It's often portrayed as a glamorous, jet-setting lifestyle loaded with perks, but flight attendants have revealed that their careers aren't as easy as everyone thinks.

On a daily basis they're forced to deal with incredibly rude passengers, disgusting scenarios and even lawbreakers while flying around the world.

From mums changing their baby's diapers atop the food service cart to male passengers exposing their genitalia, these are some of the weirdest or most shocking cabin crew experiences.

In a new thread on Quora, where airline staff are often asked to share their secrets, flight attendant Alicia Fort revealed that she once had to assist a mum who was travelling with her two small children and was stuck in a truly revolting situation.

Fort wrote: "While we were serving lunch, the first kid had a brutal nose bleed and the second kid decided that was the time to release her explosive diarrhoea in her pants, up her back, all over the seat."

"Mom wasn't sure which kid to deal with first so she took her hand full of diarrhoea contents and scooped it on the floor while I took the nose bleeder who promptly looked me in the face and sneezed blood in my mouth."

"The flight was quarantined briefly when we landed back in the U.S."

In her time on the job, Fort has caught passengers masturbating in their seats and once had to deal with a divorced couple who threatened each other and caused a diversion.

Olivia Roqua said one of her strangest moments occurred when she was clearing tray tables after meal service.

She wrote: "Having a lady hand me a teacup to clear, and then asking me to wait while she pulled some long loose strands of hair from her head, balled them up and popped them in the teacup that was now on my tray."

A passenger once asked if it was possible to book a massage during the flight, while others have asked her to make turbulence "stop".

She also claimed to have seen a woman put her baby in a plane's overhead bin and a pop star demand that no one walk past them.

Cabin crew member Heather Wilde said she has witnessed parents changing their babies' nappies on snack trays in full view of fellow travellers.

Some passengers have even made soup using the plane's water supply.

She wrote: "Guys, the water lines haven't ever been cleaned - ever."

Another weird situation? "People who decide it is too risky to use the lav to join the mile high club and just ask for a pillow - then leave it on the seat when they leave," she added.

Bill Haymaker, a former British Airways employee, was on a flight from Bahrain to London when a man wearing a thobe, an ankle-length robe, left a female cabin crew member in tears after exposing himself.

Haymaker, who confronted the passenger, wrote: "I paused a second, waiting for the inevitable denial to come from the passenger. But his response was a surprise. "She likes these things, doesn't she?" he asked, with an utterly creepy look on his face."

Haymaker told the passenger that she doesn't and warned him that they would notify the police, but the man lifted his thobe and exposed himself again. The passenger was arrested when the flight landed at Heathrow Airport six hours later.

Trish McDonald said she was working on a full flight from San Francisco to New York when a passenger with a cat in a carrier was seated next to a passenger with a large "talking" bird in a cage.

She wrote: "It was a long flight as one might imagine. The cat would meow and then the bird would say a swear word or two, and this repetition went on for about six hours."

"Needless to say, when we landed in NY, the crew had never been happier to see its passengers, and these two delightful creatures, deplane."

Another flight attendant, Julien Durand, said she once had a passenger bring a "freshly cut" antelope's head on board a flight in Africa - and blood started dripping from the overhead bink.

On another flight, a passenger was able to bring a car engine into the cabin.