Liney111

I'm dipping my toe in the world of the hostie here (I'm only an engineer) but having read Air Babylon I couldn't help but wonder how much of it was BS and how much was based on fact?

Anyone be able to enlighten me (and settle a bet in the crew room?)

Gulfstreamaviator

ab is a reality documentory.

written and also filmed in secret.

flg

fanda78

I have finished AB two days ago (read it in three evenings) and I do believe that most of it is true. What I am more interested in is what airline is he working for (I know - reader should not find out for protection of guilty ones )
Great book and easy reading with a flow...

jetset lady

Ok. I'll be the spoilsport here. I read the book out of curiosity and conversely, found it highly predictable, totally over sensationalised and not even very well written. Put it this way, I've no doubt that somewhere in the world, a boss has bonked his PA on the boardroom table. Do those of us not working in an office think that is your average day at work? Of course not! Nor do we think that everyone else is queuing up for the stationary cupboard.

As for saying that...

Really? A reality documentary? I don't think so and I think that suggesting such a thing is unfair and potentially dangerous. By all means, enjoy the book as a bit of whimsy and mild titillation but please don't assume it is a realistic account of life in the air. If you look hard enough, there are plenty of books out there that do give a good insight into our job whilst still being entertaining. Sadly, this is not one of them.

(Just to add, I am not saying these events did not happen. I don't know. Obviously, I wasn't there! But even if they did, suggesting that they make this book a "reality documentary" in a way, shape or form, is stretching the truth more than a little...)

Tercarley

Thought it was very overplayed!!!!! Situations like that do not pile up like that.

Matt101

I thought it was essentially a collection of all the myths I have ever heard in the industry since I started condensed into one 24 hour period.

Some of it may be based on fact but as I said most is based on stories that I have heard from many different people, "a friend of mine heard about this pilot who woke up in Manilla in a bath of ice with his kidney removed...."

Galley FM is home to cheese music, manager bashing, route rumours and stories of glamorous BOAC days and what you could get away with before elf 'n' safety tooke over as well as some rather tall tales!

Liney111

Yeah I did get the fact that it was basically a collection of stories that were rolle dinto tone fictional account but I was wondering how many of the tales have a bit of "artistic license" to them.

I think the wildest it's got in the engineering world is watching a new lad flipping a mainwheel over and over rather than rolling it. That had lots of mileage in it.

jetset lady

Probably most of them, Liney111. If there's one thing crew excel at, it's the utilisation of a bit of artistic license. It comes from years of having to make chicken or beef sound wildly exciting.

And you let the poor boy carry on like this? Shame on you all! You should have sent him up into the cabin. We'd have looked after him....

Liney111

It was too priceless not to let him carry on!!

Couldn't have added insult to injury by sending him up to the hosties for a long stand though, He'd have packed it in then and there.

We might be ba*tards but we're not ba*tards