From my own experience I know that airline cabin crew can be a playful lot. In an earlier age sex and the jet set were somewhat inseparable. Spanking and other such things have played a part.
Back in the 1960s the celebrated marital antics of one pilot who spanked his wife, a serving air hostess (as they were called) with another airline made the pages of The Pilot Magazine.
In 1953 an earlier trade magazine reported on the case of Miss R vs McCoy in 1953 where a manager caned a stewardess for a breach of the regulations. The stewardess, who was referred to as ‘young woman’ to preserve her anonymity, was working on an aircraft flying to Salisbury in Rhodesia. She failed to adjust and secure her seatbelt, which was a breach of regulations and as a result her supervisor, Mr McCoy, the defendant, threatened to dismiss her but told her that if she agreed to accept a caning he would overlook her failure.
He then dictated a letter for her to sign. This read: “I deeply regret not having complied with the regulations… and shall report to your office at six o’clock today to take my punishment of the cane where it will remind me most to sit down and strap myself in.”
The stewardess went to this man’s office as agreed and was asked to remove her girdle, pull up her skirt and bend over a chair. Mr McCoy then gave her six strokes with a light cane administered across her bottom while she was still wearing a slip and knickers. A trained nurse examined the effects of the caning later that same evening and said that she saw clear reddish stripes across the stewardess’s bottom, one of which was worse than the others. A government doctor examined the stewardess the next day and confirmed that she had been caned.
In court, the stewardess said each stroke of the cane “hurt much more than you’d think.” Mr McCoy was convicted of assault and fined. He appealed to the Supreme Court of Southern Rhodesia but was not successful in getting the conviction quashed.
Nor was this an isolated case.
Following the much reported ‘flogging’ of a drunken female member of cabin crew in the Middle East, the Pilot again did a whole series of articles on the dangers for air staff of not obeying the rules while abroad. It found that many girl had had similar experiences and had either not made a fuss or had accepted informal alternatives in return for the airline covering for them.
But a lighter magazine feature wondered what all the fuss was about. ‘After all air hostesses have had their bottoms spanked for misdemeanours for years.’
One senior air stewardess speaking anonymously told of at least one pilot who spanked female crew instead of reporting them for breaches of the rules. “Most of the girls accepted this as a bit of fun,” the magazine was told.
Another girl, a 19-year-old trainee stewardess, told the reporter that getting the cane “across the bare bum” was pretty much a regular thing during her training. Nothing to do with “dirty old men,” she said, as they were caned by a senior woman in her 30s.
“It hurt, but it was no big deal and it got the job done with no downgrading or loss of pay. Some of the girls had never been away from home and tended to get carried away,” she explained.
Was she caned?
“Once or twice,” she had laughed.
Another girl said she had heard of girls getting spanked and sometimes caned for serious regulation breaches. The industry was awash with such rumours. But denied she had any direct experience.
