How We Became 'Two Guys on a Plane'

Hey y’all, it’s Rich and Drew—your favorite flight attendants and meme-makers—and we’re officially bringing you behind the curtain (and out of the galley) with the very first episode of the Two Guys on a Plane podcast! This “pilot” episode is our chance to spill all the tea on how our now-not-so-little Instagram account went from cheesy travel pics to a community-driven platform full of memes, laughs, and heartfelt stories from flight attendants around the world.

We’re talking about where the name came from (spoiler: it’s more literal than you think), how our meme game got started (PowerPoint, anyone?), and the moment we realized that Two Guys on a Plane was more than just jokes—it was connection. We’re reflecting on everything from our Flight Attendant Friday feature to writing blog posts during COVID, and even what’s next for us (hello, group trips and podcast dreams!). Whether you’re a seasoned flyer or someone who just stumbled into our corner of the internet, this episode is full of hilarious memories, behind-the-scenes confessions, and a whole lotta heart.

Episode Highlights:

[0:21] Kicking off the podcast—who we are and why we’re doing this.
[1:17] The very literal (and slightly ridiculous) naming process of Two Guys on a Plane.
[2:34] Why we started the Instagram account and what we originally thought it’d be.
[4:04] The meme that changed it all—and how PowerPoint played a starring role.
[6:15] Our collaborative meme-making process and the evolution of our humor.
[7:37] When we realized we were building more than a meme account—especially during COVID.
[9:27] The birth of Flight Attendant Friday and why those stories matter so much.
[11:43] Our comment section = constant comedy gold.
[13:03] The ultimate undercover moment when a coworker didn’t realize she was working with us.
[15:49] Is this what we thought Two Guys on a Plane would be? Not even close.
[16:58] What’s next for us? Group travel, podcasting, merch—and who knows what else.
[18:35] Wrapping up with merch, memories, and what you can expect from future episodes.

Links & Resources:

If you enjoyed our origin story and want more humor, heart, and behind-the-scenes realness from flight attendant life, hit that follow button, leave us a review, and tell your crew! We’ve got a whole l

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Transcript

Rich: 0:00

Have ever wondered what your flight attendants are really talking about behind the galley curtain? Welcome

Andrew: 0:06

to Two guys on a plane. Your go to podcast for an insider look at flight attendant life.

Rich: 0:11

We're your hosts, rich and Drew and we're here to tell you what really goes on at 35,000 feet.

Unknown: 0:16

So sit back, relax. We're ready for takeoff.

Rich: 0:21

Welcome to Two guys on a plane. This is our very first episode of our brand new podcast, and we are so excited to be here with you. My name is Rich. I'm Andrew. We are going to be your host through a wild flight that will consist of everything from fun interviews to ranting about flight attendant life to poking fun at passenger behaviors and pet peeves and industry news and aviation things and all that sort of fun stuff. So what we normally get asked from people is, how did you become two guys on a plane? What is the story of how the two of you got started? How did it turn into memes? How did it turn into this huge account now that you have and eventually a podcast? So today, to get started, we wanted to dive right into it. How we became two guys on a plane? Well, rich, I'll start with

Andrew: 1:13

you. How did we come up with the name two guys on a plane? You

Rich: 1:17

know, it's funny that you asked that, because the name was definitely just it. I don't even know that we put that much thought into it. Obviously, it's a very literal name. We're both flight attendants, two guys on a plane. No, we were driving back from Easter with my family, like, seeing family, and we were in the car, and I remember, for some reason, I had my laptop and was, like, working with a hot spot. I don't know who I thought I was doing that in the car, but, um, I remember like looking to see because I'm very like into branding and marketing. And I remember thinking, I want to make sure that whatever the name is is available on all platforms. And you were that because you were kind of making fun of me for it, understandably so. And I think at one point we were like two guys in a plane with the number two, or spelled out two. At one point, it was two gays on a plane, and then we weren't sure, like, how gay we wanted to be, which is funny now, because people are still surprised that we're still surprised gay married couple, and so that's always funny to me, but yeah, and then I think it was just kind of like two guys in a plane. It's very literal. We are two guys on a plane, right? My question for you is, why did we start two guys on a plane? What? What was it originally for? What was that Instagram account for? Well, I think we

Andrew: 2:34

have different opinions on this, so I'll give mine. But we had just gotten married, and we're doing a lot of travel for, like, honeymoons, vacations, and because I had never really traveled a lot, right? And I was posting a lot of this on my own Instagram, and I just thought it was unfair to the people that were like, were following me, like, maybe you don't want that content, or that version of me, particularly with how much we were doing it. And I just, I thought it would be a good way to share our travels and vacations and and all of those kind of like photos, so that people, if they wanted to be a part of it, they could follow our page. If they didn't want to be a part of it, they could stay on my like normal page of like, food, what I eat today, kind of pictures.

Rich: 3:19

Yeah, I definitely think that it was a for travel. I wanted to put our photos out there. I wanted to kind of have a fun way to collect our memories of traveling together and then B I just thought it would be kind of fun to like, hey, maybe we could be like those Insta gays that are out there, and be one of those cute couples and stick always posting their travel photos and maybe gets a hotel deal out of Arizona. We like cheeseburgers way too much. We like cheeseburgers way too much, and we don't we have abs. I'm sure they're in there somewhere, but they're not currently at the forefront. So it didn't take off quite in that way. I would say we sure did try one of

Unknown: 3:57

those, like running out of the water. We really did. We did, and we turned that one into a meme.

Andrew: 4:04

Oh, I Yes, I believe that we did, all right, show them rich. When did it turn from a collection of travel photos to memes?

Rich: 4:11

Actually, we just started kind of talking about this. I remember it was kind of one random day I saw this meme that was like, flight attendants always be going somewhere, and, like, always be like, I'm so busy, and it's like, a picture of them on a beach. And I loved it. I thought it was really funny, but there was some typo in it, and I'm so OCD and anal about that sort of stuff. So I was like, I want to post this on our on our account, but I have to remake it, because that, like, this is going to drive me crazy. And so I ended up using a picture of us running into the water in Costa Rica, and wrote like, flight attendants be like, always going somewhere, always busy, or whatever it was, I don't even remember at this point, and that picture, that meme, got more likes and engagement, and even some shares than like any of our other posts. And I was like, Well, this is kind. Of fun, because it's like, you know, kind of goes in in hand, hand in hand, our travel photos, and then like, silly little memes about fight attendant life. So that's when it kind of turned for me, where I was like, this is actually kind of entertaining to do this and to, like, poke fun at our life, but also kind of use it as a little outlet for, like, humor and creativity too. Yeah. What was the first meme that you remember kind of blowing up for us, like series of memes, or whatever do you remember to a specific one? Um, I remember a couple of them, but the one that I'm thinking of was we did, like a series of shits Creek memes, and I remember this being one of them that was, like the most collaborative for us. You were on a trip. I was sitting at home. We were sending pictures back and forth with jokes about what we thought it should be, and they like really took off after that. I think that's where, like, our humor comes from, and where we do so well with the memes, because we bounce them off of each other, we have vastly different work experiences. And so I think our jokes are funnier because we can make it more. I don't know what I'm trying to collaborative, collaborative, yeah, yeah, yes, that part, yeah. I definitely remember the shits Greek memes. And I remember us going back and forth too, because there was some like, maybe, do we do more than one series? We might have done more than one, like set of shits, Greek memes, because I remember sending pictures back and forth, more than one captioning. And then I also remember, and this is like, such a dorky thing to say, and I can't believe I'm even admitting this, but I remember sitting on a dining room table, like on my laptop, on PowerPoint, like making memes in PowerPoint, because at that point I didn't have any like, other software that I thought like about using pictures and putting captions on, and I remember going back and forth. And I think it's genius that, yeah, and so we made these memes in PowerPoint, and we just were, like, cracking each other up, bouncing ideas back and forth, and then, like, we would text them back and forth. So yeah, that was definitely, it's like, a good example of how our collaborative process works, for sure, right? Because we definitely go back and forth. And it's like, we either start with pictures and caption them, or we have, like, an idea, and we're like, you have to find the right picture for it. And like, sometimes I'll send him Andrew a picture and be like, can you caption this? Or you'll send me something that happened in your day and be like, we need a picture that goes with the that goes with this and vice versa. So I definitely think that that was that signaled how we began the meme journey.

Andrew: 7:29

Yes, okay, so rich. The next question I have for you is, when do you think we became more than just a meme account?

Rich: 7:37

Oh, when did we become more than just a meme account? I feel like, I mean, COVID, really, a lot of things happened in COVID where it was like things aren't funny anymore, like it was something heavier that was happening in our industry. And so I feel like we spoke out a lot about, you know, mask mandates and kind of the things that were happening to flight attendants, people not wanting to follow rules, like, things just kind of shifted in the industry. And I think that's when our kind of business, so to speak, shifted. Because it was like, Okay, this is more than just jokes at this point. Like, we have flight attendants all around the world who are like, your humor gets me through the day, and I don't feel so alone anymore. And it kind of made us think like, oh gosh, like we're more than just like laughter at this point, like we're actually showing up for people in ways that we never thought a meme account could. And so I remember writing a blog post called How To be, or what it's like to be a flight attendant during a global pandemic. And people were reaching out and that that article went kind of viral, and they were like, you know, thank you for putting in towards everything I've been feeling and didn't know how to say. And that moment for me was really powerful, because it was like, this platform could mean so many things to people. It could be humor, it could be connection, it could be community, it could be all of these things. And so I really felt a shift during that period. And then, on the other hand, I think one of the biggest things that kind of makes our page stand out regularly is our flight attendant Friday series. And for those of you that don't know, flight attendant Friday, we share each week on our Instagram and stories from flight attendants from around the world. And Andrew, I give you credit for that, because that was really kind of your your idea. So tell us, tell us about flight attendant Friday, how it started, and what made you think this would be a good

Andrew: 9:27

idea. Well, I think it started during COVID, right? Because we, as you were just explaining, we had started to see a shift in our like following an audience, and we realized that this was more than just a page where, where we were doing the creating. Yeah, we realized it was a community that we were building flight attendants, right? But I remember we shared our own stories, like, you put a picture of you in your uniform up, and we're like, this is how I became a flight attendant. And then you were like, You should do the same. And so I did. And because. I worked for multiple airlines, I put a series of photos up with, like, how I had gotten to the point in aviation that I was at. I mean, they just blew up. Yeah, people were DMing us, Oh, we love this. This is how I became a flight attendant. And I just remember sitting on the couch and we were talking about how this was a community, and if our stories were important, then so were everyone else's. And that's, I mean, flight attendant Friday was born out of that and the community that we wanted to build. So we started sharing everybody's stories. And honestly, I love it, because it's every walk of life. It's everyone, like everyone has their own journey into aviation. And I think every story that we tell connects with people, right? Because they either share that story or there's someone who stumbled on our page by accident, and we're like, oh, wait, I could still be a flight attendant. I don't have to let this disability limit me. I don't have to let my age limit me. I don't have to let the fact that I have children limit me, like they're hearing all of these stories from people. And it really, I think it really changed our audience a lot.

Rich: 11:04

That's so true. And it really is such a cool thing that, like, everybody's journey into flight attendant life, into this world, is so different and yet so similar at the same time. Yeah, like, it's really cool to see all these different stories. And you're right. It honestly keeps me inspired too same, because it's like, some days you're like, grumpy, and you have passengers acting wild and doing whatever the heck they want to do. And then you read some of these stories that come in, and you're like, how beautiful is this, that this person just, like, kind of reclaimed their life correct? And like, just, yeah, total shift. Do you ever feel

Andrew: 11:43

that way wandering through our comment section though, like I feel like we don't give our audience enough credit for the fact that our humor also comes from them, because like, the stories that we share, the comments that we get, like the people that we work with on airplanes, are always helping us be funnier and driving what we're doing,

Rich: 12:02

yeah? I mean, we, we do get a lot of inspiration from our audience. Is that what you mean? Well, co workers. Audience, yeah, some days when we make memes about things or situations or laughing about crew members and stuff, I'm like, Yeah, we're gonna have to wait and post this, because people are gonna start connecting dots, right? You just make a meme about me, right? Yeah, the creative process for us with memes is honestly just really interesting, because these ideas come from everywhere, yeah, and our comment section is a meme in itself. Yeah, sometimes, and

Andrew: 12:35

it's always funny to me when coworkers are like, Wait, you're I just love your stuff. And I was like, you helped me make get the joke that we made two weeks ago? It was about you.

Rich: 12:45

Well, that's the funny thing too. Is when they see things like that and they're like, This is so funny. This is hilarious. And like, it's you, girl, girl, it's you, yeah. Is it funny? Because it wasn't as funny when I was living in the moment, but

Andrew: 12:58

they don't even remember they did it. They were like, Oh, I hate when people do this. And I'm like, it's you, you do this.

Rich: 13:03

I always think about that time I was flying with this girl for like, a four day, and because we've started putting our faces out on our account a little more regularly lately, I don't think this is gonna help us hide it. No, it's certainly better than you for some reason, too much, maybe, but a lot of people don't always know when they're flying with us, that, you know they follow our account, but they don't know who we are like as people. And I was flying this four day with this girl, and she was so sweet, but she like, she kept referencing to guys in a plane memes. And was like, oh my god, this is so funny. And a lot of content creator people are, like, really good at batching content and doing stuff weeks out. We're not always that way, right? So sometimes we'll just post things like in the day as they're happening. And I remember, like, day one of the trip, she sees it, and she's like, Oh, this is so funny. And I was like, oh, yeah, I know that account. Yeah, I'm familiar with them. And day two, same thing happened. It was something that happened on the trip. And she's like, gosh, how crazy is this? Like this, it's like they're on our trip. They keep posting these stories. And I'm like, yeah, it's almost like they're on your trip, almost like they're working with you. I mean, I'm not gonna, like, roll into the crew briefing and be like, Oh, hey, do you know who I am? Like, I knew that we should start doing that, and

Andrew: 14:19

just so that they know, we should also have a disclaimer that's like, any everything's being recorded. That's actually an

Rich: 14:25

amazing idea. I love that. Yeah, anything you say, Can we'll be used against you, like the cops. I don't know. I see that like law and order right now, the Uber drivers like this is being recorded. Yep, yeah, we should start doing that. But anyways, by the end of this trip, she posted a little like, tick tock about the trip, and was like, Oh, this was so much fun. You know, go, go, like, and comment on this video if you have tick tock. And it's like, yeah, I have tick tock. So going to the two guys in a plane account and comment on her tick tock. And she's like, Oh, my God, so funny though. Like that. You guys just liked and commented on this video. And. Like some of you told at this point, I had to. I was like, Girl, come on day three of this, you think it's like someone's been on your trip. You to put two and two together. And she was so mad. She's like, I can't believe you didn't tell me. And it was so funny. So yeah,

Andrew: 15:13

yes. And then he calls me, and then we start making memes about this whole interaction. And we really have to give you all credit as our flying partners. You really do influence our humor a

Rich: 15:22

lot, a lot. I love your idea of a disclaimer. Say Ken will be used. I

Andrew: 15:29

but I still don't want people to know who I work for. We've done a really good job of, like, keeping our airlines out of all of this. So if you do know, yeah, if you know, you know, but don't, yeah, don't. Oh, okay, rich looking back at everything that we've done, is this what you envisioned for two guys on a plane?

Rich: 15:49

Absolutely not. Short answer, no to bed, right? I mean, I have always been kind of a dreamer. I've always kind of had visions for my life and what I want that to look like. But no, like, when we started it truly, I mean, it was like a cute little Instagram about travel photos. I never thought that things would develop the way that they've developed. I mean, we've got everything now. We've got a blog, we've got memes, we've got reels, we have Tiktok, we have group travel that we're doing now. Gosh, right. I mean, things have really just,

Unknown: 16:23

I'm coming to a station near you, there's a podcast.

Rich: 16:27

I mean, podcast was not even, I think that's what took us so long to get here. Well, we never considered, yeah, and when they, like, started being really popular, we were like, are we just jumping on a bandwagon, and everyone's podcasting? And then over time, we were like this. It would be fun to banter and talk about our lives as flight attendants in a in a more like bigger way, in a bigger forum and more in depth. So yeah, no, it's definitely not what I envisioned. And I I don't know what's what do you think is next? What

Andrew: 16:58

could we do next? A TV show like we're doing literally everything else, Rom Com, yeah. I mean, obviously you're listening to what's next the podcast. Is it for the moment? We should start a podcast. But yeah. I mean, if you're asking what's next, we have group travel, which has been amazing. We're doing a podcast. I mean, I really, truly believe this guy's limit for is all puns intended. Puns always intended on two guys on a plane. But, yeah, I still can't get over the group travel, to be honest with you, that's literally a dream come true, truly, yeah, because we love to travel so much, but then to think that people want to come travel with us. I mean, I know I'm hilarious, but

Rich: 17:39

I mean, there's definitely jokes. If you come on one of our group trips, jokes will be made, yeah, but the community of it too, like, I just, I don't know, seeing this community come to life, and seeing the people that follow us are generally like minded people, it's just it's so cool to bring that to life. And

Andrew: 17:55

we've only done one trip so far, which was phenomenal. And I really love the group of people that came with us, and I'm so excited that we got to meet them through this trip too. And I think we have two trips planned coming up, and we that were going on, and we have so many more that we're ready to go with. And I, I just keep because we it was like such a fun layover.

Rich: 18:16

Yeah, it really was. It was like the most epic layover ever, just imagine, to see how our next group meshes. I'm ready to meet the next video

Andrew: 18:24

that's so exciting. I love them. But yeah. And then the podcast this. This has been an amazing experience. I've truly enjoyed it. So so so much. And I really can't wait to get it out for people to listen to.

Rich: 18:35

Oh yeah. And we have merch now too. Oh, we have another thing. We have look we're wearing two guys in a plane hats. I wonder where they came to dental, but, yeah, I mean, that's, that's it for now. But like Andrew said, the sky's the limit. But that's just, that's the story of how we became two guys on a plane, and we are so excited to take you guys on this podcast journey where we are going to dive into everything, the ridiculous, the hilarious, the funny, the serious, you name it, flight attendant, life and travel related, we are going to talk about it. So join us next time for two guys on a plane, go ahead and follow us. And if you liked our show, go ahead and leave us a review and tell your friends about it. We're so excited to have you here with us. See you next time for more humor, heart and stories from our beverage cart. This episode was brought to you by staff traveler, the number one non rev app if you travel on standby tickets and are looking to make your journey easy and stress free, check out the staff traveler app in the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Visit staff traveler.com/two guys to learn more and sign up

Unknown: 19:37

an ironic media production. Visit us at i r, o, n, i C, K, media.com, you.