My first famous passenger was Ringo Starr. I took him on a flight to France and shortly after that flew Diana Ross to Dublin, where she was performing. I imagined that, being so slim and beautiful, she’d want to eat delicate canapés on board so that’s what we provided. But when we landed, she handed us tickets to her concert before saying she’d prefer tomato soup and fish and chips on the next flight. I loved that.

The year was 1989 and these were the first of countless brushes with the uber-rich and super-famous during my 20-year career as one of only a handful of female private jet pilots.

From diplomats, businessmen and royalty to rock stars and Hollywood actors, I flew some of the world’s most moneyed people to the glittering playgrounds of Europe and beyond.

It gave me a unique insight into their extraordinarily gilded world and I quickly realised there’s no better place for them to conduct an illicit affair, put a bounty on the head of an arch-enemy or make a corrupt deal, than 35,000ft up in the air.

In some cases their sense of entitlement was off the scale. On one occasion I was piloting a £3million private jet from Venice to London when the American socialite who had chartered it swanned into the cockpit, dressed head-to-toe in Chanel and clutching a crystal flute of champagne.

Nonchalantly, she asked me to call ahead to Heathrow and have them hold the Concorde flight to New York until we’d landed ‘so my friend Oscar doesn’t miss it’.

The Oscar in question was the fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, her companion on the 13-seater jet. I was just 27 and naturally did as she asked. Astonishingly, Concorde was duly delayed by a couple of minutes until I’d delivered its final passenger on to the tarmac.

I also flew Saudi princesses and other wealthy women who’d hire the jet to go to New York just to buy a pair of shoes.

From Ringo Starr to Saudi princesses, Anita Mays piloted private jets for the wealthy over her 20-year career

She gained a unique insight into their gilded world and now shares her stories with the Daily Mail

One passenger, an American socialite, asked Anita to hold the Concorde's flight to New York 'so my friend Oscar (De La Renta, pictured) doesn't miss it'

Today Cristiano Ronaldo, Taylor Swift, Simon Cowell, Elton John and Tom Cruise are still fans of private jet travel and, according to recent statistics, the global market is worth £28billion with an estimated 5.4million flights per year.

I’d welcome all guests in person as they embarked the steps of the plane, meeting many of them numerous times and getting to know them a little. Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler flew a lot with me when he toured with his own band and loved to sit with me in the cockpit before dining on sushi.

Rod Stewart was another regular and one of my favourites. He was happy with a glass of wine and a pizza. By contrast, an English banking family I flew insisted on having rose petals strewn around the plane and spent a whopping £6,000 on catering – foie gras, lobsters and Krug – most of which they didn’t touch so we gave it to the airport staff.

As a pilot, my crew and I were lucky to enjoy countless once-in-a-lifetime perks, such as when singer Jay Kay from Jamiroquai sang Cosmic Girl to us on board. His manager then invited us on to a luxury yacht in Monaco where Jay Kay was being paid to entertain the guests.

George Michael was one of the loveliest passengers I ever met with zero ego. He gave us all tickets to his concert, also in Dublin, which was one of the best experiences of my life.

As a young girl, I daydreamed of becoming an air hostess, a fascination which began after my construction manager father and secretary mother sent me from our home in Nigeria to boarding school in Sussex. At the end of every term, I’d jump on a plane to Africa to see them, meaning I associated air travel with happiness and excitement.

After studying English and French at Birmingham University, I then spent 18 fruitless months trying to get a job as an air hostess, a job that was seen in the 1980s as the epitome of glamour.

However, that also meant that air hostesses were expected to be stunningly beautiful and because I was not, all my applications were rejected.

An English banking family she flew insisted on having rose petals strewn around the plane and spent a whopping £6,000 on catering – foie gras, lobsters and Krug – most of which they didn’t touch so it was given to the airport staff

To cheer me up, my mother bought me a flying lesson at an airfield in Surrey on a crisp, clear November day in 1984 and as I gazed at the south coast dazzling in the distance, I knew I was going to be an airline pilot.

Four years later in 1988, aged 27, having qualified as a commercial pilot, I landed a dream job co-piloting a ten-seater luxury private jet based at Heathrow.

But the lavish lifestyles of the celebrities I encountered on that plane were nothing compared with the colossal wealth of the passengers I flew when, in 1995, I was hired as pilot of a privately owned Boeing 727.

As a commercial jet, it would have had 187 seats but this VIP-adapted version, which had previously belonged to the Sultan of Brunei, had just 13 enormous seats in its £7million interior. There was a vast en-suite bedroom, a full kitchen, dining room and an office.

Back then it cost £6,000 an hour to hire – today that would be an eye-watering £20,000 – and it was favoured by billionaires and Arab Sheikhs. But with it came rudeness, excess, misery and hypocrisy, on a scale unlike anything I’d seen before.

My ability to be discreet and to turn a blind eye were two of many reasons I was so well suited to the job.

One of my regular passengers was a Syrian arms dealer who owned the jet and used it himself between other charters. He’d insist we had food on board from a top restaurant in Piccadilly, so we’d drive hundreds of pounds worth of lamb and Arabic mezze up the M1 to Luton airport where the plane was based.

Another Middle Eastern client was so used to having people fawning over him that he’d summon the hostesses to the plane’s bedroom to help change him out of his Western business suit and into his khandoura – the traditional Arabic ankle-length tunic. In fact, the plane’s bedroom was a key attraction for many of my passengers.

I was once due to take a couple of foreign businessmen to Nice, only for them to suddenly request an all-male crew. I later discovered it was because they’d hired a number of young women to entertain them on the flight to the south of France. These types of inflight shenanigans were commonplace.

One married businessman would have me fly him around picking up his numerous mistresses from places such as Kyiv, Dubai and Helsinki.

In 2006, there was a surge in Russian oligarch passengers as many of them descended on London. Some thought themselves too important to talk to the crew so they’d get any aides accompanying them to speak on their behalf or, worse still, call their aides back in Moscow from the plane and have them ring the hostess on board if they wanted food or drink.

Anita flew three of the stars of The Holiday... left to right, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Kate Winslet (with Rufus Sewell)

They were ruthless, too. I overheard chilling conversations that suggested they viewed contract killings with the same flippancy as getting a parking ticket. I strongly suspect many a corrupt deal was done on that plane.

Meanwhile, I continued to fly all sorts of Hollywood stars in the ten-seater jet, including Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet and Jude Law, who giggled and chatted non-stop on a flight during their promotional tour for movie The Holiday in 2006.

As you can imagine, Monaco and the south of France were popular routes during the summer months just as they are today, starting with jets full of City boys keen to blow their considerable bonuses at the Grand Prix.

They certainly weren’t as dignified as the lovely Joan Collins, who I flew to the Côte d’Azur. Around the same time, in 2007, I collected the Beckhams and their three boys from Cannes just before they moved to America. Victoria picked at a seafood platter then explained she was tired because of a punishing work schedule and went to bed.

Prompted by David, the three boys all came to thank me when we landed. I feel incredibly sad when I read all the stories now about Brooklyn’s estrangement from his family – they’re a lovely family.

Beyonce and Jay-Z hitched a lift from Dublin to Nice that same summer and had more luggage than I’ve ever seen – at least 12 huge pieces – for their holiday on a floating gin palace. We’d ordered luxury canapés, but all they wanted was banana bread.

Flying Rolling Stones Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts back to London from Berlin in 2008 was memorable for different reasons. We had the worst turbulence I’d ever experienced which caused the plane to suddenly plummet 300ft, flinging food and drink all over the suede ceiling.

Once the danger had passed, their security chap joked light-heartedly ‘bloomin’ women drivers!’ which made us all laugh.

Beyonce and Jay-Z went on a private jet piloted by Anita from Dublin to Nice, bringing the most luggage that the pilot had ever seen - 12 huge pieces

In 2007, Anita collected David and Victoria Beckham and their three boys from Cannes

In fact, most of the celebrities I encountered were surprisingly easygoing compared with the business tycoons. Despite unimaginable riches, they didn’t seem to enjoy life very much. The only thing that turned them on was the next deal. They were so acquisitive. If a rival bought a yacht, they’d buy a bigger one and park it next to him.

The Reuben brothers, Simon and David, were a prime example. Named as the second richest people in Britain on this year’s Sunday Times Rich List with a net worth of £27.9billion, I once flew them to a dry dock in northern Germany for the launch of a luxury boat they’d commissioned. They invited me on board to join their guests for lunch.

With exquisite soft furnishings, Swarovski chandeliers and sumptuous carpet that was cut to look like soft sand, I remarked how much fun they’d have once they got it to the Mediterranean.

‘Oh no,’ they said. ‘We’ve already sold it for a huge profit and are having a bigger one built.’

It summed up how the super wealthy are always looking for the next thrill – be it a supercar or a woman. If they see there’s a profit to be made, they move on – it’s why they are brilliant at what they do. One guy hired me to fly him to Dubai for New Year’s Eve, but after a few hours he’d had enough and wanted to fly back to London. They’re so restless, never stopping to smell the roses.

Another Indian businessman decided mid-air between Georgia and London that he wanted me to land in Geneva so he could do some business. I had to explain that just because a jet is private doesn’t mean the pilot can bypass flight routes, schedules and air traffic control!

These passengers could have learned a thing or two from the ordinary people I often had the privilege of flying; the corporate sales teams who’d hit their targets and were being treated to a round of golf on a top course in Europe or a champagne tasting in a chateau, and whose appreciation of flying by jet was joyous to see.

There were heart-warming flights too, such as the one chartered by a chap from Oxford who’d saved for years to take his wife to Switzerland for a special birthday lunch in a mountain restaurant.

After 20 wonderful years, I stopped flying in 2010. Now 65, I’ve spent a decade as an international speaker on cruise ships, travelling around the world at a speed of 15 knots instead of 500. I also got married last year to my partner of 20 years, who was in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm and we now live in Surrey. I never had kids as my life was too busy, but neither do I have any regrets.

Although I miss handling £20million jets and the wonderful experiences and perks afforded me as a pilot, I will be forever grateful for the dream life I lived.

If only some of my passengers had adopted that attitude and stopped to gaze at the wonder all around them at 35,000ft, I’m convinced they’d be so much happier.

As told to Sadie Nicholas

Flygirl Adventures: An Autoflyography by Anita Mays (£9.99, Austin Macauley Publishers) is out now.