We Need to Talk About the Mile High Club

It’s hard to pin down exactly how many people are having sex on planes each year, for obvious reasons, but most surveys suggest it’s more common than you’d think. Still, many more people admit to fantasizing about it. Membership in the Mile High Club, it seems, remains as sexy and exclusive as a night at Zero Bond.

The phenomenon has become so culturally entrenched that one charter company, appropriately named Love Cloud, built its entire business around helping people turn that fantasy into reality. Their Mile High Club Flight departs out of Las Vegas aboard a twin-engine Cessna 414 and comes with a commemorative membership card signed by the pilot. As of last July, the aircraft had reportedly logged more 3,000 flights. Packages start at $995 for 30 minutes. (So many jokes to be made here, but I’ll resist.)

But here’s the thing: unless you’re flying on your own private jet, having sex on a plane is actually…not sexy at all!

Let’s assume most in-flight fornicators are doing the deed on commercial aircraft. I’m talking Boeing 737-800s, maybe a 737 MAX for the real freaks. The only way they’re pulling it off — short of catching a public lewdness charge — is in the bathroom. So let’s take a moment to reflect on your own time spent in or around a plane lavatory. Generally speaking, they’re compact, poorly ventilated and absolutely filthy. A 2015 study found that the flush button alone harbored 265 bacteria colony-forming units (CFUs) per square inch. Just yesterday, Travel + Leisure warned flyers to avoid plane bathroom water entirely — not to drink it or even wash your hands with it, which only adds another layer of grossness. (Anecdotally, I once found myself on my knees in an airplane bathroom — redeye to Serbia, migraine-induced vomiting — and I can say with authority: it was humbling, disgusting and deeply unsexy.)

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Then there’s you. No matter how much pre-flight prep you’ve done — showered, moisturized, hydrated — you’re still up against recycled air and bone-dry cabin humidity. Your lips crack, your skin is simultaneously dry and oily. Add in a steady diet of ginger ale and stroopwafels, plus a likely lack of dental hygiene, and you’ve got a recipe for peak noxiousness. All of this is normal! None of it is sexy.

Even if you can somehow overlook the bacteria, the smells and your own compromised body, there’s still the logistics. Aircraft bathrooms are shrinking. The average lavatory is now around 22 to 24 inches wide — barely enough room for one contorted human body, let alone two trying to be discreet. And in a post-9/11 world, sneaking someone in there with you without alerting a flight attendant is no small feat. If they don’t catch you, chances are someone else will — a fellow passenger ready to tattle or, worse, capture it for TikTok clout.

This isn’t just an economy-class issue. Business-class bathrooms might be cleaner, maybe even roomier, but unless you’re flying Emirates A380 First Class, Qatar Airways A380 First Class or Singapore Airlines A380 Suites, you’re still working with the same basic constraints, and even fewer passengers, which means even more eyes on you.

If you’re not in the bathroom, what’s left? The galley? Your seat? Unless you’re in a suite with floor-to-ceiling curtains — which, let’s be honest, you’re probably not — there’s no version of this scenario that ends well, and I refuse to dignify it with a full list of reasons why.

That said, if you are on a private jet, go off. Honestly it would be a waste not to. But that, I’d argue, puts you in a different category altogether. True Mile High Club membership requires risk. A certain reckless commitment to the bit. When you’re flying private, the danger evaporates — and with it, the mystique. Then again, I suspect most Mile High members are lying anyway.