Beyond the Video: The Crew’s Job

    

As we settled into our seats on our Delta flight home from Amsterdam a few weeks ago, our TV screens showed the mandatory safety video. Remember the days when flight attendants would stand throughout the cabin and demonstrate the safety regulations personally? Now, it’s all on video, except for smaller, regional flights.

            Every airline tries to make their safety video a little different from their competitors’. Delta, which is celebrating its 100^th anniversary this year, does it nicely, with flight attendants and passengers dressed in the uniforms and clothing styles of various eras, from the 1920s to the ‘90s. (We got a kick out of the 10-year-old kid impersonating Michael Jackson, moonwalking down the aisle.) A few months ago, we were impressed by Air New Zealand’s video, with Hollywood-level production values and celebrity guests. British Airways uses videos that cleverly parody popular UK period dramas. You can see some of the best here: Best Airline Safety Videos.

            Air New Zealand started this creative trend about 16 years ago, with its video featuring cabin crew and flight attendants who were wearing uniforms—but not! They were all body-painted. (You’ll have to look that one up yourself.)

            The flight attendants in these videos all seem to be having a great time, and we have to say that on all the flights we’ve been on, it’s hard to remember an instance of rudeness or incompetence by a flight attendant. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t widely held misconceptions about the profession. Yes, they travel all over the world, visiting the best beaches and exotic night spots (sometimes), but it’s not an easy job by any means. The travel site islands.com recently listed the 11 biggest misconceptions about the flight attendant profession:

·         It’s easy to get hired. All you need are good people skills, right? Not really. Fewer than 5% of applicants get hired. It’s tougher to get one of these jobs at a major airline than it is to get into an Ivy League college. There are physical requirements (and they have nothing to do with personal beauty). Height is one of them; KLM requires applicants to be between 5’2” and 6’2” tall. Applicants must pass a rigorous interview process and then undergo weeks of training once they’re hired.

·         Their primary job is to serve passengers. In the post-WW2 commercial air travel boom, the term “trolley dolly” was applied to flight attendants, because all they seemed to do was push the “trolleys” down the aisle to serve drinks and meals. Actually, the primary job of a flight attendant is safety, the passengers’ and the crew’s. They’re trained to open doors and understand the layouts of aircraft so they can execute evacuations in under 90 seconds. Those are worst-case scenarios and very rare, of course, but there are more common safety issues like medical emergencies, fires and, yes, unruly passengers.

·         They’re paid during delays. They don’t punch a time clock, and their hours can vary wildly based on the flight’s itinerary. Flight attendants have pay rates that vary based on whether or not the flight is on schedule. If the plane is grounded for whatever reason, they still get paid, but at a much lower rate.

·         They’re paid for boarding and deplaning. Flight attendants are paid their full rate only when the plane door closes and everyone is on board. So, for all the time they spend helping you to your seat, stowing your carryon overhead and otherwise making sure you and your companions are comfortable, they’re being paid less than their prime rate. Airlines have started to re-examine this arrangement; in 2022, Delta began awarding boarding pay, although it’s still less than the full rate.

·         They’re required to help with your bags. Flight attendants are required to help passengers organize their bags but not lift them into the overhead bins. It’s assumed that passengers will not bring bags aboard that are too heavy for them to handle—but of course, many do. Attendants might work as many as four flights a day, which is four sessions of helping boarding passengers with their bags, and that’s a lot of bags. The risk of injury is high. Many airlines won’t offer paid leave if an attendant is injured lifting a bag.

·         They all make the same amount of money. Like almost every profession, flight attendant pay varies, based on seniority and the size of the airline. Entry-level attendants at smaller airlines can make as low as $25,000/year, while a senior attendant at a major carrier can earn a salary into six figures. United reportedly starts its attendants at about $29/hour. If your flight has four attendants, chances are each of them are making a different level of salary.

·         They fly only on specific routes. Unlike crews on trains, airline flight attendants are always working different routes. “What route do you fly?” is the most common question they ask each other when they meet at airports. Every day is different. Speakers of a second language are likely to be assigned to certain sectors where those skills can be useful. Seniority plays a role; those who’ve been with the airline the longest get their first pick of available trips. Attendants will fly only on planes they’ve been trained on, so this necessarily limits routes for less experienced crew.

·         Layovers are always exciting. International routes, which most travelers would presume include the types of layovers we see in the movies, aren’t as glamorous as we might think. Attendants will use layovers for rest and recuperation. They might have flown across multiple time zones, worked throughout the night, and might be headed home in a day or two. They need to be fully recharged for the return flight, so late-night clubbing and long days at the beach are rare.

·         They’re all single women without children. In the early years of commercial flights, attendants, known as “stewards,” were all men. The first woman wasn’t hired until 1930. She was Ellen Church, 25, a registered nurse and pilot from Iowa, hired by Boeing Air Transport, which called her and the women who followed “sky girls.” They had to be single, 25 or younger, weight less than 115 pounds and be no taller than 5’4”. They might have to assist in fueling the aircraft and pushing it into the hangar. Church’s first flight was San Francisco to Chicago, a 20-hour haul with 13 stops, for 14 passengers. Today, about 85% of flight attendants are women, and many of them have children.

·         They aren’t well-educated. On the contrary: CareerExplorer data shows that 70% of flight attendants have some post-secondary education. Degrees in hospitality, nursing, business and even the law are common.

·         They can call ahead to hold a plane for your connection. No, they can’t keep a plane waiting at the gate if you’re late. The most they can do is help you look up your connecting flight to see how far away your gate will be or find out if it’s delayed. There’s a reason they’re called flight attendants; their purview is the flight on which they’re working.

So, the world of flight attendants isn’t quite what we have typically seen from the movies and TV, is it? Well, the movies tend to glamorize just about every profession…although I’m still waiting for a film featuring a travel agent as the star! Ready to see your next airline safety video? Give us a call!