This week, a Reddit thread by user Th3Flash asked flight attendants to spill all their little secrets that passengers don't know about. The thread quickly went viral, as more and more flight attendants started chiming in.
Here are some of the wildest, craziest, and most eye-opening things that flight attendants revealed:
1. "The plane is disgusting. Don't walk around barefoot. Definitely don't eat your mint after it fell on the floor like Mr. 3A did the other day."
2. "If you ask for something nicely, I'll usually give it to you, but if you demand it or if you're a jerk...good luck getting anything free."
3. "We don’t wash/replace the blankets or pillows."
4. "During delays at the gate, we are not getting paid. We are as pissed off as you are, if not more."
5. "Please, PLEASE don’t ask where are we flying at the moment. I don’t know and don’t care, either."
6. "Pilot here. Don't drink the coffee. The water comes from the onboard system that has the fill port right next to the port the lavatories are drained from. The water system routinely fails E. coli checks."
7. "Hairspray can set off the lavatory smoke alarms. Also, yes, your vape."
8. "As you’re boarding the aircraft we are judging you — we need to be able to establish what kind of flight we are gonna have."
9. "Don't stick your napkin inside your cup. We have limited trash room so we stack cups. When you do that I have to fish the napkin inside your cup and I die a little inside."
10. "Unless you're extremely lucky and your aircraft just rolled out of the hangar after major maintenance, there will absolutely be something broken in it. An aircraft can have a whole host of parts be broken and still be allowed to fly."
11. "When people ask for the reason for a delay, we usually give a bullshit response because the REAL answer would spook passengers. 'We have a minor technical problem and engineers are on their way.' But in reality: The cabin pressure isn't working."
12. "It means A LOT to us if a passenger actually says hello back to us and smiles...One guy said, 'Hey, good morning!' to me, and all flight I gave him alcohol on priority right away."
13. "98% of our training is for the 0.1% of our job that we hope to never use... We’re trained to fight fires, treat medical emergencies, evacuate a plane in record time, and much more."
14. "We generally don't know each other before briefing. You'll hear us calling, 'hey hun,' 'hey darling,' 'hey dude' — all of that is because we don't remember their name."
15. "We legally have to tell you the seatbelt sign is on. If we don’t and FAA is on board, we personally get fined."
16. "There’s A LOT of gossip and drama that comes with this job. I’ve worked some trips where the FA working up front can’t stand the FA working in the back."
17. "If it’s a red eye and we are close to landing, I might be hallucinating from lack of sleep. Not enough to be dangerous, just enough to see weird things."
18. "When you ask us to change the temperature, we pretend to do it. Planes are generally colder because if we hit turbulence warm temps will make the chances of someone puking much higher. No idea why."
19. "If you curse in general, it’s normally not a thing, but the second you curse at me I can kick you off."
20. "Long range aircrafts have a room with many beds where the crew sleeps."
21. "We have flex-restraints and are trained how to use them should you get disorderly."
22. "The absolute worst thing is pouring Diet Coke on the airplane, because it fizzes much longer than any other carbonated drink, for some weird reason."
23. "The amount of times someone has poked me in the waist, back of the head, and yes, my ass, in order to ask me to take their trash or some other stupid shit is TOO DAMN HIGH!"
24. "Nearly every aircraft has human remains on board inside the cargo bin."
25. "Your skin gets extremely dry from being in the plane so much and from using water from different parts of the world regularly."
26. "We’re definitely laughing at you when you’re trying to cram a giant, clearly oversized bag in the overhead bin."
And finally...
27. "Never get seats by the bathroom. When the toilet breaks down, the mechanics put all the toilet parts on those seats."
You can read the full Reddit thread here, if you dare!
Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.