Behind-the-Scenes Secrets of Flight Attendants
Heather Poole has worked for a major carrier for over 15 years and is the author of Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet. We begged her to spill some workplace secrets.
1. IF THE
PLANE DOOR IS OPEN, WE’RE NOT GETTING PAID.
You know all that preflight time where we’re cramming bags
into overhead bins? None of that shows up in our paychecks. Flight attendants
get paid for “flight hours only.” Translation: The clock doesn’t start until
the craft pushes away from the gate. Flight delays, cancellations, and layovers
affect us just as much as they do passengers—maybe even more.
Airlines aren’t completely heartless, though. From the time
we sign in at the airport until the plane slides back into the gate at our home
base, we get an expense allowance of $1.50 an hour. It’s not much, but it helps
pay the rent.
2.
LANDING THIS GIG IS TOUGH.
Competition is fierce: When Delta announced 1,000 openings
in 2010, it received over 100,000 applications. Even Harvard’s acceptance rate
isn’t that low! All that competition means that most applicants who score
interviews have college degrees—I know doctors and lawyers who’ve made the
career switch.
But you don’t need a law degree to get your foot in the
jetway door. Being able to speak a second language greatly improves your
chances. So does having customer service experience (especially in fine dining)
or having worked for another airline, a sign that you can handle the lifestyle.
The 4 percent who do get a callback interview really need to
weigh the pros and cons of the job. As we like to say, flight attendants must
be willing to cut their hair and go anywhere. And if you can’t survive on
$18,000 a year, most new hires’ salary, don’t even think about applying.
3. WE CAN
BE TOO TALL OR TOO SHORT TO FLY.
During Pan Am’s heyday in the 1960s, there were strict
requirements for stewardesses: They had to be at least 5-foot-2, weigh no more
than 130 pounds, and retire by age 32. They couldn’t be married or have
children, either. As a result, most women averaged just 18 months on the job.
In the 1970s, the organization Stewardesses for Women’s
Rights forced airlines to change their ways. The mandatory retirement age was
the first thing to go. By the 1980s, the marriage restriction was gone as well.
These days, as long as flight attendants can do the job and pass a yearly
training program, we can keep flying.
As for weight restrictions, most of those disappeared in the
1990s. Today, the rules are about safety: Flight attendants who can’t sit in
the jump seat without an extended seat belt or can’t fit through the emergency
exit window cannot fly. The same goes for height requirements: We have to be
tall enough to grab equipment from the overhead bins, but not so tall that
we’re hitting our heads on the ceiling. Today, that typically means between
5-foot-3 and 6-foot-1, depending on the aircraft.
4. WE CAN
BE FIRED FOR BIZARRE REASONS.
Newly hired flight attendants are placed on strict probation
for their first six months. I know one new hire who lost her job for wearing
her uniform sweater tied around her waist.
Another newbie got canned for pretending to be a
full-fledged attendant so she could fly home for free. (Travel benefits don’t
kick in until we’re off probation.) But the most surprising violation is flying
while ill: If we call in sick, we aren’t allowed to fly, even as a passenger on
another airline. It’s grounds for immediate dismissal.
5. DIET
COKE IS OUR NEMESIS!
Of all the drinks we serve, Diet Coke takes the most time to
pour—the fizz takes forever to settle at 35,000 feet. In the time it takes me
to pour a single cup of Diet Coke, I can serve three passengers a different
beverage.
So even though giving cans to first-class passengers is a
big no-no, you’ll occasionally spy 12 ounces of silver trimmed in red sitting
up there.
6. IF YOU
TRY TO SNEAK A DEAD BODY ONTO A PLANE, WE WILL NOTICE.
You may have heard the story of a Miami passenger who tried
to board a flight with his dead mother inside a garment bag. Why would someone
do such a thing? Because it’s expensive to transport human bodies! Prices vary
by destination, but delivering a body on a flight can cost up to $5,000.
Commercial carriers transport bodies across the country every day, and because
the funeral directors who arrange these flights are offered air miles for their
loyalty, they’re not always concerned about finding the lowest fare.
Thankfully, I’ve never had someone sneak a deceased
passenger on board, but my roommate did. She knew the man was dead the moment
she saw him looking gray and slumped over in a wheelchair, even though his wife
and daughter assured her he was just battling the flu. Midway through the
flight, the plane had to make an unscheduled landing when it became apparent
that no amount of Nyquil was going to revive him.
No one officially dies in-flight unless there’s a doctor on
board to make the pronouncement. On these very rare occasions, the crew will do
everything possible to manage the situation with sensitivity and respect.
Unfortunately, most flights are full, so it’s not always possible to move an
“incapacitated” passenger to an empty row of seats. Singapore Airlines is the
most prepared. Its planes feature a “corpse cupboard,” a compartment for
storing a dead body if the situation arises.
7. WE’LL
ALSO NOTICE IF YOU TRY TO JOIN THE MILE HIGH CLUB.
It’s usually the long line of people waiting to use the
bathroom that gives you away, and nine times out of 10, it’s a passenger who
asks the flight attendants to intervene. Strictly speaking, it’s not against
the law to join the Mile High Club. But it is against the law to disobey crew
member commands.
If we ask you to stop doing whatever it is you’re doing, by
all means, stop! Otherwise, you’re going to have a very awkward conversation
when you meet your cell mate.
8. WE’RE
THE FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING.
When I started flying, I never dreamed I’d be working with
the police, but it’s become an important part of the job. This new role started
with Sandra Fiorini, an American Airlines flight attendant who testified to
Congress about an 18-year-old male passenger carrying a newborn with its
umbilical cord still attached. No mother in sight, just one bottle of milk and
two diapers stuck in his pocket for the six-hour flight. When Fiorini reported
her suspicions to the authorities, she got no response.
In 2007, Fiorini met Deborah Sigmund, founder of the
organization Innocents at Risk, and they began working together to train
airline employees on what to spot and who to call. In 2011, this translated
into hundreds of flight attendants from different airlines volunteering to help
police at the Super Bowl, a hotbed for trafficking prostitutes.
9.
SENIORITY MEANS SHORTER SKIRTS.
Our tenure on the job doesn’t just determine which routes we
fly and which days we get to take off; it also affects the hierarchy in our
crashpad, an apartment shared by as many as 20 flight attendants. Seniority is
the difference between top or lower bunk, what floor your bed is on, and just
how far away your room is from noisy areas such as doors or stairwells.
Seniority even determines the length of our skirts—we can’t
hem them above a certain length until we’re off probation. Afterward, it’s OK
to shorten the hem and show a little leg. Some of the friskier pilots take
advantage of the long hems; they know that new hires tend to be more flattered
by their advances than senior flight attendants. (One senior flight attendant I
know intentionally left her skirt long just to keep these guys interested!)
10.
YOU’VE NEVER EXPERIENCED EXTREME TURBULENCE.
More than 2 million people fly in the United States each
day, and yet since 1980, only three people have died as a direct result of
turbulence. Of those fatalities, two passengers weren’t wearing their safety
belts. During that same time period, the Federal Aviation Administration
recorded just over 300 serious injuries from turbulence, and more than
two-thirds of the victims were flight attendants. What do these numbers mean?
As long as your seat belt is on, you’re more likely to be injured by falling luggage
than by choppy air.
Interestingly, on some airlines, a flight attendant’s
injuries in flight can’t be officially classified as an on-duty injury unless
it happens during what’s known as “extreme turbulence”—where the captain loses
control of the plane or the craft sustains structural damage. In both of those
cases, the aircraft must be grounded and inspected. Because no one wants to
ground a plane, captains are very hesitant to hand out the “extreme turbulence”
label. A friend of mine who works closely with airline management said he’s
never seen a pilot label rough air as “extreme turbulence.” So the next time
you’re nervous about some mid-flight bumps, just take a deep breath and remind
yourself, “This isn’t extreme!”
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