(Selections are edited for clarity)
I was waiting at the gate at Albuquerque and there were some people waiting on standby. Their name was Dix. When the gate agent called them to the counter, it came out like this: "Party of two Dix, please come to the counter."
I once had the pleasure of sitting on a British Airways flight in which the pilot was English and the chief steward was French. Whenever it came time to make "official" announcements -- say, to announce the beginning of meal service -- they took the chance to rib each other. "Today's chief steward is from France, so pardon the service. He isn't rude, he's just French." This would be matched by, "The pilot may know about engineering but what do the British know about food!" Great repartee without going over the top, and it got many laughs.
It was on the old PSA (Pacific Southwest Airlines). After landing, the attendant came on: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to welcome you to Honolulu. Unfortunately, we are in Fresno." No airline, not even Southwest, comes close to the humor and pranks the attendants (and pilots!) inflicted on PSA passengers. When USAir sucked them up -- and closed them down -- many Californians shed a tear. [PSA jets wore smile decals beneath the nose.]
We were taxiing at Heathrow on British Airways when one of the crewmen came on the P.A. making the usual end-of-flight announcements, and slipped in casually: "Anyone standing before the fasten-seatbelts light is switched off will be shot." It's the sort of thing that would cause horror today, but at the time everyone laughed, the light tone reinforced by the fact he sounded so ... British, in that cute and harmless way. I suppose if it had been Lufthansa it might have come across more menacing.
On one flight I was seated in back and the captain was cracking jokes with terrible puns. The flight attendant charged forward muttering "I'm going to murder him." I stopped her and said relax, we're enjoying it. She replied: "But he's my husband and I told him I would kill him if he told that one!"
It must have been 20 years ago when I took Republic Airlines from Chicago to Green Bay. It was a couple of days before Christmas and quite late in the evening. The flight attendant did the complete safety demonstration in a perfect imitation of Gilda Radner's Rosanne Rosanna-Danna voice from the old "Saturday Night Live."
[If you're a Gen-Xer or older you'll understand this SNL reference. The rest of you were born long after the death of genuine TV comedy.]
Flying to St. Louis, the pilot got on the public address system near Pittsburgh and said: "A special treat for the passengers on the left side. Look straight down and you'll see a very large white house. Here, let me show you." [At this point he actually tipped the plane so we could see.] "That's my ex-wife's house. I know it's her house because that's her lawyer's BMW in the driveway." He was very cheerful about the whole thing, but a lot of passengers looked at each other with a mix of laughter and anxiety.
Southwest Airlines cockpit announcement: "I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that the machine that rips the handles off luggage is broken. [Cheers from passengers.] The bad news is that our departure will be delayed for an hour while they fix it."
Heard aboard a South African discount carrier: "In the unlikely event of a water-landing, you will find a sexy yellow lifejacket under your seat, now being modeled by the flight attendant. [Wolf whistle]. The lifejacket is also equipped with a light, so you can read while waiting to be rescued."
About eight years ago on a United flight to Newark, the flight attendants made an announcement that the person who could come closest to guessing the amount of change in the pilot's pocket would win a prize. We wrote down our guesses with our seat numbers and the winner got a bottle of wine.
