this is your pilot speaking👩‍✈️

There’s a story my parents tell about my uncle. He’s a pilot, and once they ended up on his flight when returning home from vacation. So he flew them to Chicago and since it was his last flight of the day, he even drove them home after. I always loved that last part, the special family treatment.

I’ve never had the chance to fly with Uncle John as my pilot and I believed the days of entering the cockpit for fun were long gone. Or at best, only for children. Thus, I reduced my dreams from planes to trains, which I believed was more realistic.

So then, what sequence of events led me to not only the cockpit but the pilot’s seat of a commercial flight?

Upon check-in for my Ryan Air flight to Bristol, I am randomly assigned seat 1A, which immediately makes me question the validity of the ticket. *nervous laughter* This feeling is not eased by the fact that it is my first time flying with a self-transfer (taking two flights with different airlines resulting in a layover that is not protected) and had booked through a third party website. Surely, something is bound to go wrong…

But as I board the next day, everything proceeds smoothly. Seat 1A is directly on the right as you step into the plane, and it has my name on it for the next two hours. 

I take a photo and send it to my friend, who asks if I plan on sky diving. It feels silly to sit in front of everyone boarding, but I try to relax and wait to stretch out my legs.

Then, a couple boards the plane and I look up to see the pilot speaking to them. I pause my music and overhear some idle chitchat, which doesn’t give me quite enough information to deduce how they started the conversation. 

The girl wants to find their seats, but the guy, upon invitation, peeks his head into the cockpit. As he returns a moment later, I boldly ask “could I get the tour too?”

The pilot looks at me, hesitating, and I relieve him of the pressure of saying no by asking if they’re friends, which he confirms. Okay no worries, just thought I’d ask, I say, ready to start my music again. 

But he surprises me by inviting me regardless, saying that there’s plenty of time because we are actually running early. Unheard of, right? I’m not sure I’ve ever had the pleasure of flying a non-delayed Ryan Air flight before… 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, come on” 

The first thing I say is “oh, wow” because the room is full of colorful buttons and I want to share the impression it’s making. And my new pilot friend says back, “it’s like riding a bike,” to which I ask if they’re up here pedaling for their life to keep the plane at speed, using Strava to track the workout. 

Luckily I win over both pilot and co-pilot with my wicked jokes, and they crack a chuckle. Ice broken, we start chatting normally and the girl seated next to me (1B) peeks in. She’s from Bristol, the flight’s destination, so they share some words.

We are talking in English, but when I find out he’s French we switch languages, and I learn that you don’t actually need 20/20 vision to be a pilot, and that even though we’re early air traffic control won’t let us leave until our planned departure time. Hence the stress free boarding and inevitable tour. 

Before leaving, I ask to take a photo of the cockpit “to prove to my friends that I got the tour” to which the other pilot responds that he’s heading to the bathroom. With an empty pilot seat, my new friend encourages me to sit there and takes my photo. 

After some profuse thank you’s, it’s back to my seat to contemplate the events of the past five minutes. And of course, to “faire la meuf” or show off to my friends 😉

The only thing that could make this story better is if this was the story of how I met my husband. But unfortunately, my boldness ended before I could ask for his number.

So, next time you’re seated in the front row of an early flight where the pilot has friends on board, don’t be afraid to ask for the tour too! Just get his number in the end, too…