Galley Gossip: Why business class is the most junior position on the airplane (Plus a chance to win the book The Go-Giver)

by Heather Poole on

I like working in business class. What I like even more are the other flight attendants who enjoy working in business. Call me crazy, but I even like business class passengers. I do!

What I find interesting about business class passengers is that the majority of them find it hard to believe that the cabin they prefer to sit in is the cabin that goes the most junior when it comes to company seniority at my airline. Which tells you a little something about business class, or shall I say the passenger who sits in business class, as well as the business class flight attendant.

Sure there are only thirty passengers seated in business class on the 767 (three class aircraft), but haven’t you noticed just how much harder the flight attendants in that cabin work compared to the flight attendants in coach and first class during the five hour flight from New York to whatever west coast city you’re flying to? Take a look next time. It’s unbelievable. Just ask those poor passengers who got stuck sitting next to the business class galley where we park our drink carts and salad carts and meal carts and dessert carts. The service is long and elaborate and the passengers can be just a tad bit difficult at times, making that never ending service take even longer than it should. There’s nothing like seeing your fellow crew members relaxing on their jump seats when you’re just pulling up the cart to the front of the cabin to begin the salad service.

After thirteen years of flying, not only do I get stuck working the most junior cabin, I hold the most junior position in the junior cabin on the 767. Okay now face the cockpit and look at the aisle on the left hand side of the airplane, and that’s where you’ll find me. Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed that the flight attendant working on the left hand side (ME!) is much slower than the one on the right?

Here’s why…

1. Boarding. What flight attendant doesn’t appreciate a smooth boarding? Remember, boarding is the most hectic time of the flight for a flight attendant, especially a business class flight attendant who has to hang up all those black and blue coats in that teeny tiny closet. When working on an aircraft with two aisles, passengers tend to use the first aisle they come to when trying to get to their seat. Unless there’s a good “greeter” standing at the aircraft door directing the passengers to correct side of the airplane, all those passengers coming down that same aisle make it difficult for the flight attendant working on the left side to hang those coats the business class passengers are impatiently holding up. Forget about re-seating passengers, delivering pre-departure drinks, helping with luggage, and answering questions about connecting flights until everyone is seated and the aircraft is about to back away from the gate. And no, Sir, I can not swim upstream to hang that coat you are still shaking at me. Sorry, you’re just going to sit down and wait!

2. Jumpseat – The lucky flight attendant working on the left hand side of business class gets to sit smack dab in the middle of the aisle surrounded by passengers, passengers who are not usually very happy to be there, while strapped into an uncomfortable foldout jumpseat on takeoff. Trust me when I tell you that this is not where you want to be for any length of time, especially if there is turbulence in the forecast and the Captain has asked the flight attendants to stay seated a little while longer until we find that smooth and comfortable cruising altitude. Because when turbulance happens, all eyes are on me, and those bugged out eyes are analyzing my every move, which makes me a little nervous, which is why I just end up staring at the floor. That’s how I know that carpet is filthy, so if I were you I’d put those shoes back on!

3. Trash compartment. Flight attendants pick up a lot of trash onboard the aircraft. When there’s a lot of trash, you need a place to stow the trash, and that place in business class happens to be on the right side of the galley. This means the flight attendant working on the left side often times gets stuck holding the trash, trying to figure out how, exactly, to get across to the other side of the galley when there are two flight attendants busy working in the confined space. Have you seen how small that galley is? And yes, that is the exact reason why you’re still waiting on your drink, because I’m still holding your trash.

4. Oven. The oven is located on the left hand side of the galley, so the flight attendant working that side is blocked by a hot oven door that swings open and shut constantly throughout the flight. That is another reason why the flight attendant is still standing in the aisle with a silver tray piled high with dirty glasses, patiently waiting to get into the busy galley where everything is located, as the flight attendant on the other side runs up and down the aisle collecting trash, replenishing drinks, and handing out meals, while the passengers on the left side watch the flight attendant on the right side and think to themselves, where’s that lazy flight attendant on my side, I need a drink!

The first month I held coach on a widebody I thought it was a fluke. But oh how I took full advantage of that fluke, enjoying every single relaxing minute of it. The second month I held coach I chalked it up to summer travel. Our senior flight attendants have a tendency to take the summer off. And then something strange happened. I held coach for a third consecutive month, not a summer month, and while I was glad to be able to hold it (for dropping purposes), I had begun to get a little bored. I know, even I couldn’t believe it. But I actually found myself missing the hustle and bustle of business class as I sat on the jumpseat in the back of coach after a quick and easy beverage service.

There’s something to be said of being proud of your job, which is directly related to the kind of service you provide. At least I think so. Years ago when I flew international routes, I felt proud to be a flight attendant. There are times I even feel proud when I work in business class on the domestic trips. However, I don’t feel so proud when I run out of food in coach, which causes me to constantly apologize because we don’t have this and we don’t have that to a flight full of miserably cramped passengers. It’s not my fault!

Also, there’s something kind of nice about actually getting to know the passengers I serve, even the demanding ones, which is something that does not happen very often in coach. I don’t know why. I try. All of this made me wonder, am I a “Go-Giver”? I’ve been reading The Go Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea, a book about how to achieve success by changing your focus from getting to giving, by putting others interests first, which ultimately leads to unexpected returns that lead to a successful and filled life.

According to the book, there are the five laws of stratospheric success…

  1. The Law of Value: Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
  2. The Law of Compensation: Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.
  3. The Law of Influence: Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first.
  4. The Law of Authenticity: The most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself.
  5. The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.

The five laws of stratospheric success actually describes just about every flight attendant I know, but it especially describes the flight attendants who actually enjoy working in the premium cabins. What a lot of people don’t know is just how successful a lot of flight attendants truly are. Sure most of the time they’re just serving drinks on the airplane, but ask them what they do when they’re not standing behind the two hundred pound beverage cart and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Just last week I flew with a flight attendant who only flies on the weekends because during the week he’s a psychiatrist at a hospital in New York. Though I’ve never met the man, there’s a doctor, a general practitioner, who works part time as a flight attendant when he’s not dealing with the sick on the ground. I know (and love) a flight attendant who owns a very successful event planning company, planning parties for well known celebrities. And what better place to find fantastic help for those parties than on the airplane? Of course we have tons of cops and nurses, as well as a few actors and published authors, and a couple musicians, and quite a few jewelry designers. I could go on and on. So the next time you’re on a flight and feeling a little bored, try getting to know your flight attendant. We’re actually a very interesting group.

Do you know a Go-Giver? I’d love to hear all about it.

Post a comment (any comment) by Friday, November 17, by 5pm and you’ll have a chance to win a copy of the book The Go-Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea, by Bob Burg and John David Mann. Two winners will be chosen. Regardless of who you are and what you do to earn money, there is something for everyone to learn in this book. The principles taught will not only move you forward in business, but also in your personal life. Good Luck!

  • To enter, simply leave a comment below.
  • The comment must be left before Friday, November 14, 2008 at 5pm Eastern time
  • You may enter only once.
  • Two winners will be selected in a random drawing.
  • Two Grand Prize Winners will receive a free copy of The Go-Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea, by Bob Burg and John David Mann.
  • Open to legal residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
  • Book is valued at $13.57
  • Click here for complete Official Rules.

Photo courtesy of: (passengers seated in business) Garyhymes, (flight attendant in the galley) Irishflyguy, (flight attendants on the jumpseat) Re-ality

Galley Gossip: Bids are out! (my schedule, a little airline lingo, and a flight attendant poll)

by Heather Poole on

“Bids are out!”

Those three words are exclaimed each and every month by flight attendants (and pilots) around the world. Perhaps you’ve even witnessed a crew of four (or more) call out the three words above as they briskly walk through the terminal and pass another crew of four (or more) on their way to the gate.

Maybe you’ve wondered, what does that mean, as you stood waiting for your delayed flight to board. And while you continued to stand there impatiently waiting, you watched as four (or more) cell phones were simultaneously flipped open and placed to the ear. Rest assured that call must be made upon hearing those three words. If it can’t happen right then and there, it will happen very shortly, even if the flight attendant has to hide in the lavatory during the boarding process to make it happen. Why? BECAUSE THE BIDS ARE OUT!

BID, BIDS, BIDDING, BID SHEET – a request of choice routes made by each flight attendant to fly specific monthly schedules. At the airline I work for, our bid sheet offers over hundreds of lines to choose from. Bids are awarded by company seniority, which is why those flights to Asia and Europe always have the most senior flight attendants working the trip.

LINE, LINE HOLDER – a sequence of trips a flight attendant is offered each month. A line holder is not on reserve and works each of those trips in consecutive order.

RESERVE – Reserve flight attendants do not have a line. They bid for days off only. When they don’t have a day off, they remain on-call, meaning the company can (and will) assign the flight attendant a trip at any time of day (or night), with at least two hours time to get to the airport. Reserve duty is much like an on-call doctor. We must stay within a manageable radius of our base (mine covers three airports JFK, LGA and EWR). The flight attendant must be duty ready whenever on reserve. This means you must be ready to board a flight within one hour of its departure, which means there are no late nights out and absolutely no alcohol, since you can (and will) be called out to work any time of day or night. I remember one night having a quiet evening at home with a movie and Chinese take out. The food had not even arrived to my apartment and I was already leaving for a trip to London! There’s no warning, no lead time, and no excuses.

JUNIOR, SENIOR, SENIORITY – Refers to a flight attendants years of experience. Years of experience with an airline is based on date of hire. Seniority is everything at an airline, which is why the merging of most airlines does not happen smoothly. Junior flight attendants have to serve on reserve. In order to avoid having to do reserve duty , I commute from my home in Los Angeles (one of our most senior bases in the system) to New York (our most junior base). For me it is better to commute and be a big fish in a little pond than to work from home and have the uncertainty of my schedule loom over our family.

BASE – City in which a crew member originates and ends a trip. All trips start and end from ones base.

COMMUTE, COMMUTER, COMMUTING – the process of getting to your base city. I commute to work from Los Angeles to New York before each trip. Most airline employees who commute to work spend the night in a crash-pad. Like many flight attendants, my crash-pad is located very close to two of the three airports in my base city.

TURN, TURNS, TURNAROUND – any trip that originates from and returns to the same city on the same day. It is not uncommon for a flight attendant to see several cities over the course of 48hrs, only to arrive back to the city they left from. I have flown from LGA to ORD to DFW back to ORD and arrived back in LGA only to come home, shower, sleep and do it all over again the very next day.

Last week, after spending a good four days in a row staring cross-eyed at the bid sheet, I found out that for the month of November I was awarded line 50. Chicago turns. My particular trip will depart to Chicago a little after noon and return to New York just before midnight on the same day. Turns, are not my trip of choice, but we’ll get to that later.

Flight attendants bid once a month, near the end of the month, for a schedule the following month. I know, it’s confusing, but stick with me. Each line shows exactly what days and which trips a flight attendant will be working for the month. So whenever you see a couple of crew members sitting in the terminal, or on the jump-seat, with their noses glued to a packet of papers for hours on end, nine times out of ten they’re studying the bid sheet. This is not the time for chit chat, so unless you have a serious concern to discuss, or food to share, do not disturb the flight attendant. Bidding, for a flight attendant, is very serious business.

TRANSCONS – a transcontinental, across country, or coast to coast flight.

TRADING, DROPPING, PICKING UP – the act of swapping, giving away, or taking another flight attendant’s trip.

BACK UP, BACKING UP: working several trips in a row in order to have several days off in a row.

WIDEBODY – any aircraft with two aisles. The bigger the airplane, the more senior the crew.

NARROWBODY – any aircraft with a single aisle.

When I bid, I choose to work the transcons because they are easy to drop. I’m a commuter, and because I don’t want to waste my precious days off flying back and forth across the country, I back my trips up. That means at some point during the month I’ll fly to New York as a stand by passenger, spend the night in my crash-pad, work back and forth across the country as many times as possible in seven days, and then fly home to Los Angeles, which is where I’ll stay because I’m done for the month. Yeah, I know, it’s a good life – until all the flights to base are oversold, canceled, delayed and I’m unable to make it to work.

But remember, unlike most of my colleagues, I’m a low time flier, which pretty much means I work part time. In order to do this, I have to hold something desirable, not necessarily what I want to work, but what others prefer to work. Transcons on the widebody are the most sought after trips. Since I’m now a domestic flight attendant, I bid the flights to Los Angeles from New York. They’re easy, worth a lot of money, rarely ever cancel, and if I do decide to work one, I can layover at home with my family, not the layover hotel.

The reason I bid Chicago turns, and not transcons, for the month of November is because that line was the first line I could hold with Thanksgiving off. Yes, believe it or not, this will be the first Thanksgiving I’ve held off in thirteen years of flying. I’m way too junior to hold a holiday off on a line of transcons. In fact, I can barely hold transcons on non-holiday months, and if I do, I’ll most likely be working in business class, the most junior position on the aircraft, which is not a position you want to work if you’re trying to drop the trip.

TRIP TRADE, TRIP TRADER – the act of trading trips with another flight attendant. As this can prove to be a daunting task, flight attendants hire a person who manages, (for a fee), several different flight attendant schedules at once.

The first thing I do when bids are finalized is call my trip trader. She is one of the most important people in my life. Without her I don’t know what I would do. She makes my life work. Actually, what she does is make it possible for me to work, because it’s not easy when you have a two-year old child at home and you are married to a man who travels over 100,000 miles a year, and you don’t have family around to help when you’re out of town.

Now I have no idea how my trip trader does what she does, but the girl works magic, and I love her for that! In fact, I just checked my schedule and most of my Chicago turns have already disappeared. YES! And I’ve got two fantastic San Francisco transcons backed up in the middle of the month on my schedule! WOO-HOO! I love my trip trader, and life is good.

So good, in fact, I’m about to purchase three airline tickets to fly home to Dallas for the Thanksgiving holidays. Remember, this is the first Thanksgiving I’ll be celebrating at a home, and not in a dumpy airport hotel. Yes, I can fly for free as a stand by passenger, but like I said, I actually want to make it home for the holidays. What I don’t want to do is spend the holiday weekend getting bumped from flight to flight traveling with the family on the busiest holiday of the year. Oh no, I want to eat delicious turkey and dressing at my mother’s house, not a turkey sandwich and fries at Chili’s in the Los Angeles Airport.

Are you a flight attendant? If so, take the following poll. If not, check out this cool website and test your knowledge of even more airline lingo.

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Photos courtesy of: (flight attendant legs) Laszlo-photo , (airplane interior) Carrib, (turkey) Xbermathew

Plane Answers: Trailing cones, Vegas takeoffs and crew bases

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Richard asks a technical question:

I have seen several photos of what I believe are later model 737s with what appears to be a small drogue chute trailing off the top back of the vertical stabilizer. I have done a few searches on the internet about it but have never found anything explaining what this item is.

I had to check with my friend Tom, who is a Boeing test pilot. He explained that this drogue chute is actually a “Trailing Cone,” which is often used in flight testing to accurately sense pressure experienced during various flight test conditions or maneuvers.

The cone stabilizes a plastic tube, which in turn conveys the sensed pressure information to the flight test instrumentation system. The pressure information must be taken at a significant distance away from the aircraft, so as to not have the pressure probe immersed in a disturbed flow field, which can occur if pressures are sensed too near the aircraft.

Usually the cone and tube are “reeled out” after takeoff, and reeled back in before landing. When being used in flight to provide accurate pressure information, the cone and tube are typically trailed behind the aircraft at distances of approximately 100 to 125 feet.

Wes asks:

My pilot on a 737 said on departure from Las Vegas that we were taking off in the opposite direction than normal. He said this was due to the following issues: it was hot and jet engines perform lower in high heat; the runway had a slight incline to it; and the plane was full. I was wondering if these were valid reasons to reverse the departure route on a runway. Thanks.
Absolutely Wes.

I don’t fly to Vegas very often, but we have “takeoff data” that lists the weight we can depart with based on each runway, the current temperature and even what the headwind or tailwind component is. In fact, each knot of tailwind will cost us between 500 and 2000 pounds of weight that we can’t carry, but we’re rarely at our maximum takeoff weight so it’s not usually a factor.

Also, as the temperature increases, the allowable takeoff weight decreases. The data also takes into account the slope of the runway.

So there are times when it’s advisable to takeoff downwind on a downward sloping runway, especially if there are no obstacles in the way after departure. These obstacles are also accounted for in the takeoff data sheet we pull up before departure through an ACARS computer, which is like a box designed to print out these computations from the company. Some airlines issue their pilots laptop computers so they can compute this takeoff data, weight and balance without the use of an ACARS.

Lee asks:

I fly often and have always wanted to ask a flight attendant or pilot how they get back home, which I know sounds dumb.

But really, the average Joe gets on a plane and thinks nothing of it, I on the other hand always wonder where you guys live and how you manage to get home. Do y’all stay at hotels a lot? Do y’all have shifts, like 7 to 3, etc.?

For instance, I fly (Jet Blue) to San Diego quite often. The pilot always tells us they’re based out of Long Beach, CA. Well, does that mean they fly an empty plane from Long Beach to San Diego and vise-versa when they get through?

I have to assume a typical airline pilot doesn’t have a 40-hour week.

The large airlines may have from four to nine different crew bases where pilots and flight attendants generally start and end their trips from. Some crew members prefer to live somewhere else and commute into their base to start their trip. In these cases, they don’t get paid for traveling to and from work, obviously.

Occasionally we’ll be called out to fly a trip from another city, so the company will ‘deadhead’ us to pick up that flight which usually ends up at our base. Ironically, as I write this, we’re deadheading down to San Juan to pick up a flight back to Boston.

We’re paid for 50 to 100% of the flight time while deadheading depending on which airline a pilot or flight attendant works for.

Most crews live within a few hours of their base, which is typically located at a major city such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco or in my case, Boston.

Occasionally a base such as New York will be made up of two or three airports that crews may have to work from.

When we’re at work on a multi-day trip, each pilot and flight attendant stays in hotels provided by the airline.

While they’re aren’t really any scheduled ‘shifts’ we’re able to bid for the following month’s schedule (see my Cockpit Chronicles on Bidding) we can choose between different destinations, departure times and the number of days away in a row.

Most trips are between one and four days at my company.

In your JetBlue example, since the crew is based in Long Beach, I suspect they’re actually laying over in San Diego. They will likely fly somewhere else the next day before flying back home to Long Beach.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Friday’s Plane Answers feature.