This makes me very sad. And angry. Especially considering it is my husband's employer. Of course I don't believe for a second that they'd have treated a young man and woman the same way. I don't because I've seen straight couples who were all over each other on some of my flights and thought to myself "Hey, get a room." But then I just rolled my eyes and went back to reading my book. It irritates me when people in general play tonsil hockey in crowded public places - I just find it rude. But I have a hard time believing that two gay men, even in this day and age, were doing that on a crowded flight. And a peck here and there would never be the least bit irritating to me no matter who was doing it.
In the captain's defense, all he heard was a story second-hand, embellished quite a bit, I'm sure. Ed tells me he's had to say something like that to passengers a few times before, mostly who were becoming drunk and unruly in First Class. Never to people making out too heavily, though. And even when he did, it was more to placate the flight attendants who were becoming overly-agitated about the whole thing than because he thought the safety of the flight was actually being compromised.
Flying is definitely not what it used to be. Even in the late 80s and early 90s, it was much more glamorous. Now there are way too few flights and way too many people trying to be on all of them. Airplanes have become glorified buses. And with all that stress, flight attendants who were already stressed out just by the nature of their jobs are pushed to the limit. I'm not defending them at all, believe me. The most pissed off I've ever been, I think, is because of the way an American Airlines flight attendant treated me. And my husband works for them! She knew that, and treated me like shite anyway - or perhaps because of it. Ed and I often talk about how sad it is that I have to fly another airline to experience decent customer service.
