Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) hurries to catch a flight after voting on Capitol Hill. | Photo by AP Photo Close

Sen. Chuck Schumer loves the sound of his own voice, but it carried a bit farther than he might have liked on the US Airways shuttle from New York to Washington on Sunday.

According to a House Republican aide who happened to be seated nearby, the notoriously chatty New York Democrat referred to a flight attendant as a “bitch” after she ordered him to turn off his phone before takeoff.

Schumer and his seatmate, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), were chatting on their phones before takeoff when an announcement indicated that it was time to turn off the phones.

Both senators kept talking.

According to the GOP aide, a flight attendant then approached Schumer and told him the entire plane was waiting on him to shut down his phone.

Schumer asked if he could finish his conversation. When the flight attendant said “no,” Schumer ended his call but continued to argue his case.

He said he was entitled to keep his phone on until the cabin door was closed. The flight attendant said he was obliged to turn it off whenever a flight attendant asked.

“He argued with her about the rule,” the source said. “She said she doesn’t make the rules, she just follows them.”

When the flight attendant walked away, the witness says Schumer turned to Gillibrand and uttered the B-word.

“The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon told Shenanigans.

Ironically, Schumer has been a friend of US Airways flight attendants of late, lobbying company chairman and CEO Doug Parker on their behalf after several of them asked the senator to help keep them based at LaGuardia.

Through her office, Gillibrand said Schumer was “polite” with the flight attendant Sunday and “turned off his phone when asked to.”

But moments after the flight attendant had told Schumer to shut it off, the phone rang again.

“It’s Harry Reid calling,” the source quoted Schumer as saying. “I guess health care will have to wait until we land.”

‘Shhhhh!’

Nothing rankles Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) more than talking when it’s frowned upon.

Take, for example, Tuesday morning’s Republican Conference meeting with members and staff.

It appears Rep. David Dreier of California dared to whisper something to Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas. That garnered a strong “shh” from Foxx, complete with a pointed finger admonishing her two colleagues. She then took to the mic and told the crowd it was rude for members and staff to talk.

“Think back to your school days,” Foxx spokesman Aaron Groen offered. “She’s a teacher at heart. After all her years in education, she can’t resist trying to quiet the classroom down.”

Party time

There are plenty of glitzy soirées around town this week. And then there are some low-key events at which still-working members of Congress try to spread holiday cheer with their staffs. Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-Calif.) hosted a sixth-floor Longworth party where — hold yourself back! — she cooked “two huge vats of nine-alarm chili ... and an equally large bowl of her famous guacamole,” we hear. Dreier cooked an “egg thing” — not scrambled but not an omelet, either — for a Christmas brunch for his Rules Committee and personal office staff.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This corrects an earlier version that misspelled US Airways CEO Doug Parker's name.