The new “reality” show Fly Girls is set to air tonight. I was going to wait until I saw the show to actually post about it but, there have been so many write ups by journalists who have seen the first two episodes that I think I get the idea. Megan Angelo sums it up here, in WSJ’s Speak Easy Blog and I like what Hank Stuever from The Washington Post has to say too.

Ok, I am not even going to go into whether or not the show is degrading to women or flight attendants in general. What I do want to know is why they didn’t choose to depict the real lifestyle of a flight attendant in this reality show? I remember thinking when I was living in a crash pad, MTVs Real World was popular at the time, that they should have a real world flight attendant version. I’m not even opposed to the “million dollar” crash pad. I figured it would be difficult if not impossible to fit all the camera equipment in the hotel room that I shared with fifteen other reserve flight attendants.

But, just curious, isn’t real life more interesting? Had the show come out in the early 70’s it may have been closer to the truth. But, the Virgin America flight attendants in the show barely fly, they attend red carpet events in uniform, and more importantly, enjoy cocktails in uniform. Flight Attendants are not even allowed to stop at the store and purchase liquor while in uniform let alone drink it in uniform! CW and Virgin could have used the same five women, and let the drama unfold as it would, in their real experiences as new flight attendants.

I spent three years in crash pads, and I know it would have made for an interesting show. We had a flight attendant dating a married, famous, actor who used to have a lot of 3am conversations. Then there are the 3am calls from scheduling…you hear the phone ring, someone stumbles to get it, answers`, “yeah, this is flight attendant Pinto….yeah…yeah…yeah…ok.” hangs up and exclaims, “F**K” and then starts crying. Trust me there is a lot of “real” drama going on in the airline crash pads without trying to create a world that doesn’t even exist. What will these girls do when the show is over? Surely they can’t go back to being boring, ordinary flight attendants!

I’ll be watching the premiere tonight at 9:00pm est with my “fly girls” over at twitter. Grab your glass of wine and join our conversation at twitter.com/theflyingpinto