I Remember Looking Out the Airplane Window and Thinking I Would Die
I Remember Looking Out the Airplane Window and Thinking I Would Die by Maria Mackle
Today I am delighted to welcome Maria Mackle on to the blog with a brilliant guest post about her life as an Air Hostess and how it relates to her book, The Mile High Guy!
I Remember Looking Out the Airplane Window and Thinking I Would Die by Maria Mackle
It’s not my time yet, I thought in a panic. I remember looking out the airplane window, convinced I was going to die. We were about to land in Charles de Gaulle airport, and I looked out the window. It was dark, maybe about 7.00am and there were lots of sirens flashing. I had never seen so many ambulances and fire engines on the tarmacadam. Oh my God, they’re waiting for us,’ I trembled, breaking out in a cold sweat.
Some of or passengers were still sleeping, unaware of the drama unfolding underneath. The captain had been given a red alert. There could be a bomb on board. The airport gets hoax calls every day, but sometimes they are taken seriously, and we were told to prepare ourselves for something serious.
I’m going to die, I thought, and I’m only 26. And my book hasn’t even been published yet. I was thinking of the unfairness of it all, when the plane hit the runway with a slight thud, and then it came to a stop. We all disembarked without incident, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I got to live another day!
I often look back on that scary morning when I felt my life flash in front of my eyes. That wasn’t my fate! After all, I wasn’t even supposed to be on that flight. A colleague had asked me to swap rosters with her so she could attend a wedding. It was her flight. I wasn’t supposed to be on a plane with a bomb that day.
You know, when I tell people I’m a writer I can often see their eyes glaze over. Even my friends and family aren’t that bothered about my career. But when I tell people I was an air hostess in a former life, their interest suddenly piques. Did you serve any famous people? Yes, many. Oscar-winning Daniel Day-Lewis (he often booked an economy seat), U2’s Bono (the most polite passenger ever), Adam Clayton (ditto), the supermodel Helena Christensen (great fun!), and other celebrities who were not so nice, and therefore will remain nameless.
People would often ask me about the mile high club. I’d tell them it doesn’t exist (not enough space in the toilets and there was always an impatient queue outside). What was the craziest thing a passenger did? Well, let me see… someone tried to open a door half way across the Atlantic; another honeymoon couple were removed before take-off, after throwing drunken punches at each other… one of my passengers tried to strangle a fellow passenger en route from New York to Dublin. He was arrested in Shannon airport and given a three-month jail sentence. So it wasn’t all sunbathing and shopping although we did get to do that too!
I loved flying, and I made some great lifelong friends. As an insomniac I found the jetlag a killer, however. I started writing in hotel rooms as I couldn’t sleep, and I wrote my first book on hotel stationary with pens and pencils. Back then I didn’t know how to type. Write about what you know – that’s the advice people often tell you. So I wrote about cabin crew, and some of the funny experiences I’d had. Of course I wrote it as fiction, as I didn’t want anyone getting into trouble. Readers would often ask me who was the gorgeous captain in my book. Was he real? Well, of course not, ladies! If he had been real, we would have got married and lived happily ever after.
About the Book
Welcome on board, Ladies and Gentlemen! Mingling with rich and famous first class passengers is all in a day’s work for Katie. But when she meets a gorgeous, eligible TV star on board a transatlantic flight from New York to Dublin, her whole word is turned upside down. Adam is everything a woman could want and more. But why is he insisting on keeping their relationship a secret? And is really a member of THAT club?
About the Author
Hello, I’m Marisa Mackle. I was born in Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland and I now live in Dublin with my baby son and two selfish cats. I have a BA in English from University College Dublin. I was an air hostess with Aer Lingus for over five years and I now write a column with the Evening Herald. I have written twelve books which have been translated into many languages. What do you think goes on in the sky?
