The Aviary

The Aviary is a 2005 independent film about the ups and downs in the personal life of a flight attendant, coping with a transfer to a new city, finding a new love, and everything in between. It was written and produced by Abe Levy and Silver Tree, who was a flight attendant herself for many years. The film stars Lara Phillips, Josh Randall, Michael Gilio, and Claire Rankin.

Summer Pozzi (Lara Phillips), a Chicago-based flight attendant for an unnamed airline, is mentally preparing to quit her job and marry Jim, her soon-to-be airline pilot boyfriend. During a layover, she gets a phone call asking her to transfer to San Francisco. Then, Jim tells her he refused to take a final exam to be a pilot, unable to have the lives of many passengers on his shoulders. Shaken and disappointed, Summer decides to go ahead with the transfer, and promises herself not to fall for another man too quickly.

Once in San Francisco, she moves into a small apartment with three other flight attendants, one of them who was supposed to be moving out. There's Portia (Rachel Luttrell), a posh but insecure British girl undergoing an eternal makeover, Kate (Claire Rankin), who is very bitchy ever since Summer reprimanded her on a previous flight and Lucas (Michael Gilio), with whom Summer immediately has a one-night stand.

During a layover, she later meets Julian (Josh Randall), the captain of her dreams. She is immediately in love. He is based in Hong Kong, and meeting him every week in New York poses a challenge, which will come to an end very suddenly, as she realizes her actions cost one of her friends' job and maybe even someone else's life, and as she sees Julian as anything but the perfect man he once appeared to be.