We think it’s true to say that somewhere, amid the packing and the jet lag, is an inarguable romance that goes hand in hand (pun intended) with flying. Whilst soaring through the sky in a dimly lit cabin, surrounded by sleeping passengers, who hasn’t hoped their seat mate might just happen to be a single stranger with a foreign lilt? One who has maybe forgotten to pack a certain in-flight essential (because really, what better icebreaker is there than, “Excuse me, do you happen to have an extra pair of headphones I could borrow?”).
Although an in-flight fling of the non-fiction variety may not be on the cards for most of us, it’s no wonder some of our favourite scenes from movies and TV have been set in the skies. Fasten your seat belts and turn on those fans, because things are about to heat up. (Well, as much as they can in a temperature-controlled cabin). Take a look at these 5 scenes that define our relationship goals…
P.S. These scenes may live in the realms of fiction, but finding a bargain flight is more than possible. Head on over to Cheapflights.co.za to start searching…
That time Meghan picked up Air Marshal John, “Bridesmaids”
Melissa McCarthy’s character Meghan is on a flight to Las Vegas for her soon-to-be sister-in-law’s hens night and is seated beside a man she’s convinced is an air marshal (played by McCarthy’s IRL husband, Ben Falcone, making the scene that much better). After a sufficiently uncomfortable amount of sexual harassment, we find out that the man is in fact an air marshal, and Meghan is in fact an incredibly astute woman in a golf caddy outfit. Fast-forward to the end of the movie, and !!!spoiler alert!!! they’re a couple, as well as the proud owners of a brood of bow-wearing puppies. #RelationshipGoals.
That time Mindy and Danny make out in the back of the plane, “The Mindy Project”
After two seasons of hinting at a budding romance between odd-couple OB/GYNs Mindy and Danny, the game-changing moment in their relationship came in the second season finale, when they share a passionate make-out sesh in the suspiciously spacious back cabin while the rest of the passengers sleep. Talk about an epic first kiss. (In an interview, the show writers mentioned they chose an airplane as the setting for the kiss because of the inherent “emotionally charged atmosphere”—we get it, who doesn’t cry watching animated movies on planes? But we digress.)
That time Leonardo DiCaprio wore a pilot outfit, “Catch Me If You Can”
While not technically a couple, we couldn’t omit Leo as teenage con artist Frank Abagnale who dresses in a pilot’s uniform (especially after his last year’s Oscar win), surrounded by his entourage of feather-haired Pan Am flight attendants, all of whom have no idea they’ve been recruited to conceal Frank from the FBI agents on his tail. The fact that this ingenious bad-boy manoeuvre was based on true events, coupled with Leo’s excellent aviator-wearing, makes this one of our favourite airport movie scenes of all time.
That time Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom met on a plane and all your teenage dreams came true, “Elizabethtown”
Chances are you haven’t thought about this movie for the past 10 years, so let us refresh your memory — the year was 2005. “I heart Orlando Bloom” was scrawled on many a teenage girl’s diary. Bloom’s character (shoe designer Drew Baylor, because of course) is on a near-empty red-eye home for his father’s funeral and gets to chatting with the Southern belle flight attendant (Kirsten Dunst), who draws him a map of Louisville and makes tasteless puns using his dead dad’s name (okay, it sounds way less cute on paper). And from there, a Gen X tragicomic love story was born.
That time Rachel got off the plane, “Friends”
A list of in-flight scenes would not be complete without the most infamous disembarkment in sitcom history — when Rachel got off the plane. For those who haven’t seen the series finale of “Friends” enough times for the theme-song claps to become a reflex, Rachel is moving to Paris and en route to the airport when Ross realises that after ten seasons of unrequited lobster-dom, he does, in fact, love her. He races to JFK to tell her before she gets on the plane, only to find out her plane leaves from Newark. Phoebe stalls the flight using methods one could only describe as not legal (“There’s something wrong with the left phalange!”), and they catch Rachel just in time for Ross to confess his love before she boards. Back at home, a dejected Ross gets a voicemail from Rachel in which he hears her try to get off the plane before take-off, but is blocked by the flight crew. Then the apartment door swings open, and their tumultuous relationship culminates in the words fans had been waiting for for a decade: “I got off the plane.” Talk about airport romance, right?
…I mean if it happens in Friends, it can happen IRL… right? You’ll never know until you book your flight. So head on over to Cheapflights.co.za and start searching. And hey, even if you don’t meet ‘the one’, you’ll still have saved money on your flight – so really, it’s a win-win…
