Flight Attendants

Tamera Jo Freeman was on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver in 2007 when her two children began to quarrel over the window shade and then spilled a Bloody Mary into her lap. She spanked each of them on the thigh with three swats. It was a small incident, but one that in the heightened anxiety after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks would eventually have enormous ramifications for Freeman and her children.

A popular new Thai soap opera about love and infidelity in the high skies has angered Thai Airways flight attendants, who demanded Monday that the show be canceled for casting their profession in an unrealistic and immoral light. "The Air Hostess War," which broadcast its first three episodes last week, has captivated viewers with a story line about a dashing, married pilot having an affair with one of his tall, slim flight attendants. Love triangles lead to fighting in the aisles and steamy sex scenes at stopover cities.

Moments before steering US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River, Captain Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III warned the cabin: "Brace for impact." Denise Lockie, in seat 2C, put her head between her knees. Tracey Wolsko, who had been listening to her iPod and reading a romance novel, removed her glasses and high heels and placed an airline pillow between her face and the seat back in front of her.

When WE first saw the photo of Sara, a leggy Icelandair flight attendant in a dangerously short uniform and baby blue neckerchief, we assumed it was from the swingin' '60s. There she sits -- cross-legged and shoeless in a mod, white leather chair, powdering her cheeks and gazing into a tiny mirror -- taking us back to a time when travel was all about glamour and romance. But no.

US Airways Group Inc., the only U.S. carrier to charge for sodas, coffee and tea, said its new policy has cut cabin congestion and the time flight attendants spend serving drinks. The attendants, who initially opposed the program, would "riot" if the airline tried to return to the old system of free nonalcoholic beverages, President Scott Kirby said Thursday at a Calyon Securities conference in New York.

AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, the world's largest carrier, said it planned to block pornography on its Internet service during flights, complying with requests from employees and customers. The carrier is working with Aircell on a filtering technology, American said. Flight attendants said last month that they were urging American to take the action. American offers Internet access on some flights between New York's John F.

Qantas Airways has fired a flight attendant who gave a detailed account to a newspaper of a midair tryst with actor Ralph Fiennes in an airliner toilet cubicle. The airline had earlier suspended Lisa Robertson pending an investigation into reports she had sex with Fiennes during a flight from the northern Australia city of Darwin to Mumbai, India, on Jan. 24. Qantas said in a statement Monday that Robertson's employment contract had been terminated. It didn't give a reason.

Northwest Airlines Corp. agreed Thursday on $195 million in pay and benefit cuts with its flight attendants, averting a potential strike by the only major union that hasn't accepted the carrier's efforts to pare labor costs as it prepares to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Assn. of Flight Attendants-CWA leaders were deciding whether to send the pact to the 9,300 members for a vote, union spokeswoman Karen Schultz said. The accord was reached after a week of bargaining.