Flight Attendant Revealed Queen Elizabeth’s Never-Before-Seen List of Flying Demands
Queen Elizabeth II‘s reign spanned an incredible seven decades. During her time as Britain’s monarch, she traveled to over 100 countries across six continents, from the largest most-populated nations to the smallest islands of Oceania, and completed more than 250 official royal tours. And to get to the majority of those places, she traveled by plane.
So what was it like for stewards having Queen Elizabeth on board? Well, one air hostess found out when the late monarch and Prince Philip took a trip to Singapore on a British Airways Concorde instead of a private plane. The flight attendant even jotted down special instructions on how to care for the queen as well as her in-air demands and requests.
Read on to find out what those were.
Notes written by Queen Elizabeth’s air hostess on how to care for VIPs were recently found
Elizabeth Evans was a flight attendant from Birmingham, England, and the air hostess for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip during their tour of Singapore and Malaysia in 1989. Evans received a certificate in honor of her outstanding service on that specific flight.
Express noted that Evans worked in the industry for nearly 30 years with British Airways and served several other high-profile people as well including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rod Stewart. Evans died in 2017 but kept some mementos from her time working for the airline and being on board with the famous travelers.
Following her death, Evans’ niece came across a few of those items such as menu cards, autographs, and detailed notes regarding certain VIPs.
“Elizabeth [Evans] must have been extremely highly regarded by BA because she served some of the most important people in the world,” Charles Hanson, owner of Hansons Auctioneers, said. “Take that 1989 British Airways royal flight. Her memorabilia includes confidential instructions on how to care for our late queen and Prince Philip — right down to the sweets Her Majesty preferred on take-off.”
The dos, don’ts, and other requests during the queen’s flight
Express reported that Evans’ notes about Queen Elizabeth revealed that the late monarch wanted a bowl of sugar-free mints beside her during takeoff as well as in her dressing room.
Another note said she “tends to like a martini before her guests arrive.” The guests who joined the monarch would be served cocktails too and have dinner in the royal compartment.
Queen Elizabeth also requested her own pillows from one of the royal residences to sleep on and “her dresser made up her bed.” When the queen retired for the evening, the cabin crew were prohibited from passing through her compartment and told to keep all noise to a minimum.
Hanson added that a final note read: “If Her Majesty was asleep prior to landing, cabin crew were instructed not to not disturb her. She should be left in her bed.”
