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26th May 2021

The secret code word cabin crew use to signal that you’re attractive

Charlie Herbert

Cabin crew have their own gossip and code words it would seem.

In a job in which you are trapped in close proximity with hundreds of other people for hours at a time, is it any wonder that cabin crew have created their own codes and secret words to vent their true feelings to colleagues?

Well there’s one word that you may want to hear more than others, according to the Mirror.

In his hugely popular book, Confessions of a Qantas Flight Attendant, cabin crew member Owen Beddall revealed that he and other cabin crew colleagues would use the name “Bob” to reference a particular person on each flight.

The person they found to be the most attractive. Or in other words, the best on board. Bob.

Meanwhile another airline worker revealed on a forum that they would play a game called ‘Cheerio’ for a similar purpose.

The Daily Star reports that the worker wrote on a cabin crew forum: “There’s the cheerio game you can play when passengers disembark.

“When you’re standing there going ‘bye, thank you, take care’, when you see someone you fancy, you say ‘cheerio’.

“You need to do it with a buddy and the challenge is to keep a straight face.”

And some cabin crew staff have come up with even more specific ways to flag exactly who they like the look of, with a former flight attendant called James explaining on Australian radio back in 2017.

Confirming they needed to be subtle when discussing passengers with colleagues, he explained they use secret messages to identify seat numbers.

He said: “Everyone knows their seat numbers, so we’re on the cart and he’ll be like, ‘I’m thinking of doing seven days in America’ – being seat 7A. And I’ll be like, ‘yeah, I could do seven days in America.’

“Or like, six days in Denmark,” – meaning seat 6D.”