Xmas parties

The festive season is upon us and so is that event we love to hate, the office party. Yes, airlines have them too, but sadly there is no arse photocopying. Despite the fact that airline life can be raunchy, what with gay air hosts getting their starfish raided in Gatwick and skinny dipping in the Ramada Jarvis, the office party is a rather boring affair. From my experience, the only scandal I ever witnessed was someone drinking too much and vomiting (wow!) and a supposedly straight First Officer ramming his tongue down the throat of an Air Host. This mishap was seen as sordid as the Jimmy Savile incident and was hushed up- gays don't exist, right?

One thing airline crew are thankful for is the lack of shitty activities what poor office staff have to endure, like writing a card to everyone who works there and being the beneficiary of a 1997 pack of Body Shop Fuzzy Peach in Secret Fucking Santa. Drinking is strictly forbidden in work so there's no fake smiley team trip to the pub in your dinner hour and the fact you might be suffering jet lag/working on Xmas day/ in an airport in the middle of nowhere means less forced socialising. Yippee! You might even be lucky enough to work nights and miss the office party!

Xmas parties usually consist of Flight Deck Floozies squeezing their size 16 'figures' into a Lipsy dress they've seen on their idol Tulisa, rehearsing chat up lines what they're going to pull the married pilots with. The old pilots will be sitting in the corner either wearing a novelty jumper, a BHS double breasted suit with a novelty tie and novelty socks seductively peeking out or some tweed monstrosity. The young FOs will be in tight tops or Ben Sherman, dressed in the style of a 17 year old from Scunthorpe trying to get in to Wetherspoons for the first time. The foreign pilots will either look like a fucking penguin in a dicky bow or think they're auditioning to be a kids TV presenter and wear a Helly Hansen/ North Face/ C&A own brand polar fleece combined with a sweater in primary colours and fucking moccasins. Sorry about my language by the way, but I'm on a roll. I want to get my frustration across, the Grumpy Old Men have nothing on me! The base management will sit on a table in the corner, scrutinising clothes, behaviour and being pedantic jobsworths. They always wear black like they're at a wake. Female base managers always wear long dresses, kitten heels and ooze 1992. They try to be a confidante for the old drunk pilots whose wives don't understand them, seizing the opportunity to have a bit of a tryst. There is always some sort of boring corporate speech at these events, a great time for a toilet break.

At the crew parties I've been to, the food has always been shite and the music awful for the first 3 hours, probably hoping for people to go home early. Some of the fag hags will request overplayed, outdated bollocks like I'm Every Woman and We Are Family. Then it gets a bit exciting. The drink starts flowing, the beer goggles come on and even ugly hosties manage to get fingerbanged by ageing PILFs under the prawn ring. The stereotypical playlist of Cabin Crew Songs comes on, I Believe I Can Fly, Wind Beneath My Wings and Theme from Mahogany all make an appearance. This time, the pilots have a playlist too! When La Bamba comes on and they get to the Soy Capitan bit, the chubby captains put their hands on their hips, wink and click their finger, lip synching. Rocket Man is as cringeworthy as it sounds. She packed my bags last night? She emptied your sack last night more like.
1999 was the best year though as it's when Savage Garden sang To The Moon and Back which has the fabulous, innuendo-laden line 'She's waiting for the right kind of pilot to come.' All over her face. Nowadays we have Rihanna and Kelly Rowland providing the innuendo. 'Tonight I'll let you be the captain' grunts the chubby stewardesses from Stockport at the Viagra induced former PILFs. 'I'll be your commander' they croon back.
This is the only night of the year they will enjoy any flight deck flirting as the rest of the time, both pairs of beer goggles will be firmly off and it'll be back to her spitting in his coffee and him ignoring the Northern slags.
The gay air hosts normally leave early and take the party back to someone's house which usually culminates in a sweaty, poppers-induced re-enactment of the Human Centipede but come the next day, return to their anal (no pun intended) ways of bitching about girls' hairstyles not meeting uniform standards. The straight air hosts are the real winners at these parties though, they manage to pull some fit stewardesses by acting all caring when they get upset at seeing their much loved PILFs chatting to the base manager and dad dancing to Status Quo.

Merry fucking Xmas!

To summarise:

1. If your flight is delayed in the first two weeks of December, chances are the crew are hungover

2. If you're a popstar, sing a song with a flying reference. The royalties from air crew are immense.

3. First Officers from foreign shores are probably dressed by their mums or have one of those weird 'dress like a baby' fetishes