Flight Attendant

[Fly]

The job has changed..........FOREVER! Do you still like it? Do you see this as a progression you are willing to live with OR do you think 'enough'?

If you're a flight attendant (or pilot) you know this is a lifestyle.

I'm just wondering what you all think will happen. I, personally, think that the job of a flight attendant is going to stop becoming a career and become a job you did after college. IMHO

Wasn't it the best though?

 

[TWAnr]

May 16, 2004

Chicago Daily Herald

Grounded advice for flight attendant wannabes
By Gail Todd

Recently, I received e-mail from two readers who
thought flying sounded like an exotic career
and asked me if I would do it all over again. So when
I met two old flying cronies for lunch, I
asked them the same question.

We put our heads together and came up with a training
guide for anyone who is considering a
career as a flight attendant and is looking for the
adventure of air travel. Here it is:

1. Go to a resale store and find an old, navy suit
that an army sergeant might have worn. Add
a white shirt and a tie. Wear the same outfit for
three consecutive days.

2. Go to an airport and watch airplanes take off for
several hours. Pretend you are standing by
for them and they are all full. Go home. Return to the
airport the next day and do the same thing again.

3. Fill several large boxes with rocks. Lift them over
your head and place them on the top shelf
of a closet. Slam the door shut until the boxes fit.
Do this until you feel a disk slip in your back.

4. Turn on a radio. Be sure to set it between stations
so there is plenty of static. Turn on the
vacuum cleaner and garbage disposal. Run them all
night.

5. Remove the covers from several TV entrees. Place
them in a hot oven. Leave the food in the
oven until it's completely dried out. Remove the hot
trays with your bare hands. Serve to your
family. Don't include anything for yourself.

6. Serve your family a beverage one hour after they've
received their meal. Make them remain
in their seats during this time. Ask them to scream at
you and complain about the service.

7. Scrounge uneaten rolls off the plates for you to
eat two hours later when you're really hungry.

8. Place a straight-backed chair in a closet facing a
blank wall. Use a belt to strap yourself into it.
Eat the rolls you saved from your family's meal.

9. Ask your family to use the bathroom as frequently
as possible. Tell them to make splashing
water a game and see who can leave the most disgusting
mess. Clean the bathroom every hour throughout the
night.

10. Make a narrow aisle between several dining room
chairs and randomly scatter your husband's wing-tips
and loafers along the way. Turn off the lights and
spend the night walking up and down
the aisle while banging your shins against the chair
legs and tripping over the shoes. Drink several cups
of cold coffee to keep yourself awake.

11. Gently wake your family in the morning and serve
them a cold sweet roll. Don't forget to smile and wish
them a nice day when they leave for work and school.

12. After the family leaves, take a suitcase and go
out in the yard. If it's not raining, turn on the
sprinkling system and stand in the cold for 30 minutes
pretending like you're waiting for the crew
bus to pick you up. Then go inside and wait by your
bedroom door for another 30 minutes for an imaginary
maid to make up your room.

13. Change into street clothes and shop for five
hours. Pick up carry-out food from a local deli.
Go back home. Sit on your bed and eat your meal. Set
your alarm for 3 a.m. so you'll be ready
for your wake-up call.

14. Repeat the above schedule for three days in a row
and you'll be ready to work your first international
trip.

Several years ago, on a flight out of Denver, my
flying partner was half-buried in a cart trying to
rescue the last few entrees from a meal cart. A
passenger asked her what she was doing. Without
removing her head from the carrier, she responded:
"I'm looking for the glamour in this job."

And yes, I would do it all over again. So would my
flying partners. Go figure.


Gail Todd, a free-lance writer, worked as a flight
attendant for more than 30 years.

 

[Fly]

 

[SkyLiner]

It is..or was an incredible job...I've been furloughed a year and a half and miss it terribly. Unfortunatly the airline that I worked for doesnt exist any longer. Great layovers, celebrities, knowing the best cafes from Cairo to Barcelona. I worked with the best...and for the best.

 

[jetstewus]

I think it will be close to the same someday. The boards of directors are all trying to make it a 1 or 2 year job again. Somehow we have to stop the momentum they've been riding on since 9/11 and start fighting again for all the strides that flight attendants have made during the last several decades that made this a well paying, fairer job with reasonable work rules and decent benefits.

I'm sick of being told I make too much or I have too many benefits or I'm not productive enough. Most of us made just enough to where we could live comfortably and maybe even own a home if we were senior or financially savvy enough.

I'd like to see a more fierce fight to save our way of life. At least then, if we end up losing it anyway, we didn't give it away. Okay, that was a rant. Sorry.

p.s. I viewed the results before voting. I'm going to be optomistic and vote "YES, it WILL be close to what it was!"

 

[Bear96]

I think the best days are behind us. There are too many people willing to do this job for close to nothing all for the "glamour" and the "I love people and I love to travel" mentality. The compensation and work rules some F/As put up with at some charter and commuter carriers is pathetic, and it drags everyone else down at the carriers that have had a history of fighting to make this more a profession rather than something a giggly perky 20-something does for a few years before she settles down.

Management would rather have us quit after a few years before we get too old and expensive. The travelling public would prefer the giggly 22-year-old with big bozangas who doesn't know any better; and in any case, they don't care if we have to work for nothing, as long as they have their $49 cross-country fares. (Though they sure will #### and moan if we don't kiss their assets enough.)

Plus the job itself has changed now with all the post-9/11 stuff.

All this doesn't bode well for the future. It was fun, but it's time to move on.

 

[czerny]

I for one refuse to give up hope and the key here is flexibility. Yes, the job has changed dramatically since I became a flight attendant four years ago, esp. in this country. For foreign carriers such as Singapore, Cathay, British etc., they still have long layovers, glamorous uniforms but they also have the age restriction and weight management issues that have been eradicated here. It is still a lifestyle and yes, I now am doing 5 legs on a commuter carrier while being furloughed from a mainline operation where I was used to having 23-45 hr layovers but they'll never come back. Glamor is where you find it and what you make of it. We stil see more places than the average American who doesn't travel outside of his/her backyard other than the annual pilgrimage to Orlando. I had a group of pop singers on my flight a week ago, and I had 15 days off last month. No other job can give you the flexibility that this job has. I just try to focus on what's positive and adapt my attitude to the changing work rules. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that jetBlue has a four year contract. Is there another US carrier that has a contract? What is the reason for the contract?

 

[Bear96]

...glamorous uniforms...

...Glamor is where you find it...

...I had a group of pop singers on my flight a week ago...

------------------------------------------------

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that jetBlue has a four year contract. Is there another US carrier that has a contract? What is the reason for the contract?

Oy. Maybe this is the problem. Many of us seem to be willing to work for nothing for the "glamor" of it all , while I would prefer decent wages, pension, and work rules. Please look for glamour somewhere else-- it's costing me too much! (Besides, I hate to break it to you, but whatever glamour there ever was in this job is long gone and ain't coming back, thanks to flying in many (most?) cases being cheaper than driving or Amtrak or even Greyhound.)


As to the jetBlue contracts, I see it as an ingenious way to keep unions off the property. The contracts are supposedly renewed pretty much automatically, but I bet if you utter the word "union" too much, mysteriously your contract will not be renewed. jB can cover themselves and avoid running afoul of federal labor laws by saying, technically, that you weren't fired for trying to unionize; rather, they just exercised their option to not renew your contract. Very smart, really.

 

[ktflyhome]

Personally, I have never found any "glamour" in this job, but I have loved it. I have loved the few memorable opportunities of sitting at a side-walk cafe having dinner and drinks with my crew someplace warm and sunny, while there is a snow storm back home. I have loved the opportunity to meet such wonderful crews and many strangers along the way.

What I don't like is the total misconception of what a F/A's job is really all about. We really don't get much respect from the public, and the average joeblow still calls us stewardesses.

Besides giving birth to my 2 children, becoming a F/A was the happiest day of my life when I got my wings pinned on, by my very own daughter. Would I start again all over at another Airline? Not on your life. It has been a great ride though.

 

[FA Mikey]

I think the best days are behind us. There are too many people willing to do this job for close to nothing all for the "glamour" and the "I love people and I love to travel" mentality. The compensation and work rules some F/As put up with at some charter and commuter carriers is pathetic, and it drags everyone else down at the carriers that have had a history of fighting to make this more a profession rather than something a giggly perky 20-something does for a few years before she settles down.

Management would rather have us quit after a few years before we get too old and expensive. The travelling public would prefer the giggly 22-year-old with big bozangas who doesn't know any better; and in any case, they don't care if we have to work for nothing, as long as they have their $49 cross-country fares. (Though they sure will #### and moan if we don't kiss their assets enough.)

Plus the job itself has changed now with all the post-9/11 stuff.

All this doesn't bode well for the future. It was fun, but it's time to move on.

I think you are right but to say the average Jane or Joe wants the dumb as rocks 22 year old with the new boobs, over the ones who have made a career here.

But the old Guard the FF's I mean the platinum's and executive platinum's would prefer the seasoned flight attendant any day. Well, the ones that don't carry the chip on there shoulder from flight to flight. My best flight's were always the business people runs. The high end FFs who know my job like I do. They could catch me when I missed a step and really enjoyed a well organized, professionally run, thoroughly attentive service with No attitude. By someone who anticipated there needs before they did.

I ddo not see those people as often. When I do they share my horror at having to spend 2 mins at each row explaining how to take the tray table out of the arm rest. AA has to many over sales\ and upgrades these days bring down the class in first. Instead of seeking out the FF's and giving them a free upgrade from time to time as a thank you for all there loyalty, We instead throw on the last 4 Clampets to fill the last open F/c seats. Then spend 5 mins as they have every other F/C passenger move around so they can sit together. All wearing Walkman's and not able to hear each other without yelling for all of F/C and M/C to hear, how grannies going through the change. Yikes, and yea it has happened to me.

 

[Superjames]

That's the way it used to be Fly! It used to be a job for young folks anyway So it used to not be a career. In the olden days when a flight attendant got married, she had to quit her job. I guess they wanted that because they wanted to get the pilots to stay because of all the unmarried girls.
Anyway, the job isn't going to change, the good old days are over. We live in a much faster paced life now! h34r: The airline industry is going downhill anyhow, so the makes the job even wrse. So that's the reason I chose on your poll that the job is not going to change(along with 95% of everybody else that voted in this poll)! So saddle up and go for the ride or else....

 

[DocSullivan]

Hi Everybody -

Fly has started an interesting thread here. I'd like to make a few comments.

As a research psychologist whose work focuses on aircrews and stress (!!) I have been hearing many tales from senior FAs -- sometimes wistful, mostly resigned -- that parallel what Fly has said in the first post on this thread. The job ain't what it used to be -- but it sure was fabulous in the "old days." (Old days = somewhere between shedding the stewardess title and 9/11, roughly).

I've also been hearing a LOT about how the pax you serve have changed. FC ain't what it used to be, and the "back of the bus" looks more and more like, well, the back of the BUS.

And BTW, these kinds of comments do not come to me from just one airline -- or even just one country. It's a global happening, I'm afraid.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at what I heard last month -- but I was (at least at the moment). I was invited to speak at the NBAA Flight Attendants Conference in Anaheim in June. (NBAA, for those who may not know, is the "biz jet" crowd.) While there, I met MANY commercial FAs -- mostly fairly senior -- who were in the process of tranistioning from working on airliners to working on corporate jets.

Each one I spoke with told me virtually the same thing -- almost as if they'd rehearsed it ahead of time, even though i knew they hadn't. Airline flying -- even FC -- even international -- ain't what it used to be. Money, prestige and job satisfaction have all gone out the window -- lost in the slipstream, as it were.

At the same time, corporate flying is apparently burgeoning. More and more corporations -- and also wealthy and/or famous individuals -- are opting for their own planes, or biz-jet charters, or fractional ownership of executive jets. They escape standing in long lines, taking off their shoes and their belts, and generally mixing with "the lumpen."

The "heavy jets" -- the Gulfstreams, Global Express & Falcons, to name a few -- all use FAs. The money's good, the clientele is actually appreciative of fine service, and they (the pax) don't look and act like leftovers from a bus station!

Am I sniffing the beginnings of a trend that's bound to grow?? Are more and more experienced commercial FAs going to jump ship in exasperation and go to work instead on corporate aircraft?? And is this, in part, because more and more of the elite/well-heeled pax who would have flown FC just a few years ago are now sick of the whole commercial show -- the decline in amenities and services and the increase in annoyances (from their point of view).

What do you think?

 

[BlueCrew]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I heard that jetBlue has a four year contract. Is there another US carrier that has a contract? What is the reason for the contract?

You are, indeed, wrong. There is no "contract" that FAs sign at JetBlue. You sign an agreement when you're hired that is an agreement of expectations...what the company expects from you, and what you can expect from the company, and the method for resolving those disputes. EVERY EMPLOYEE signs this. All certificated airmen (pilot, dispatchers, maintenance) sign a contract that carries an assurance for both sides...it is in place for those who require extensive, expensive training. This is not a "2nd choice" airline...the company is looking for professionals who want to build a career with a carrier who really wants to "do it right this time".

As for the FA group, the idea is the same: let's get it right this time. We have many, many flight attendants here who had careers at other carriers and bring a wealth of experience and polish. FAs who know the industry has changed and is continuing to evolve and are willing to step up to the plate and change with it. We are building an airline that can flourish in this environment and can still be place where you can build a career. I flew for another successful, respected carrier for 6 yrs and left 2 yrs ago on my own accord because I believe I found a better place to work. I make enough to be comfortable (which by the way was roughly the same as I made after 6 yrs. at my previous union airline)...I have the flexibility that I want, I have liveable work rules, a safe aircraft to work on, a supportive, experienced support network (aka management). I make enough to own my own home. Will I ever be rich doing this? Nope. Will I ever see the days again of getting paid for work I never did because of contractual language? Nope. Will I get paid fairly for what I do? You bet. And the powers that be at the top of the food chain understand that if I'm not happy, the people on the plane aren't happy and stop flying. So they watch the industry closely and ensure we are well taken care of and competitively compensated.

So IMHO, the "glory days" as they were are gone. But one thing about this job has never changed: it is as wonderful or terrible as you make it.

 

[TWAnr]

You are, indeed, wrong. There is no "contract" that FAs sign at JetBlue. You sign an agreement when you're hired that is an agreement of expectations...

Semantics!!!

From www.m-w.com:

Entry Word: agreement
Function: noun
Text:
2 a settlement reached by parties to a dispute or negotiation <the company has reached an agreement with the striking workers>
Synonyms accord, deal, understanding; compare CONTRACT
4
Synonyms CONTRACT, bargain, bond, compact, convention, covenant, pact, transaction

And:

Entry Word: contract
Function: noun
Text: a usually legally enforceable arrangement between two or more parties <a contract for a new roof>
Synonyms agreement, bargain, bond, compact, convention, covenant, pact, transaction; compare AGREEMENT 2, TREATY

 

[BlueCrew]

Oh brother...

Apples and oranges my friend...

The original comment in question was that JetBlue had a 4 year contract that one signs...it does not. Got it?

Let's not create drama where it doesn't exist.