Fallbrook flight attendant receives sky-high appraisal

Sometimes a little recognition goes a long way.

That may be true for Dee Ann Cavanaugh, a 73-year-old Fallbrook flight attendant who was lauded by renowned travel blogger Matthew Klint in a late March article he wrote for his "Live and Let's Fly" blog.

Klint, a frequent and worldwide traveler whose blogs share the latest news in the aviation industry, praised Cavanaugh in his article, "A Model Flight Attendant for United Airlines."

The two hadn't flown together in some eight odd years, but Klint said when he boarded his late-evening flight to Los Angeles and saw Cavanaugh standing at the door, he "remembered her like it was yesterday" and "knew it was going to be a good flight."

"She offered a big smile and hearty welcome aboard as I found my seat in row two. Her announcements were crisp, succinct and professional," Klint said in the article available online.

Cavanaugh said she saw Klint board the plane and thought his face looked familiar, but couldn't pin him at the time. After she found out Klint wrote an article about her, Cavanaugh's memory flashed back.

"I remember him from years ago... We flew from Lihue, Hawaii, on the red-eye to Los Angeles," she said with a smile. Surprised the freelance travel writer remembered her, she was elated and flattered by his kind regards.

"It makes me feel proud," Cavanaugh said.

Cavanaugh first started flying when she was 22 years old and has since embarked on a thousand-plus flights for three different airline carriers.

As a young girl, Cavanaugh wanted to be a pilot like her father, who was a flight captain for the original Pan-American Airways.

At the time, he didn't see a commercial pilot as being a realistic option for his daughter, nor was her second choice to fly for the U.S. Air Force. So, Cavanaugh went on to earn her teaching credentials in history and biological sciences from Utah State University.

But the young woman's dreams of flying among the wild blue skies won over the alternative.

"If I couldn't fly, then the next thing I was to be, was a flight attendant," Cavanaugh said.

In 1967, Cavanaugh applied for Pan-American Airways, but due to a foreign language requirement, she didn't get the job. She applied to Trans World Airlines and was hired as a flight attendant. She flew with TWA for just under two years before she tried again with Pan Am. She was hired in New York City and flew for the country's principal international air carrier for 18 years. During the early years, Cavanaugh said flights attendants were almost all women. She joined United Airlines in 1986 after Pan Am started going under and before filing for bankruptcy, sold its Pacific routes to United.

At the time, Cavanaugh said United only had one international route, from Seattle to Hong Kong, so for her and her peers, acquiring the Pacific routes "was wonderful for them as a company." She remembers the date clearly, Feb. 11, 1986, when she flew on an inaugural flight from Frankfurt, Germany, in a partial Pan Am uniform on a 747 that had been whitewashed to cover up the former airline's name.

"It was quite an experience," Cavanaugh said.

Cavanaugh has served as a flight attendant for United Airlines ever since. She has flown all around the world and landed in almost every country except for Russia and the continent of Africa.

Being in the air has allowed her unique glimpses at American history.

Cavanaugh flew in and out of Saigon during the war in Vietnam. At the fall of Saigon in April 1975, she worked on a military aircraft that was charted to airlift 350 orphans out of the fallen city in a mission known as "Operation Babylift."

Cavanaugh told the story with tears in her eyes.

"The babies were in cardboard boxes with IVs – hanging from the overhead bins – attached to them. The kids were not well," she said.

With nurses assisting onboard, the orphans were flown first to Japan and then to the San Francisco International Airport, where President Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty, waited to meet the plane.

Cavanaugh has a picture with herself and the president.

Cavanaugh was on the inaugural flight of the first Boeing 747 that flew from New York to London in January 1970.

"It was the very first 747 flight in the world," Cavanaugh said. "It was the queen of the skies, that's what she was."

For the majority of her career, Cavanaugh has been based on the West Coast. She moved to Fallbrook in 1992, where she had friends.

"It's never really changed since then; it's still the friendly village," Cavanaugh said.

It takes her 110 miles to get to the employee parking lot at LAX.

For years, she flew long trips to Australia and New Zealand, and would be gone 9 to 10 days at a time. But after her first battle with breast cancer 18 years ago, Cavanaugh said she isn't as strong. She is now recovering from her second bout with cancer, but said the surgery went well. While her trips may be a little shorter in length, Cavanaugh doesn't have plans to retire anytime soon from a career she has found most fulfilling.

"I don't know what I would to with myself to stay out of trouble," she said. Her trick to staying alert on long flights? Taking sips of Diet Coke.

Cavanaugh said before social media, the only recognition a flight attendant might receive is an orchid letter, which is a letter of appreciation. Though she's received many orchid letters, she said, "people complain more readily than they write those."

The Fallbrook woman said Klint's article was the nicest letter she's ever received and the most personal.

In his article, Klint said that Cavanaugh went out of her way to describe the flight's food menu items in eloquent detail to him. She engaged in small talk with passengers and had a contagious laugh, he said.

"... She was beautiful in every way. A beautiful face of wisdom and grace. A beautiful attitude and clear love of her job. And beautiful interactions with every customer, she did her best to make each first class passenger feel like a guest and friend," Klint said.

To read Klint's article featuring Fallbrook flight attendant Dee Ann Cavanaugh, visit https://liveandletsfly.boardingarea.com/2019/03/25/superb-united-flight-attendant.