Confessions of a former Air New Zealand and Ansett flight attendant – Stuff.co.nz

Queen Elizabeth II was apparently so captivated by the view on a 1991 descent into Queenstown that she stood in the aisle for so long the cabin crew worried they wouldnt be able to complete the in-flight service before landing.

Philippa (Pippa) Field describes serving as a flight attendant manager on the Ansett flight from Queenstown as a highlight of a career that also saw her crew Air New Zealands first ever flight to Rarotonga, share cabin space with the King and Queen of Tonga and South Africas Springboks rugby team.

Pippa Field/Supplied

Pippa was turned down for a role with Air NZs international crew in the late 70s because she was married, a mum and over 30.

Tasked with coordinating the service for the Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and other dignitaries on the British Aerospace 146 Whisper Jet, Pippa admits she felt daunted. And nerves quickly escalated to alarm when another crew member informed her the trollies couldnt be released for service at the back of the plane because the Queen had got up from her seat, pinned her hat to a seat on the opposite side of the aisle and was peering out the window.

Angela (the air hostess charged with serving the royal pair) did not feel she could possibly bump Her Majesty on the bum and say scuse me maam. I need to get the trollies out to the back so that the other passengers can eat, says 75-year-old Pippa. And she wasnt the only one on tenterhooks.

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The on-board chef was so nervous he couldnt get Her Majestys hors doeuvres out of the ovens as his hands were shaking so much! Eventually we were left scrambling down the back to complete service and clear in before landing.

The late duke also gave the crew a bit of grief, refusing to take his seat before landing.

Pippa Field/Supplied

Pippa and fellow graduates from Air New Zealands flight attendant training school in 1979.

Angela gave up trying. Captain John Bartlett told me later that he was very apprehensive about the flights!

Pippa says the day is a bit of a blur now, but she recalls serving the crew a hot meal afterwards to thank them for their hard work, and convincing the captain to crack open a bottle of Krug champagne.

It is of course a big no-no for crew to drink whilst on duty for safety reasons. He said okay, but after weve landed, okay.

Its only thanks to Pippas chutzpah and determination that she became an air hostess (or hostie, as she puts it) at all. When she applied for a job with Air New Zealand in the late 1970s after a career as a nurse in the UK, three things counted against her: She was over 30, married and had a three-year-old child.

While the womens liberation movement was gaining significant momentum in New Zealand at the time, the national carriers hiring policies hadnt caught up.

Air New Zealand/Stuff

The uniform Pippa wore when she started with Air NZ Certainly not up there fashion-wise, but it was practical I guess. We all envied the international hosties with their lovely Nina Ricci uniforms. I think we all felt a tad dowdy beside them.

Convinced the airline wasnt playing fair when it turned her down for medical reasons, she went to see her GP, who ordered a battery of tests for her to undergo. As luck would have it, her GP counted Air New Zealands doctor among his contacts and called him to ask why Fields application had been rejected.

(The doctor) had a very loud voice and the answer came booming out of the phone: Well, shes over 30 and married with a child. We can have our pick of 25-year-olds so why would we hire her? Suffice to say, I started on about human rights and discrimination!

Her indignation served her well: The airline took her on as cabin crew trainee on domestic flights in 1979, the year after its merger with the National Airways Corporation (NAC).

Pippa believes she may have been the first married woman to have been hired by the airline as a hostie, as well as the first with a child. She struggled at first, finding out on her first day on the job that she was terrified of turbulence.

My hands used to sweat so much I feared I would pour the tea and coffee in the wrong places due to hand slippage. I was so scared that I thought I would have to give my dream up, but in the end sheer stubbornness overcame everything.

Pippa Field/Supplied

Top: Pippa never thought of her role as glamorous but enjoyed it nonetheless. Bottom left: A highlight of Pippas career was being stranded in Rarotonga for 10 days during a strike.

That said, it was love at first flight. Flying into Wellington from Gisborne on her first day without her trainer accompanying her, Pippa recalls standing by the flight deck of the Fokker aircraft and watching the planes approach for as long as she could.

It was a wonderful, amazing experience to watch the guys at work. And we got to fly into Wellington on a good day.

There was much she loved about the role: Regularly watching the sunrise and sunset from 30,000 feet in the air and the long layovers in the Pacific Islands being chief among them. But she never found it particularly glamorous, describing the work as hard yakka.

Cleaning up puke, emptying sick bags, pouring tea and coffee, and emptying garbage bags just how glamorous is that? It was similar to nursing, but in a more rarefied atmosphere.

She also felt pressure to ensure she looked her best every day as it was a criteria that one had to be pretty to be hired for the job. A boss I had, once used to call it facial validity but Im a fan of Este Lauder. There are no not beautiful people, only lazy ones.

Supplied

Pippa and fellow hosties appeared with British broadcaster Alan Whicker in Air NZs Nobody does it better campaign.

Still, she had experiences on the job she will never forget. She had another brush with royalty on a flight on which the then-King and Queen of Tonga were guests of honour. She says two sheepskin-lined seats were taken off an international aircraft and placed at the front of the Boeing 737 for them to sit on.

They sat enthroned up the front with their own special hostie.

Pippa was working at the back of the aircraft so didnt spend time with them during the flight, but was summoned to bid farewell to them after landing.

They swept past us with not even a ta. There was no acknowledgement whatsoever from the King or Queen of the special service that had been given to them at all. I remember thinking this is royal. You just kind of expect that we all busted a gut.

DAVID WHITE/STUFF

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Pippa became something of a VIP herself after appearing in a high-profile Air New Zealand advertising campaign with British broadcaster Alan Whicker in 1979. Featuring the slogan Nobody does it better, the ad was promptly pulled after the Mt Erebus disaster in November of that year, which was and remains New Zealands deadliest air disaster.

Pippa was on duty the night the Air New Zealand DC-10 airliner crashed into Antarcticas Mt Erebus, killing all 257 passengers and crew on board.

I heard the screams of one hostie who was engaged to a crew member on that flight. It was ghastlyI was rostered to work the next day, and it just passed in a blur. There was no counselling or managers talking to us. We just got on and did our jobs.

The disaster is something she and many others will never fully come to terms with but, all in all, Pippa looks back on her career as a hostie with fondness, saying her jobs with Air New Zealand and then Ansett were the best she ever had.

I learned to enjoy the flying, even in rough conditions and there were plenty of those. I liked the hours of work, meeting the passengers and giving service, as limited as it was in those days: Tea, coffee, crackers and cheese in packets that one had to put one's feet on to open. It was a fantastic time.

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Confessions of a former Air New Zealand and Ansett flight attendant - Stuff.co.nz