Ranking 24 Fictional Flight Attendants By Job Proficiency
In real life, flight attendants help us to our seats, bring us snacks and beverages, and create a sense of law and order at 30,000 feet. We look to them when turbulence takes over, hoping that they look unperturbed.
In TV and movies, these unsung heroes serve a quite different purpose. They can be the thorn in a protagonist's side. They can (and often will) fall in love with the pilot and the passengers. They can take on bad guys, snakes, and cartoon babies. They are complicated, lovable, and sometimes deeply, alarmingly flawed. But, as Cassie in The Flight Attendant says best: "What's wrong with messy?"
With the return of HBO Max's The Flight Attendant, I have decided to round up some of the most notable flight attendant characters in TV and movies through the years and assign each a letter grade based on how good they actually are at their job. Fasten your seatbelts, folks. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Plot-heavy summaries/spoilers below.
24.Joserra (Javier Cámara), Ulloa (Raúl Arévalo), Fajas (Carlos Areces) — I'm So Excited
I'm starting this list with the trio I found hardest to grade. On the one hand, these flight attendants in Pedro Almodóvar's Spanish film I'm So Excited are the pinnacle of this list. The three men are funny, charming, and wildly entertaining. On the other hand, they're monsters. Because of technical problems, a plane from Madrid to Mexico is stuck flying in circles waiting for a safe place to land. The flight attendants do many things to ease the experience for the pilots and the first-class passengers. But — and this is a big "but" — they also drug all of economy so they don't have to deal with them, and then later drug the first-class passengers. The plane turns into total hedonism, with the flight attendants leading the way. As one astutely says, "Musicals killed cabarets," and they are indeed the flight attendants I would most like to see at a cabaret performance.
Flight attendant grade: F. But they fail fabulously.
Rent it on Prime Video.
23.Christine (Christina Applegate) — View From the Top
Every time I bring up View From the Top, I am shocked by how few people know what I'm talking about. It is a camp classic, and if it's on TV for even 20 minutes, I am watching it. Backstabbing flight attendants, a makeover montage, and a young Mark Ruffalo — a perfect trifecta of cinema. It also introduces us to Christine (Christina Applegate), one of the all-time best movie villains. (Regina George, watch your back!) Christine and Donna (Gwyneth Paltrow) dream of being flight attendants for Royalty Airlines. After they complete the program, the last step is a written-test placement. Christine, who was at the bottom of their class, receives the coveted New York route, which seems suspect to Donna. How does she do it? Well, through cheating, of course! From there, we learn that Christine not only cheats but also steals and lies. She doesn't get hit by a bus, but in the end, revenge comes for her and her hideous highlights.
Flight attendant grade: F. If there were a grade lower than F, I would give her that.
Watch it on HBO Max.
22.Flight Attendant (Unknown) — Yellowjackets
You may be asking yourself: Is there even a flight attendant in Yellowjackets? It would be a fair question. Why would anyone remember 45:18 into the pilot episode, where there is a quick cut to a flight attendant putting a bag in the overhead bin? Well, as a noted Yellowjackets superfan, I have taken it as my responsibility to figure out the mystery. Who is this lady? After many rewatches and Reddit deep dives, I personally believe the theory that the flight attendant is the person we later see engulfed in flames right after the crash. She appears to come out of the back of the plane, somewhere a flight attendant would be, or...is that a Yellowjacket coming out of the bathroom? In any case, she is nowhere to be seen when the passengers need her most.
Flight attendant grade: F. RIP, we barely knew you.
Watch it on Showtime.
21.Flight Attendant/Alex (Jarred Blakiston) — The Wilds
If you like Yellowjackets, I strongly urge you to stream The Wilds. There are certainly similarities — a group of girls are stranded after a mysterious plane crash — but the shows really are quite different too, I swear. While the girls are traveling on a private plane to Hawaii for Dawn of Eve, a "leadership conference for girls," Alex, the flight attendant, gives them chocolate cake. Then the plane crashes. The girls don't remember anything, but they all end up on the same shore. We learn that Alex is working for Gretchen Klein, the organizer of the fake conference, and that Gretchen is monitoring every single second of the girls' lives on the island through hidden cameras. One of the girls is in on the social experiments, and the others believe they are stranded. But I won't spoil it for you by saying which girl knows the truth.
Flight attendant grade: D-. He gives the girls free chocolate cake — which is drugged.
Watch it on Prime Video.
20.Flight Attendant (Margaret Smith) — Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
In 2000, peak cinema was an orange VHS tape. It meant comedy, prestige, Nickelodeon. It was elite, in a class all to its own, and that was certainly the case for Rugrats in Paris: The Movie. You cue up the film expecting babies and high jinks, which you get, but you also meet a straight-up villain (not named Angelica)! Enter the flight attendant on the babies' trip to Paris. When the flight attendant gets to the babies' seats, she's mad that ONE toy accidentally is in the aisle. Come on, flight attendant, they're noncrying babies on a transatlantic flight; sorry, they have toys! Then she says, "Oh look, a toy that was already broken. Unfortunately, the union forbids me from picking it up. That's a job for your mommy." I did not anticipate I'd be doing a political deep reading of Rugrats to determine whether the babies are comrades or not, but here we are.
Flight attendant grade: D. Mean to the babies.
Rent it on Prime Video.
19.Flight Attendant (Christina Kirk) — The Newsroom
We all have that video that we stop and watch every single time it pops up in our social media feeds. For me, that video is a clip of The Newsroom where Don tells a flight attendant and pilot that Osama bin Laden has been killed. It's the funniest thing Aaron Sorkin has ever written — not because I think the military or the killing of bin Laden is funny — but because of the dramatization of how the information is delivered. While I would love nothing more than to recap every piece of dialogue leading up to the big reveal, I encourage you to watch the iconic scene in full for yourself. The flight attendant is a crucial player in this scene because she is the one who tells Don (a news producer) "No, you do not take control of the cabin" when he decides to announce to the entire flight that there hasn't been a terrorist attack and that their friends and families are safe. (She's right to respond this way, he's been annoying her for hours — and refers to her as "Flight Attendant Crazy Lady" at once point.) She then goes to get the pilot to calm Don, and that's when this cheesy exchange really achieves lift off. 10/10! Perfect! 5 stars! No notes!
Flight attendant grade: D+. Has to get the pilot to handle Don (but does endure with grace one of the worst Sorkin monologues ever written).
Watch in on HBO Max.
18.Flight Attendant (Paula Newsome) — Friends
I had never seen drama on television like the series finale of Friends. My heart raced, my breath sped up, and my eyes widened — along with those of roughly 50 million others — as Ross screamed, “Did she get off the plane?” In this episode, Ross wants to stop Rachel from getting on a plane to Paris so that he can confess his love. But he and Phoebe, who’s driving him, go to the wrong airport — a classic New York City mix-up. Phoebe, via cellphone, then convinces Rachel that something is wrong with the plane, which makes the man next to her freak out, leading to this classic exchange: The man says, quoting Phoebe, that something is wrong with the left phalange. The flight attendant very calmly says, “There is no phalange.” But by then it’s too late. Chaos has taken over.
Flight attendant grade: C-. Stays calm but lets everyone leave the plane.
Watch it on HBO Max.
17.Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) — Jackie Brown
Before Kill Bill, there was Jackie Brown, Quentin Tarantino's third film. Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) is a flight attendant who also happens to be a smuggler. She knows the best place to hide is in plain sight. Tarantino purposely calls back to Grier's femme fatale starring roles in '70s blaxploitation films. As Brown's smuggling operation intensifies, she gets caught up with some not-so-savory men. She has bail bondsmen, a drug lord, and police chasing after her, and yet she out-smuggles the smugglers, outsmarts the con artists, and walks away relatively unharmed. And while we never see her on a plane, we see her work her way through an airport. If you like a '90s shopping mall scene, this movie is for you. Honestly, a tattooed Robert De Niro walking through a parking lot, unable to find his car, is worth it alone.Flight attendant grade: C. She's an A+ smuggler, though.
Watch it on HBO Max.
16.Flight Attendant (Pamela Redfern) — Serendipity
As a rule of thumb, I try not to poke too many holes in rom-coms that I love — which is why I'll suspend my disbelief that Sara (Kate Beckinsale) could have conceivably checked into her flight, gotten through security, and made it onto the plane before realizing she had the wrong wallet. I love that Serendipity's entire premise is that love is, well, serendipitous. While on a plane, Sara just wants to buy a headset, but she accidentally has her friend's wallet. The flight attendant does not see the problem, asking, "Is there any money in it?" Yes, there is. Thank goodness for the flight attendant wanting to make a serendipitous sale! As the many movies on this list will tell you, you only chase people through an airport or leave a plane if it's true love. Thank you to the flight attendant; Sara owes her happily-ever-after to you!
Flight attendant grade: C. Encourages Sara to steal.
Rent it on Prime Video.
15.Cassie (Kaley Cuoco) — The Flight Attendant
Zooey Deschanel, watch your back, because a new queen of television bangs has been crowned. And yes, Cassie’s (Kaley Cuoco) perfect hair and fun coats and possible espionage at times almost overshadow her flight attendant job. But it’s this very tension that makes the show sing.
In Season 1 of The Flight Attendant, Cassie meets Alex (Michiel Huisman) on a flight to Bangkok. She spends the night with him and then wakes up to find his lifeless body covered in blood. She manages to get back to America without anyone suspecting much. But of course, she’s not completely out of the woods.
So, would I, as a passenger, be thrilled to know that one of the people in charge of my life at 30,000 feet was drunk and having hallucinations and vivid flashbacks of childhood trauma? Umm, not particularly. I was anxious to see how they would be able to pull us in for another go without the mystery of Alex. Season 2 starts one year later, with Cassie one year sober, and I can happily report that within five minutes of the first episode, I was sucked right back in.
Flight attendant grade: C+. So fun, would definitely give you a good pour. But drinks on the job?
Watch it on HBO Max.
14.Claire (Kirsten Dunst) — Elizabethtown
In 2007, film critic Nathan Rabin first coined the term "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" after watching Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown. Rabin wrote, "Dunst embodies a character type I like to call The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (see Natalie Portman in Garden State for another prime example). The Manic Pixie Dream Girl exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." In 2014, Rabin released a follow-up piece apologizing for creating the term, writing, "The trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a fundamentally sexist one ... by giving an idea a name and a fuzzy definition, you apparently also give it power. And in my case, that power spun out of control."
So with the history of the term (and Dunst's Elizabethtown role) behind us, I'll just say that if you're a flight attendant, you probably shouldn't be talking the ear off of a man who wants to decompress on a plane. But if the flight attendant is Kirsten Dunst and the passenger is Orlando Bloom, I guess I will allow it.
Flight attendant grade: B-. Upgrades you to first class, doesn't stop talking.
Rent it on Prime Video.
13.Cindy Chandler (Kimberley Joseph) — Lost
Lost fans, I beg you, please do not come for me. Summing up why one character in this show is important is just as difficult as explaining why there are polar bears on a tropical island (I know, I know, the DHARMA Initiative). Cindy Chandler (Kimberley Joseph) is the only surviving crew member of Oceanic Flight 815 after it "crashes" over a mysterious island in the Pacific (in the original timeline). We see Cindy as a character both in flashbacks and in flash-sideways. Before the crash, she seems like a wonderful flight attendant; she interacts on the plane with both Jack and Charlie. With Jack, she has some nice small talk, asking him about his day, and gives him a drink. With Charlie, she notices suspicious behavior, which she reports to her colleagues. That's exactly the behavior we want from a flight attendant! However, after the crash on the island, things don’t go as smoothly for her. The Others abduct her, and she does what she needs to do to protect the children on the island.
Flight attendant grade: B-. Survives the crash but befriends some questionable folks.
Watch it on Hulu.
12.Marci (Ellen Pompeo) — Catch Me if You Can
Three years before Meredith Grey took over television, Ellen Pompeo played Marci, a flight attendant in Catch Me if You Can. While only onscreen for about five minutes, she delivered one of the film's most iconic lines: "Are you my deadhead?" (Deadheading is when a pilot or flight attendant travels on a plane they're not working on to go to or from an on-duty assignment.) Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio), not an actual pilot, doesn't know what a deadhead is. Still, he's a con artist and plays along. While impersonating a pilot, he gives her a necklace, and then they sleep together. Ethics totally aside, a fun day for Marci.
Flight attendant grade: B-. She doesn't catch on that he's not a pilot, but she does sleep with Leo.
Watch it on Paramount+.
11.Flight Attendant (Kali Rocha) — Meet the Parents
There's a way to watch Meet the Parents as a horror film about flight attendants who ruin Greg's (Ben Stiller's) life.* While he's on the way to visit his girlfriend's parents with plans to propose, the airport loses his bag with the ring inside, which sets off a chain of events that does not end well for Greg. After pretty much everything goes wrong, with no help from his girlfriend's father, Jack (Robert De Niro), Greg leaves Long Island — no proposal, possibly no girlfriend. Trying to board the plane, Greg has his first run-in with the flight attendant (Kali Rocha, most famous now for being a Disney mom on Liv & Maddie). He's the only person at the gate, and she insists they're only boarding row 9 and above. Greg is in row 8. He must wait. This is maddening to Greg, and yet, isn't she just following the rules? Finally, Greg is on the plane and he refuses to have his bag taken away. The flight attendant politely explains that since it won't fit in the overhead compartment, he has to check it. He argues with her, leading to the famous line, "It's not like I have a bomb in here. It's not like I want to blow up the plane." She kicks him off the plane. He yells at her. His behavior is erratic. And he calls her a bitch — just for doing her job! I'm on her side. Good for her!
*Okay, yes, a likelier scenario is that a baggage handler lost the bag, not a flight attendant.
Flight attendant grade: B. Is annoying, doesn't deserve being yelled at.
Rent it on Prime Video.
10.Steve/Stove (Mitch Silpa) — Bridesmaids
Full disclosure: The plane scene in Bridesmaids is not just my favorite scene in the movie; it is one of my top five favorite scenes in any film. Iconic lines — “I’m ready to party” and “Help me, I’m poor” — come out of one perfect three-minute scene. Do we sacrifice the sanity of flight attendant Steve to get it? Yes, yes, we do. Steve is just trying to do his job and stop Annie (Kristin Wig) from entering first class (she is sitting in economy). It’s not his fault that Helen (Rose Byrne) gave Annie a pill to ease her nerves. Nor is it his fault that while the pill does help Annie relax, the trade-off is that he is the one who now has to deal with a passenger losing her mind. He, over and over, has to tell Annie or her alias Mrs. Iglesias that she cannot be in first class. And he manages to do so with a straight face!
Flight attendant grade: B. Steve does his job, but he’s totally over it.
Rent it on Prime Video.
9.Anita (Zooey Deschanel) — Almost Famous
My first thought was that Anita (Zooey Deschanel) would not be a good flight attendant. She does not like authority or anyone telling her what to do. She's rebellious. She likes rock 'n' roll. But on the other hand, as with many others on this list, being a flight attendant is a way out of her hometown and a way to see the world. I think she'd be good for the latter reason; despite the urges, I think she would have to yell at rude men. Before she hits the skies, she introduces her younger brother William, our 15-year-old protagonist journalist wunderkind, to music by literally giving him her records, and it's love at first listen. If Anita didn't leave town to become a flight attendant, William wouldn't have found rock 'n' roll, Penny Lane, and Stillwater. (Almost Famous is also the second film on this list in which there is a line about being a "deadhead.")
Flight attendant grade: B. She makes Frances McDormand sad but has excellent bangs.
Rent it on Prime Video.
8.Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) — The Terminal
Amelia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a flight attendant who slips and falls in an airport. Luckily for her, Viktor (Tom Hanks) is there to help. A perfect meet-cute. Of course, Viktor lives in the airport because of a coup in his country, but let's focus on the rom-com part. Viktor, while trapped in the airport, falls for her. Amelia is beautiful and kind; what's not to love? We never see Amelia in the air, which makes grading her a bit more challenging, but she importantly uses her flight attendant connections for good. (Yes, her connection is a married man with whom she’s having an affair. We can't all be perfect.) Through the man, she gets Viktor an emergency visa to have his one day in New York and complete his dream. I am also going to naively assume that because she's worked for the airline for 20 years, she's good at the up-in-the-air part. She at least has the uniform and the "packing in a tiny carry-on" part down.
Flight attendant grade: B+. Does Viktor a solid, but she falls for the wrong guy.
Rent it on Prime Video.
7.Elaine (Julie Hagerty) — Airplane!
Airplane! is a film often quoted in earnest by Michael Scott. So that should tell you everything you need to know about how irreverent it is. I am certainly not cosigning every joke in the movie; some have not aged, we'll say, well. In Airplane!, flight attendant Elaine (Julie Hagerty, in her film debut) deals with literally everything. Before the flight, she breaks up with Ted, her ex-pilot, now taxi-driving boyfriend. He's traumatized by being in a war and scared to fly (this is played for a laugh). So trying to win her back, he buys a ticket for her flight. Unfortunately, on the flight, everyone gets food poisoning. Elaine, now the most senior person not incapacitated, contacts a control tower for help and puts the plane into autopilot. She's crushing it! She cannot, however, land the plane. So she begs Ted for help. Finally, Elaine convinces Ted that he can fly (despite PTSD flashback), and because of her, he does. Elaine also has to deal with religious zealots and demon Girl Scouts, to name a few of the wild things this film jokes about. But she saves the day!
Flight attendant grade: A-. She deals with more than almost anyone else.
Rent it on Prime Video.
6.First-Class Flight Attendant (Jerrica Lai) — Crazy Rich Asians
Do we know anything at all about this flight attendant? Nope! And I love that for us. We can project anything we'd like onto the fantasy that we, too, could one day fly in a private cabin with our gorgeous spouse to a foreign land. There are flight attendants to greet Rachel and Nick (Constance Wu and Henry Golding) before they even step foot in the airport! Only peasants carry their own bags. Then, on the plane, a flight attendant leads them past the in-flight bar, gives them champagne, and shows them to their private suite. They ask them if they'd like her to convert their cabin into a bed — that's right, turndown service on a plane! Sure, I was annoyed at Nick in the book, and not even Henry's perfect face can stop me from being mad at Nick all over again for not correctly preparing Rachel for what's to come. But all is forgiven when you're given free pajamas made of silk.
Flight attendant grade: A. The most luxurious flight of your life.
Watch it on HBO Max.
5.Megan (Rosie Perez) — The Flight Attendant
In The Flight Attendant, we also have Cassie’s “best friend” (kind of), Megan (Rosie Perez). By all accounts, she is an excellent flight attendant; both she and Cassie work in first class, which we know from View From the Top is the crème de la crème. But she also has a slight issue with North Korea. Megan steals confidential documents from her husband and sells them to extremely shady men. She just wants some fun and excitement in her life, and then it spins completely out of control. Credit to Perez’s acting because you do empathize with her. In the last episode of Season 1, we learn that the CIA has been following her, so she runs. Where? Why? How? Here’s to Season 2!
Flight attendant grade: A. On a plane, she’s who you want.
Watch it on HBO Max.
4.Laura (Margot Robbie), Maggie (Christina Ricci) — Pan Am
Pan Am is Margot Robbie's American TV debut. That in itself is an excellent reason to watch the show. Pan Am follows Laura (Robbie), a runaway bride who decides to become a Pan Am stewardess. It's 1963, so unfortunately, she doesn't have that many options. She quickly makes friends and enemies with the "perfect" Pan Am girls — specifically, Maggie (Christina Ricci), a liberal, bohemian free spirit who's learned to play the part. On the plane, the girls are the picture of perfection. They pour cocktails with flower garnishes and hand out magazines, sometimes with their faces on the cover. They weigh in at the right weight (yes, that's an unfortunate truth), and they wear the uniform, including the girdle. The women know the power of their uniforms, and they use it to their advantage. They make money and travel the world — sure, they sometimes sleep with pilots and married men. In the first episode, a pilot referring to the women says, "They don't know that they're a new breed of women." And no disrespect to the pilot, but he is wrong. They clearly do.
Flight attendant grade: A. Glamorous, intelligent, all-around cool.
Rent it on Prime Video.
3.Claire (Julianna Margulies) — Snakes on a Plane
The plot is as follows: There are snakes on a plane. Julianna Margulies plays Claire, a flight attendant who handles the situation about one thousand times better than I would. At one point, Claire takes complete control of the plane. At another time, as pictured, she fights the snakes with an ax. When it comes to handling a stressful job under pressure, Claire is the winner. Again, there are a lot of venomous snakes, and they are on a plane.
Flight attendant grade: A. People die, but she does her best!
Watch it on HBO Max.
2.Donna (Gwyneth Paltrow) — View From the Top
Donna (Gwyneth Paltrow) dreams of escaping her small-town life in Nevada. To do so, she decides to become a flight attendant, despite never having been on a plane. A great plan, really! More than anything, she dreams of one route: "Paris, first class, international." It's the crème de la crème, the best! (Yes, as shown earlier on the list, Christine — Christina Applegate — derailed this plan. But then Donna figures out Christine's villainous ways and gets her dream route!) In first class, where she always belonged, Donna is the perfect flight attendant. She brings you champagne and caviar. She fluffs your pillows. She's a safety-demo pro! She knows the time in both take-off and landing cities. She gets a Parisian makeover and dates Mark Ruffalo (I know neither is vital to her flight attendant abilities, but they're still awesome)! All ends extremely well for Donna, with an airplane twist ending and an ICONIC wink to camera.
Flight attendant grade: Donna, A+. She puts in the work and lives out her dream!
Watch it on HBO Max.
1.Flight Attendants (Shanna Moakler, Andrew Shaifer, Marnie Schneider) — The Wedding Singer
The airplane scenes in The Wedding Singer epitomize everything we like about airplane scenes. Not only do we get the random pairing of people, but we also see flight attendant high jinks and a grandiose declaration of love. Robbie (Adam Sandler) tells the other first-class members, including Billy Idol, played by the real-life Billy Idol, the story of his love for Julia (Drew Barrymore). While sitting in economy, Julia's awful fiancé hits on one of the flight attendants; the flight attendant then tells the first-class passengers, leading Robbie to realize that Julia is also on the plane! The same plane! Idol announces that "one of the first-class passengers would like to sing a song inspired but one of our coach passengers." As Robbie starts singing “I Wanna Grow Old With You,” a genuinely perfect love song, Julia realizes he's singing to her and has an all-time rom-com–heroine smile. When her fiancé tries to stop Robbie, the flight attendants come by with the beverage carts, push him out of the way, and trap him in the bathroom. The flight attendants are on Robbie's side, comrades in the war for Julia's heart.
Flight attendant grade: A+++. Talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, showstopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, completely not ever been done before.
Watch it on HBO Max.
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