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Summary: The Other Side
Review: Everyone has their flying horror stories: lost baggage, missed connections, annoying seat companions. Now imagine your life if those incident happened two or three times a day, and you had to deal with the victims of them.
Most of us -- including me, admittedly -- don't usually treat flight attendants with the respect that they deserve, considering the amount of (cough) crud that they have to deal with every day. Reading this will certainly give you a deeper appreciation of a job which seems to be a combination of policeman, janitor, lawyer, and bouncer . . . all while attempting to keep a straight face and gentle disposition.The stories relater by Hester are all quite hilarious, and uplifting in the sense that, at least only a few of them have happened to you. Hester is a good storyteller, but he goes a bit overboard at times. He will sometimes push a little too hard for humour, and ends up creating absurd simlies and metaphors. Other than that, this is a book certainly worth the time it takes to read.
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Summary: Frequent laughing points
Review: Hester streams out his funny (some funny only in the way that you say, "Someday we'll look back on this and laugh.") stories of serving travelers with, really, a laugh a minute. His style is just a litle overly cute, though, as he constantly peppers us with "clever" similes and metaphors, intead of letting the story do the talking (think of putting a cup of sugar on your morning cereal). But nonetheless, the stories are truly great, and this guy has experienced stuff that you just couldn't make up. Don't look for inside dirt on his employer--either because of his professionalism or his lawyers' advice, he avoids mentioning airlines by name, even when they fire a flight attendant who drank large amounts of water (permitted) for allegedly watering down a drug-test urine sample (not permitted), with no proof and no independent confirmation. Buy it and plow through it when you need a little light reading, or stories you can read in just a few minutes at a time.
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Summary: This book is so bad, Amazon won't even list my review of it!
Review: .
Amazon must be sleeping with the author of this piece of trash, because they won't list my negative review of this book!
Rating:
Summary: Highly entertaining
Review: Flight attendant Elliot Hester's compilation of dozens of hilarious essays and stories about his experiences at 30,000 feet. Most of the essays in this book are things you may have read before -- a lot of them have been published on Salon.com and Hester is a syndicated travel columnist these days in addition to his day job in jets. But if you've never experienced his sharp wit and sharper tongue, you're in for a few belly laughs and groans. And also, you may never think about flight attendants in quite the same way ever again. Recommended to frequent fliers and anybody else who could use a few good laughs while squished into one of those tiny seats in coach!
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Summary: A rollicking ride in the absurdity of life
Review: Elliott Hester takes us behind the curtain and puts us squarely on the other side of the drink cart to see what it's like to be flight attendant's world. And as he shows so ably, it's quite bizarre. Anyone who has worked in a service industry knows the customer from hell, but it seems that locking customers into a flying tin can will bring out even more strange and striking behavior. What helps balance out Hester's book is that not only are the passengers in for his acid tongue - corporations, pilots and fellow flight attendants all come under the microscope, whether behaving badly or just letting off steam. While he acknowledges that there are some advantages (cheap flights, flexible schedule) there are a lot of downsides to the romantic version of the flight crew. Poking fun at even himself, he never slides over to mean, though some of his stories straddle the line. Rather it's a good read that will make you think twice when you ask for that extra pillow on your next flight.
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Summary: Absolutely hilarious
Review: This was the best flight attendant book I've read since Cabin Pressure. Most of the stories kept me laughing for days. Mr. Hester is an excellent writer and his way of wording things makes it even funnier. I don't know why people have given this book negative reviews and say it's "mildly amusing." These people need to get a life. Sure, the guy mentioned maybe TWICE that he was straight, but and uses humor about mentioning it those very, very few times that he does.
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Summary: A Visit To the Psych Ward at 30,000 feet!
Review: Question: What happens when you combine from 100 to 350 human beings, confine them in a cramped space for hours on end, and move them around the earth at 500 miles an hour at an altitude of 30,000 feet? Answer: You create a laboratory for the observer of psychological pathology- or more plainly, you have the antics that occur on a typical airliner on most days in any year. In" Flight Insanity", Elliott Hester provides the reader with "highlights" of his sixteen-year career as a flight attendant. Having traveled a fair amount in my life, I know firsthand that flying is nothing exotic. Increasingly, air travel is an uncomfortable trial to endure -- it's "what we have to go through" in order "to end up where we want to be". Hester's book is rollickingly funny! A breezy read -- detailing incredible, yet entirely believable stories as viewed from the plane's galley. While I have heard all kinds of flight attendant joke, and laughed at quite a few, by the end of Flight Insanity, I had a new respect for the challenges of this beleaguered profession. The attendants get the last laugh! Through his stories, Hester provides some great detail into odd tidbits of factual information on air travel and the industry itself. The human beings - passengers, pilots and attendants themselves, are a curious mix at high altitudes. If you travel by plane at all, I highly recommend "Flight Insanity."
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Summary: My opinions
Review: I am a senior in high school, and after I graduate I want to be a flight attendent. This book sounded really good so I bought it. I absolutly loved this book! I was laughing out loud at many of the parts of this book. "Jonathan..Jonathan...oh..my...god...Jonathan!" I read this book in under a week, which says alot. It was a really quick and enjoyable read and I reccomend it to everyone. Hester has a way of telling his stories that make you think "What is wrong with these people?"
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Summary: We really don't care that you're straight...
Review: As a very frequent traveler (I work in the travel industry), I picked this book up thinking that it would be really entertaining. Yes, most of Hester's stories are hilarious. And yes, I do believe 99% of what he writes (we deal with some real whackjobs at work and they're the ones who fly). But I have to say, the constant declaration of his sexuality really took away from the humor. Everytime he mentioned that he is not gay (which was a LOT), he interrupted the flow of his stories. It was slightly offensive, as well. But nonetheless, you will laugh out loud -- that is until he announces for the 100th time that he is not gay.
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Summary: A Jumbo Disappointment
Review: I recently started getting into the flight crewmember tell-all books after a long delay in DC and a surprise impulse buy at the bookstore. So I moved on to another one and since I had heard of Plane Insanity through the grapevine, I decided to bring it along on my next flight. What a mistake! First of all Mr. Hester has made it way too clear that he is not gay, it's a point that he never seems to get over (Nobody cares!)Then all the moaning about the job makes it a task to turn the next page. If he doesn't like his job...quit and save us all from another miserable experience. There are some funny interludes from time to time but not enough to maintain momentum. He thinks way too highly of himself and I was disappointed in a big way. There are some really good flight books out there, this was not one of them.
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