Ted Striker is a former WWII fighter pilot with a severe of fear of flying (he's too embarrassed to admit this to anyone out loud), who is still hung up on his old war crush, flight attendant Elaine Dickinson (Julie Hagerty). If he could conquer one of these two things, he'd consider his life a success so he books a seat on Elaine's flight from Los Angeles to Chicago. He's got almost four hours to win her back, but instead he finds himself back in the cockpit after the pilot comes down with a threatening food-borne illness. Ted is now in a kill-two-birds-with-one-stone scenario.