. Ronan was such a genuinely lovely man. Unfortunately no one in Canada knew who he was but all the crew ran to the stage & were singing along with all his songs. Just another normal night out with the crew!'

Now, Mandy lives a quiet life with her husband, Glenn, 40 and daughter who is two years old. in West Sussex, but says she wouldn’t swap her colourful life with Virgin Atlantic for anything.

‘I made amazing friends and went all over the world,’ she says. 'I wouldn’t change a thing. Although smelling of farts? That I don’t miss.’

Source: Dailymail