An Altitude Attitude

Tens of thousands of passengers fly through my airport every day without saying a word, but when one chimes in, it’s always a nightmare. A lady steps off of a cross-country flight.

Passenger: *Demanding* “Get me your supervisor!”

She doesn’t even bother speaking to me about it but immediately assumes this is egregious enough to take to the higher-ups. My supervisor comes over and offers to help.

Passenger: “The pilot for my flight needs to get fired for flying too high!”

Supervisor: “What are you referring to, ma’am?”

Passenger: “The captain said we’d be flying at 36,000 feet when he made his announcements, but when I checked the navigation channel on the TV, the altitude was 38,000 feet! That was life-threatening! Any normal pilot would have stayed at 34,000 feet just to be safe!”

Supervisor: “I see. I promise I will talk to the pilot and take care of it when he gets off the plane.”

Passenger: “You’d better, or I’ll be talking to my lawyers!”

With that, she seemed satisfied and stormed off. I told the pilot-in-command as he offloaded the aircraft and he nearly choked with laughter.