Tell me about being a flight attendant.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Having chatted with my share of flight attendants in the past, I’ve always wondered about what it’s like to be in their shoes. Specifically, I’m pondering that as a possible post-graduation job for myself; I’m set to graduate with a B.A. this time next year and don’t feel like applying at the local cubicle farm, or heading straight into grad school like all my friends seem to be doing.

From the preliminary Googling, I seem to qualify. I’m male, 22, am within height standards for most airlines (5’11" / 179cm), have no prior arrests or convictions, speak a foreign language or two and have some experience with customer service. But I’m wondering if there are any Dopers here who can give me a better clue as to what it’s like serving pretzels and coffee on the red-eye to Cleveland, than what my cursory research has yielded so far.

2

I don’t know if this is any help to you or not. I just interveiwed yesterday with an airline looking to hire a bunch of flight attendants as they are upgrading thier planes. The average 1st year salary is $17,000 to $19,000 a year. They are paid two ways. 1) they are paid per flight hour around $17.00 an hour, for a minimum of 75 hours and a maximum of 98 hours. flight hours is only for the time you are in the air. 2) they are paid a per diem of $1.35 per hour from the time they check in in the morning until they check out to go home, layovers etc are included in this time. If you are on call you are guaranteed to be paid for 75 hours flight time.

I am unsure if you are paid per diem for the whole time you are on call and I am unsure how it works if while on call you run up 75 flight hours before the month is up but you still have some on call days left how or if you get paid beyond the per diem.

They said the second year isn’t a big improvement over the first year as far as pay.

Benefits are good, medical dental vision vacation which are standard and then there are the travel benefits. If you are laid over they pay for transportation and your room, your meals are on you.

While on stand by you have to be reachable 24 hours a day and call back within 10 minutes of beeped and then arrive at the terminal within 90 minutes ready to go. You can’t be on call more than 6 days straight. Everything is done by seniority.

I thought it would be interesting to do but I can’t pay my mortgage on 20k a year, In fact I would probably volunteer to be the standby person since you can not work and get paid for it.

Hopefully someone else can tell you about the actual dispensing of peanuts and soft drinks to iracible travelers at high altitude.

[QUOTE=ignis_glaciesque]
Having chatted with my share of flight attendants in the past, I’ve always wondered about what it’s like to be in their shoes. Specifically, I’m pondering that as a possible post-graduation job for myself; I’m set to graduate with a B.A. this time next year and don’t feel like applying at the local cubicle farm, or heading straight into grad school like all my friends seem to be doing.

From the preliminary Googling, I seem to qualify. I’m male, 22, am within height standards for most airlines (5’11" / 179cm), have no prior arrests or convictions, speak a foreign language or two and have some experience with customer service. But I’m wondering if there are any Dopers here who can give me a better clue as to what it’s like serving pretzels and coffee on the red-eye to Cleveland, than what my cursory research has yielded so far.
[/QUOTE]

3

This is tangential, but the travel benefits are likely not as nice as they sound. In all likelihood, you will be traveling as a non-revenue standby passenger, the very last in line except for other employees with less seniority that also have flight benefits. Sometimes this works out well, but when it doesn’t, things can go extraordinarily pear shaped. You can be stuck almost anywhere for a day or two on end, and you simply cannot depend on being able to get anywhere. So, it’s a nice benefit to have, but not as nice as it sounds probably.

4

[QUOTE=threemae]
This is tangential, but the travel benefits are likely not as nice as they sound. In all likelihood, you will be traveling as a non-revenue standby passenger, the very last in line except for other employees with less seniority that also have flight benefits. Sometimes this works out well, but when it doesn’t, things can go extraordinarily pear shaped. You can be stuck almost anywhere for a day or two on end, and you simply cannot depend on being able to get anywhere. So, it’s a nice benefit to have, but not as nice as it sounds probably.
[/QUOTE]

I figured as much. Some told me that you could pretty much go anywhere for free, and my ‘too-good-to-be-true’ detector lit up like Christmas.

5

It has its ups and downs.

6

My impression is that flight attendants have to be good at both diplomacy and kicking peoples’ asses.

They have to herd passengers, instruct passengers, and serve passengers. If the plane goes down, they direct passengers to the exits. If someone goes berserk, they’re the ones responsible for placating, subduing, or detaining em until the plane can land and the police arrive. Also, aren’t first-aid medical skills needed?

I’ve often thought that nurses would be the ideal candidates for flight attendants.

7

[QUOTE=ignis_glaciesque]
Having chatted with my share of flight attendants in the past, I’ve always wondered about what it’s like to be in their shoes. Specifically, I’m pondering that as a possible post-graduation job for myself; I’m set to graduate with a B.A. this time next year and don’t feel like applying at the local cubicle farm, or heading straight into grad school like all my friends seem to be doing.

From the preliminary Googling, I seem to qualify. I’m male, 22, am within height standards for most airlines (5’11" / 179cm), have no prior arrests or convictions, speak a foreign language or two and have some experience with customer service. But I’m wondering if there are any Dopers here who can give me a better clue as to what it’s like serving pretzels and coffee on the red-eye to Cleveland, than what my cursory research has yielded so far.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve known some flight attendants. One important thing to realize going in is that everything works by seniority. As a new hire you’ll be put on the on-call reserve, which is pretty much how adhemar described it. You’ll never know where or when you’re going. After you’ve built up some seniority you’ll have the opportunity to pick your own schedules. But you’ll still have low seniority so they will still be undesirable routes or timings for the most part. For example, it may be many years before you can take weekends or holidays off.

And considering how much training they give you, the pay is not so great. It’s a “glamor” job, so that’s probably why they can pay so little.

Having said that, the FA’s I knew enjoyed the job, for the most part. The ones I knew worked for a major airline and the job allowed them to travel the world for free. Yes travelling standby at the bottom of the list was sometimes a pain but in the end it worked out.

Ed