Tony Potter: Angels in the air

Cabin crews have more to do than haul trolleys along increasingly narrow aisles. Photo / Getty Images

Tony Potter sees the calm efficiency of cabin crew in an emergency.

In 55 years of flying around the world on commercial aircraft I have been very lucky. The number of landings has always equalled the number of take-offs, the flight has never been more than a few hours overdue, and there has never been a medical emergency.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

And it brought home to me how cabin crews have more to do than haul trolleys along increasingly narrow aisles, pour large bloody marys for old sods like me and check for unbelted seat belts all day long.

Some were very amusing. Once from Chicago to San Francisco, I sat beside a United stewardess going on holiday. She knew the woman serving our area and ordered hefty gin and tonics all the way. "Honey," she smiled, "no one's gonna get quinine poisoning on this flight!"

On BOAC from London to New York in 1966, an attendant passed me four 12-sided threepenny pieces. "See how many you can balance on your tray." All four stayed that way for almost five minutes. The old VC-10 was one helluva stable aircraft.

Flying Continental from Auckland to Sydney on a junket once, the lady with the trolley (she was in her mid-50s) asked: "Any of you boys like something cold?" It was 8am and being journalists, we piled into the booze. Just to make conversation, since I was on the aisle seat, I asked her how things were in Denver. In a voice that must have been heard in the cockpit, she replied: "Honey, if I die and go to Heaven, I swear I'll go via f***ing Denver."

A few years ago, just before landing in Honolulu, a large, amiable Maori on our national carrier, told me "We've had a totally unscientific survey and decided you qualify for this," before surreptitiously passing me what turned out to be a very nice bottle of red.

So I like cabin crew. But until a recent flight back home from LAX, I'd rather taken them for granted.

Take-off was at night and it was nearing midnight when an aisle-seat passenger started having trouble breathing. He was fixed up with an oxygen mask and the crew regularly checked on him.

Everything was fine for about an hour, but suddenly he shuddered and blood erupted into his mask. Moving faster than I've moved for years, I went to the galley and pushed into a meeting of several cabin crew, obviously discussing their patient.

"Blood," I told them. "Lots of it."

I stayed in the galley, out of the way, as they went into action. One of the crew took the phone and called for anyone on the flight with medical experience. A young woman came forward, she was an anaesthetist.

The passenger sitting directly behind the action moved into the galley too and a woman in the window seat in his row, clambered over the back of it and joined us. She turned out to be an expert on the SLR rifle I'd trained on in the British Army in 1961, and had plenty of stories about her experiences on the ice, where she was headed after a holiday in Christchurch. Coincidentally, she was from Denver.

Eventually, the passenger was stabilised, and the crew made him comfy in the back row, which had been empty. His wife was found another seat, as was the scientist on her way to Antarctica.

The cabin crew then tidied up. Now I know they're paid to handle emergencies like this, but their calm efficiency was wonderful.

The man in the mask? He was awake and sitting up for landing. I hope he's okay now.
A couple of days later, the Herald reported that Air New Zealand had won one of those "best airlines in the world" awards for something like the fifth time.

Didn't surprise me in the slightest.

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