Love at 30,000 feet as Tui's most romantic couples lift the lid on romance in the skies

There are all sorts of wild tales about joining the Mile High Club but three couples have set the record straight after finding true love and romance while flying high. Travel operator TUI has many loved up couples in its teams - including several who met while work as cabin crew and now share their lives in the skies.

James and Alice, Carl and Sacha and James and Sally all met their significant in the air, fell in love, and as they say, the rest is history.

James and Alice White from the South Coast first met on a TUI work trip and as their paths continued to cross for the years following. They quickly realised while it wasn’t love at first flight, they were destined to be together. James has been working at TUI for 26 years, and Alice just celebrated her 19th TUI anniversary.  They both work out of London Gatwick Airport.

James said: "Before our daughter came along, we used swap around and try to do long haul trips together all the time, now childcare takes priority so we are often more like passing ships in the night! The nature of the rosters means that we do get lots of time together as a family though which we wouldn’t change for the world.  Over the years we have been very lucky and done so many amazing long-haul trips together and it was always lovely to work together as a husband and wife team in the Premium Cabin. I suppose one stand out funny moment though was when Alice and one of the other crew tricked me into thinking having my eyebrows threaded wouldn’t hurt! They were having theirs done on a trip to Sri Lanka and I was persuaded to have mine tidied up. Well…..the sneezing didn’t stop for hours but the laughter went on and on! It was like some sort of torture!"

Alice added: "I love spending the days with people, be it the customers or the crew family we are so lucky to have at work. I get to enjoy so many different experiences, have lived recommendations of where to go and what’s on trend. I’ve met so many different people and have learnt so much from every walk of life, it definitely keeps your mind young and a great way to keep active! You just never know what life is going to bring your way, you meet thousands of customers on flights and thousands of crew over the years, you just never know when you’re going to find ‘your’ other half! Our paths may never have crossed, but we’re so thankful they did! May there be more love in the air for other lucky flyers!"

Carl and Sacha Ladkin fell in love while working together on a flight to Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic in 2001. Now they share two teenage daughters, and juggle traveling, working and holidaying together.  Carl from Leicester has been working at TUI for 25 years, and Sasha originally from Brighton has been working at TUI for 26 years.  

Carl described working and living together: "It’s easy, we have two teenage daughters to keep us distracted from work when we are home. Working together is slightly different. Sacha is senior to me so always in charge, so thinking about it, there’s not a lot of difference from being at home! She likes to remind me that she’s always in charge, however I like to remind her I have the car keys so unless she wants to walk home from Gatwick to Brighton, she best be nice.  

"If you love travel and enjoy meeting new people and seeing the world this is a fantastic job. Yes, there’s deep night flights and unsociable hours, but the good always outweighs the bad. You’ll meet people, crew and flight deck that will be friends for life. We’re extremely lucky to have had a job that has given us so many opportunities to see the world with some great people. There are not many jobs that you can share experiences together and have fantastic memories. We hope that our experiences, stories and travels will inspire our daughters to go out and discover the world as we have."

Sally and James first met in the air on a charter flight, and after their paths crossed again five years later they became a couple. They both started working for TUI in 1989, and are now both celebrating 35 years of service. Sally is from Essex, and James if from Devon.  

 Sally said : "We are lucky enough to have had many fabulous trips together. Our furthest destination was Auckland, NZ via Abu Dhabi, Singapore.  When the children were little, we tried to arrange our working lives so one of us was always home. When flying restarted after COVID we were very fortunate to be rostered on a week's trip to St Lucia."

The couple say it is easy to with their spouse but James is happier if he’s in charge even though Sally is more senior and this does not always happen. For a quiet life Sally sometimes hands over the role of Cabin Manager to him!