Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Today

Talk with Author of New Book 'Around the World in a Bad Mood'

Aired March 19, 2002 - 10:45   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Lots of things have changed dramatically since September 11th, and one of them is flying, especially on commercial aircraft. Rene Foss is an airline flight attendant, and she is also the author of the new book called "Around the World in a Bad Mood." She writes about her experiences as a flight attendant, before and after 9/11.

Rene, welcome.

As I understand, this is actually being performed as a play in places, is that true?

RENE FOSS, AUTHOR, "AROUND THE WORLD IN A BAD MOOD": Yes, it is. It's actually written initially as a play. It's a musical comedy that placed here in New York City, at Rose's Turn (ph), ni Greenwich Village, and it's been running three years. And it's sort of a joyous send up of the airline industry and my experiences as a flight attendant.

HARRIS: I was going to say, it must have written well before September 11th if you could do this as a humorous thing.

FOSS: Absolutely.

HARRIS: Yes, but I want to ask you then, if we could about this, since, obviously, you did find some things that are in a light or humorous mood to write about in your job before September 11th. How about afterwards?

FOSS: Well, certainly September 11th changed things a great deal. As a matter of fact, I turned in my book to Hyperion on September 6th, and we were concerned a lot about whether the book would even be published. We did make some changes. And I was actually on a trip on the 11th, so I wrote about that and incorporated that a little bit.

But yes, absolutely, I mean, the book was written before that. And...

HARRIS: How has flying for you changed? Did you fly immediately after September 11th? Or did you stay on the ground for a while.

FOSS: Well, I was on a trip on the 11th, and we made an energy landing in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where we spent the next four days pretty much watching CNN to see what was going on in the world.

HARRIS: Nothing wrong with that.

FOSS: And then after then we were finally released and able to go back to New York, I had a couple of days that were scheduled days off, and then the following week, I went back on my regularly scheduled trip.

HARRIS: So didn't really change routine after that, or did you?

FOSS: Well, I didn't change my routine. I'm the type of person, feel it's just sort of best to keep going. I really didn't feel fearful. In fact, it was to the contrary. I felt like it was safer than it ever was, because of all the immediate changes in security.

HARRIS: How about that now? I've traveled quite a bit since then, and what I have found since then is that at each airport, the security seems so different, that it didn't give me much of a sense of confidence. It really gave me more questions than anything else. That didn't happen with you?

FOSS: Well, certainly there's inconsistencies. And I think what's happening is there are so many changes that are having to be made so quickly that sometimes it can be a little bit confusing. It definitely is true. Different airports have different systems.

HARRIS: How about up in the air? Let me ask you about how passengers react in the air and your colleagues, how you're dealing with things in the air? Do you still have concerns about people acting crazy on planes? I was amazed to see how many more incident we heard afterwards, of people who were either drinking too much on the plane or acting inappropriately, or folks giving you and your colleagues problems in the air in the wake of everything that's happened.

FOSS: For the most part, I would say that most of the people have definitely changed for the better. They seem to be taking everything in stride, in terms of the longer lines at security and different procedures that have happened. Occasionally, we do have people -- there's always sort of one in every crowd, that are problematic for one reason or another. Maybe they've had too much to drink, or perhaps they missed a connection and our angry. And some of the things escalate, and we still have problems occasionally.

But I would say the majority of passengers kind of have a new understanding of -- that we -- when you're up in the air community in the sky. You have no resources that you would have available to you on the ground. So you kind of have to rely on each other and what resources you have available to you at 39,000 feet.

HARRIS: All right. Let's hope things continue to work for you positively, give you more good things to write about. Rene Foss, author of "Around the World in a Bad Mood." I have to move on this morning. We have a lot more news to get in. But I appreciate your time this morning.

FOSS: Thank you.

HARRIS: Happy travels.

FOSS: Thank you.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com