Ellen Simonetti

Ellen Simonetti (born December 15, 1974, North Carolina) is an American former flight attendant who was fired after documenting her life and work experiences on a blog in the early 2000s.

Early life and airline career Simonetti, one of three siblings, was raised in Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina. She spent a year in Bern, Switzerland as a high school exchange student, later dropping out of high school to become first a travel agent and then a flight attendant. She was first employed in the flight industry in 1996 with a charter airline based in Miami, Florida.

After the charter went out of business, Simonetti was hired by Delta Air Lines. During her eight years with Delta, she flew German, Spanish, and Italian routes with the airline and completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish at the University of Texas at Austin.

Blog and dismissal Simonetti began her "Queen of Sky: Diary of a Dysfunctional Flight Attendant" blog in September 2003 as a form of therapy after the loss of her mother to cancer.

Employers and bloggers These events became emblematic of the issue of employees' rights to communicate their own views of their work and workplace versus employers' rights to restrict them. There was considerable media coverage of Simonetti's firing and the freedom of expression issues involved. Simonetti then had a new blog entitled The Queen of the Screen.