Cruising Altitude

The Mile High Club is not an actual organization (though some websites claim the name); it is simply slang for those daring few who have had sex on an airplane. (Copulating in Denver doesn’t count, even though you’re technically a mile high!)

The term “Mile High Club” has been around since at least the 1960s, but airborne sex almost certainly predates that. During the late 1700s, when Europe was swept up in “balloonmania,” hot-air balloon flights were probably too novel, too short and too dangerous to think about making whoopee aloft. The same would be true for Zeppelin flights, which captivated the world during the airship craze that began in 1900, right before the Wright Brothers and airplane travel really took off. (Orville and Wilbur, two lifelong bachelors, didn’t know enough about thrust and lift to get it up more than a few hundred feet.) When the first commercial flights began in 1936, a New York-to-California crossing took about 18 hours, so early airliners like the DC-3 were outfitted with sleeping accommodation—and you can be sure at least a few giddy passengers on cold overnight flights were going down in Mile High Club history. With today’s spacious super-jumbos, airlines are practically inviting you to “Come fuck with us!”

So how do you qualify for Mile High Club membership? That depends on who you ask. Some argue that sexual activity must be above an altitude of 5,280 feet (so wait until well after take-off). Some say you must have actual intercourse—hand-jobs, for example, don’t count. Others even believe that MHC sex must be in the lav. But who’d deny bragging rights to those thrill-seekers who conjugate while skydiving?

I asked several gay male flight attendant friends if they’d ever caught passengers having sex, and my survey revealed something unexpected: Nearly every instance of Mile-High activity they reported involved flight attendants!

Ari, an El Al veteran, regularly tag-teamed hot passengers with other gay crewmembers at the back of the plane. One flight attendant stood guard, as if overseeing the cabin, while the other fucked the guy in the rear galley. Then they would switch.

Andy, with Continental for five years, said, “Once, another flight attendant came to me—he was in coach and I was working first class—and he said, ‘I need your galley.’ I was confused. I watched as he brought this attractive young guy into my galley, closed the curtain and sucked him off.”

Kenny, not a flight attendant, was on a night flight to Singapore: “It was right after 9/11, when everyone was still really afraid to fly, so the plane was practically empty. There was only one other passenger in my whole section. This cute Asian flight attendant kept passing with a tea tray asking if I needed anything. When they dimmed the cabin lights, he came by again, put the tray on the seat across the aisle, sat down next to me and sucked me off. Definitely the best in-flight service I ever had!”

It’s unclear what, if any, legal consequences there are if you’re caught. According to Bart, his airline doesn’t have a policy for handling passengers caught having sex in flight. “They teach you how to handcuff someone who gets violent, but they never teach you what to do if someone’s giving a guy a hand-job under a blanket.”

If you really want to join the Mile High Club but don’t want the risk, there are several companies that offer charter flights catering to losing your aeronautical virginity. But when it comes to having sex on a regular commercial flight, the consensus among my flight attendants friends is that night flights are best. They suggest you wait until everyone is sleeping or watching movies and say you should never do it in the lavatory. Not only is the bathroom cramped and dirty, chances are high someone will discover you and your partner flying united. And if, mid-flight, you and the hot male passenger next to you absolutely must whip out your motherfuckin’ snakes on the motherfuckin’ plane, they suggest you do it under a blanket.