I am not willing to be a flight attendant. (Too much travel and too much a whole bunch of other stuff I’m not gonna do. I admire them.) But I would love to have flight benefits (who wouldn’t?). I have been thinking about it more and more lately. I have to think it must be difficult and very competitive to land an airlines job because of the flight benefits deal. I imagine they can get by with paying people less because, again, of the benefits. I’m a lawyer - I do employment law - and I would of course be willing to go in-house - but I am not going to hang my hat on that because in-house jobs are pretty slim in any industry, let alone the airlines. But I would be pretty well-qualified to do HR as well as other management areas. I have worked in private industry in a legal/management role (General Counsel of a small company, mostly) as well as in law firms. One of my limitations is that I am currently the only breadwinner, so I need to make a decent amount of money. At some point in the next couple of years it won’t be that way - I will be able to make less because my husband will make money - but for now it is. ne of my thoughts is to take on aviation cases at work so as to make my resume more interesting to them/show interest/experience. This could be a several-years project.
Anyway, I am being too specific about myself, because I would just like to hear some experiences/educated opinions from people who know anything about how to break into the industry. Have you or your family/friends worked for the airlines? Is it crazy competitive? Have you tried to get a job with an airline? Do you have to know someone? What’s the deal?
It is easy for flight attendants to get work with the company I work for, but that’s because the pay is crap so the quality of applicant is low. On the positive side, they only work Monday to Friday and are always home each night, so for a family woman/man looking for a good lifestyle and a top up of the family income, it is alright. Unfortunately we don’t get flight benefits because we are technically a charter company and aren’t able to offer reciprocal travel to other airline employees.
I don’t know how HR types fare getting work with us, some are pretty useless but that doesn’t mean they didn’t present well in a competitive interview process.
I just saw an article on the major airlines putting out ads for flight attendants and getting HUGE numbers of applicants for a tiny number of positions. Their rejection rates are far greater than any exclusive college.
I had a friend years ago who broke into the business as a reservations agent. The fact that his father worked for the airline played a big part in his getting hired, and my friend always felt a bit guilty about that.
Both my parents worked for a major airline. The flight benefits are not always as good as they seem. Remember: it is all stand-by travel. I was stuck in Hong Kong for 5 days trying to get back to the US, spending each day at the airport trying for any flight leaving Hong Kong. I even got a Japanese visa (when we needed them) to go via Japan.
Another time I was stuck in NY for 3 days trying to get to San Francisco and ended up going via Tokyo… since I already had the visa.
It certainly can work well for last-minute travel and if you don’t really care where you end up, but it is not always easy.
I hate to be the naysayer here, but we have quite a few students who used to work for airlines and every one of them was desperately trying to find a new career (thus going to our college) to get OUT of the airline industry.
Granted, most worked as flight attendants or on-ground service (cleaning planes/loading luggage etc.) but they all said they were paid little, treated poorly, and although the perks of flying “for free” were nice, there were lots of limitations and most didn’t really have the money to have fun when they got to some of those locations.
As a lawyer, you might have some better options - but all in all - the airlines don’t seem to be the most stable, reliable, employee-friendly places to work.
Flight benefits - if you are traveling with a family - don’t tend to work well. Flights are full now a days and as a single, flying standby is possible - one of my friends has a wife and three kids - they buy their tickets.
My uncle worked in the airline industry running flight simulators in the training department. He started when computers were relatively new in the workplace. He had experience from the Air Force and had worked with computers at university so he was one of the few with the right qualifications.
His daughter went to work for the same airline in front office work, marketing IIRC. I am sure nepotism helped. But she had education that matched that position.
The key to both was applying education and skills to fill the needs of the airline. The OP could try to develop some airline industry legal work to have more to offer an airline.
I worked for Eastern Airlines as a reservation agent at Boston’s Logan airport in the 80’s (until they ceased operations).
It was a great job and enabled me to see almost the entire world. I paid 6 dollars each way for first class, which they would take out of my next paycheck.
The unemployment rate was very low back then, it was very easy to get hired.
Like most things airline-related the benefits were a lot nicer in the past than they are now. Desert Nomad is right on the money about how lackluster the flight benefits actually are. I’ll add that it’s a volatile industry as well, job security is not that great.
Preach it. Got stranded in Argentina a coupla years ago and ended up paying through the nose for last minute full fare to get back to the US, after years of getting pretty lucky using that benefit, ouch! Kinda stole my enthusiasm for trying to keep playing that game. Ah well, nothin’s free! Might still be usable if you can travel off peak as a single travfeller, but 'aint like it used to be it seems.
Somewhere Robert Crandall (former American Airlines boss) was braying like a jackal, I’m sure!
When I interned with Northwest Airlines, not only did I have to fly standby everywhere, but I had to schedule my own routing with PARS, the airline reservation system. Trying different routes to minimize the chances of me not getting a seat was quite an experience, especially during the holidays. The rare times where I got to snag a flight deck jumpseat were awesome though. Those days are most certainly over.
I flew on my brother-in-law’s “Buddy Pass” years ago (pre 9-11). I was in PA, he and my sister were in Florida. Sis was pregnant, on bed rest and had 2 youngsters. I had summer vacation to spend with her and take care of them while he was working.
I flew stand-by, but we would try and find not-full flights to put me on so I didn’t have to wait around. I was required to dress well, because there was a good chance I would be in First Class. Also, the airline felt if you were flying on Buddy Pass, you were a representative of the airline, even if you weren’t an employee.
Nowadays, my sister and her kids usually just buy seats. They don’t have the time to try and get 5 seats on a plane when they want to travel together. The airline my brother in law works for now imposes fuel charges and other fees on the passes, so it’s not worth the hassle. My nephew has used his buddy pass to travel, but he doesn’t care where or when, he just wants to go places.
I would agree that the “flying benefits” aren’t as great as you imagine them to be. However, I would expect there to high demand for qualified labor attorneys due to the high number of labor unions associated with the commercial airlines.
Don’t bother. The costs of Non-Rev Travel have gone up; and yield management scientifically oversells flights so that they’ll be as full as possible which makes traveling for enjoyment difficult. Keep this in mind, back when I worked for AA you flew non revenue status according to ranking. First all of the non-rev business travelers load. Then vacation passes go ahead of you (as an employee you were allowed one vacation pass per year); and finally regular non rev travel, and then buddy passes. I left my wife stranded in Las Vegas for 3 days trying to get home non rev as I managed to get on a flight with literally ONE seat left and I had to be able to go to work the following day. Delta can even be worse; if they haven’t changed, they board non revs by seniority. Welcome to being a new employee when you’re just about to walk onto a plane, and someone with 30 years seniority walks up 5 minutes before boarding and essentially takes the seat you would have gotten.
Flying sucks. It’s cattle car mentality with rude flight attendants.
That being said, I would think as an attorney; you have as good, or better shot as anybody else. Forget HR if you need to make money. HR Entry Level pays worse than being a flight attendant; and you have to stay in it too long to make a decent wage.
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