Galley Gossip: A question about becoming a flight attendant and job security

by Heather Poole on

Hello Heather,

I love your site! I actually got signed on with an airline and waiting for my training date. My first concern is the job security and wondered what you think about the future in the airline industry as a flight attendant. I have waited for my son to grow up and now he has, my husband was laid off last year and still hasn’t found work.

I’m in retail and have a pretty decent job, but I just want to fly. I’m so burned out on retail. I finally have a chance and I wondered also how to handle all of the “unknowns”. Where will I be based and how do I even relocate? Do you stay with other flight attendants and room together? How much $$ can I get by with?

As far as the training, I’m really nervous about what’s involved, like memorizing the airport and city codes. I don’t want to miss this opportunity! I have to pass, because if I don’t, I’ll loose everything, my dream, my home, etc. My training’s supposed to be around the end of April. I had to pass up the training that was offered to me in January. This is my last chance. Any advice would be so much appreciated!

Thanks,

Lorelei~

Dear Lorelei,

Whenever anyone shows interest in becoming a flight attendant I always tell them to do it. It’s a great job, especially if you have a tendency to get bored with the 9 to 5 thing, love to be on the move, and enjoy meet interesting people. However, if you’re not flexible, the job is not for you. The airline can reassign you at moments notice, flying you into a day off, and you’ll probably get stuck working holidays for quite a few years. And then of course there’s reserve, which is not easy on anyone, including the families of flight attendants. That said, I’m a firm believer in going for your dreams, experiencing new things, and not being afraid of failure. The fact that you got hired by an airline, especially in this economy, is an amazing feat. Thousands of people apply with the airlines each year and only a select few get chosen. That says a lot about you.

I must admit that when I first read your email I had to sit down and think about what I wanted to write, and I never have to think about what to write! I just write. I almost advised you not to do it, even though you are burned out in your retail job, because a job is a job and you’ve got one that pays the bills. I even called my mother who is also a flight attendant to get her thoughts on your situation. I’m sorry to report that she doesn’t think it’s a great idea, not with what’s happening to airlines and flight attendants these days. Keep in mind my mother is the kind of person who has a tendency to play it safe, the kind of person who almost didn’t go for her dream – to become a flight attendant later in life. Believe it or not, I’ve got more seniority than her.

No one can tell you what to do, Lorelei. Only you know what’s best for you and your family. What I can tell you is that if it were me, I’d go to flight attendant training, but my husband still has a job and I’m a bit of a gambler. Gambling, as you know, is not always a great idea. Anyone will tell you that. You can’t count on job security at an airline, not when many airlines aren’t doing well and quite a few of them are currently cutting routes and furloughing flight attendants as I type. Yet every time a flight attendant gets furloughed, the majority of them always come back when given the opportunity to return, even though there’s that chance they’ll get furloughed again. There’s just something about flying that gets into the blood.

Because I do not know which airline hired you, I have no idea what your base options may be, but I have met very few flight attendants who have been based out of training in their home states. That means you and your husband might have to move. Or you could do what I do and commute to work. But that can only happen if your airline (or an airline that has commuting privileges with your airline) flies from your home to your base city. Don’t forget if the flights are full there’s a chance you might not make it to work. There’s always the option of taking the jumpseat, but I’m sure there will be many other flight attendants waiting for that same jumpseat.

Commuting is not easy. After two flights to New York had canceled, I recently found myself number 99 on the standby list with seven flight attendants ahead of me for the jumpseat. There were only four more flights to Los Angeles left that day, so I shouldn’t have gotten out, but I stayed at the airport anyway and not only did I get on a flight, I got on the very next one. Just goes to show you never know! I’ve even made it onto flights after gate agents had begged volunteers to give up their seats because of a weight restriction when that weight restriction was removed seconds before departure.

While commuting can be stressful, flight attendants do it all the time. We get creative and find ways to make it work. During holidays, before 9/11, I used to commute from New York to Dallas through Toronto. The flights were open and I always made it home. Now that I live in Los Angeles, I commute to New York. If for whatever reason I couldn’t make it from Los Angeles to New York (hasn’t happened yet), I’d probably try to connect through Dallas or Chicago, and I might even be forced to fly all the way to San Francisco or Boston just to get back to base. Hey, it happens. Which is why the job is always an adventure.

Flight attendants who commute usually stay at a crash pad. A crash pad is an apartment that several flight attendants share together. A crash pad costs about $100-$200 a month. For that price you’ll get a bed in a room that you’ll share with several other flight attendants who are all female, all male, or a mix of both. There were six of us new hires in a room at my first crash pad located in Kew Gardens, Queens. The room was in a house that had five other bedrooms, each of those bedrooms also housing several flight attendants, bunk beds lining the walls. Each day we’d sign up for showers on a sheet of paper that had been tacked to the bathroom door. Talk about being in college all over again. There are even cheaper crash pads that have “hot beds.” This means you have to take your sheets off the bed whenever you’re not sleeping so other flight attendants can use the same bed. Here’s an article about a crash pad for pilots featured in The New York Times.

No one in their right mind becomes a flight attendant to make money. While a good number of flight attendants do make a good salary, those flight attendants have been flying for many years and work for a major carrier. My first year of flying I only made 17K. That’s it. And that was before we took at 30% pay cut after 9/11. After 14 years of flying my colleagues with the same seniority aren’t doing so bad, but many of them still pick up trips to make extra cash in order to survive. Some even have second jobs. While my friend Grace just flies her schedule (80 hours a month) and teaches yoga on her days off, my friend John is a Spanish speaker who flies over 100 hours a month in the lead position on international routes. He gets paid extra money for 1. working high time. 2. being a speaker. 3. working international routes. 4. flying the lead position. While there are several ways to make extra cash, only you know how much you’ll be able to get by on.

As far as flight attendant training goes, you can do it, Lorelei. I know you can do it because you want to do it. Yes, training is hard, but that’s only because it’s exhausting. The information you learn isn’t difficult, but a lot is coming at you at once in a short amount of time. My training lasted seven and a half weeks. Even though I went to college and graduated with a degree in psychology, flight attendant training was much more stressful and by far the longest seven and a half weeks of my life. If you’re worried about airport codes and airline lingo, you can study that online before you leave for training (click here for the website.) to get a head start.

The best advice I have for you right now is if you do decide to go through with flight attendant training, do not, I repeat, do not turn down another training class. Everything at an airline is based on seniority and seniority is determined by your training date. I’m not just talking about holding the best schedules and getting holidays off, I’m talking about base options and whether or not you’ll be furloughed in the future. Here are a few other Galley Gossip posts that might help you decide what you should do…

If you do decide to go through with training, GOOD LUCK! It’s an amazing experience, one you’ll never forget. Just make sure to write back and let me know when those wings are going to get pinned to your lapel.

Happy travels,

Heather Poole

%Poll-28477%

Have a question? Email me at Skydoll123@yahoo.com

Photos courtesy of (Lufthansa crew) Nicholas Macgowan, (red flight attendant) JasonDgreat, (yellow flight attendant) Solomonic, (slide) JFithian- flicker.com


60 British soldiers, some bent on boozing, booted from plane

by Jamie Rhein on

Of the sixty British soldiers from the 2nd Battalion Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment who got on a plane ready for a holiday, not all of them had their own booze with them. Not all of them were already sloshed when they headed up the aisle to take a seat and determined to drink more– even if it meant drinking the alcohol that they had bought on board with them.

The flight attendant, you see, didn’t think giving these lads another drop was a good idea, so she feigned ignorance when asked if the cart had any libations. When those who forgot their manners said they would drink their own then, and she begged to differ, it didn’t help when one of them smarted off with, “‘You’re not going to stop us from drinking our own booze; we’re trained to kill.'”

Good one guy.

I can just see her thinking, “Oh, now you’ve gone and done it.”

The result of the nonsense was that all sixty soldiers were removed from the plane, a feat that involved getting the other passengers off the plane as well, unloading all the luggage, having the passengers pick out theirs, and then reloading the non-soldier passengers and their luggage back on the plane.

Kind of makes me tired thinking about it. I’m sure the passengers were relieved they wouldn’t have to live through a flight like those who had the misfortune to be on the flight in January with 40 drunk Irish guys.

The military is not too happy with the men who caused the problems and claim that they are sorting the bad apples from the ones that just happened to be in the barrel with them, thus having their leave spoiled by idiots. Charges haven’t been filed yet. Maybe there are a few fellows cleaning bathrooms with toothbrushes. I’ve seen that in the movies.

Click the pictures to read more tales of booze gone bad in the skies …

Porn industry disgusted by flight attendant side job

by Tom Johansmeyer on

“Look, we all have standards,” an adult entertainer familiar with the full- and part-time work of Ryanair flight attendant Edita Schindlerova told The Independent. “I think it’s disgusting that she works for Ryanair. All of us here at Biggus Dickus Productions feel really let down by her. If only she had told us she worked for them, maybe we could have done something to help her. Now, she has lost all our trust. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m off to do a three way.”

If you’ve seen Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, you know not to treat “Biggus Dickus” as a joke name.

While many look down their noses at the porn business, it looks like the airlines are able to give even those in the skin biz someone over which to hold a sense of superiority. Of course, the porn folks could learn a lesson in tolerance from Ryanair, which doesn’t care about Edita’s side job as “Edite Bente.”

If you’re surprised to see the porn industry claim any sort of moral high ground, don’t be. Anyone who has spent a bit of time in this business has had to listen to more than a few hours of First Amendment tirades, claims of wanting to be left alone and so on and so on and so on. Yes, it can get tedious, even though some of it is warranted. Either way, it’s pretty crazy to see the porn industry piss all over the airline business. What happened to “live and let live”?Ryanair flight attendant Schindlerova was recently outed as a part-time porn star by London tabloid The Sun. Her employer doesn’t care, and she hasn’t denied the allegations. She was also featured in the airline’s 2009 calendar, a collection of the sexiest employees that the low-cost carrier has to offer.

Her cover was blown by a pilot who somehow stumbled upon her work. Either this was an incredible coincidence, or this guy, who has not had to see his name in the press, spends a hell of a lot of time cruising the web for porn.

Julia Molony, who covered this story for The Independent, suggests, “Watch out fro the free-orgasm-with-every-flight offer on a billboard near you.” Such naïveté … does she really believe that Ryanair would give “free” anything?

Okay, through some investigative journalism on my part, I’ve been able to find some of her night job work. This is absolutely not safe for work or around children.This is not an adult website, rather it is a Czech tabloid, but do understand that they are able to push the envelope a lot farther than we can in the United States.

See our first story on Schindlerova’s erotic escapades.

Galley Gossip: Hottest trend on the airplane since the mile high club

by Heather Poole on

Checking your watch for the umpteenth time, you sigh, because you’re on the airplane waiting in line to use the bathroom and you’ve been waiting in line for a very long time. What’s strange is you’re next to go and have been for some time now. What the heck is going on in there?

You probably don’t want to know. What you do know is the passenger who went in there ten minutes ago can’t be doing that, at least not with another person, because they went in there alone. Then again some people join the mile high club while others prefer the solo aviators division.

“Excuse me, Miss,” you say, and when you say this you’re looking at me, and because I see you standing in front of a lavatory door that is occupied, I already know what you’re going to say before you even say it and I’m really, really, wishing you didn’t have to involve me.

“Whoever’s in there has been in there a very long time,” you tell me.

I nod, trying my best to look concerned, and while I’m nodding I’m praying the person who has been in the lavatory for a very long time will finally walk out. Please walk out! When they don’t walk out, I say, “Sometimes it takes some people a little longer than others.” Because it does. I mean it took me two years to even use the thing. For real.

“Can you at least knock on the door to make sure they’re alright?”

I take a deep breath, wondering why you can’t knock on the door yourself, because we both know you don’t really care whether or not they’re alright in there and I’m not the one who needs to use the loo, but I go ahead and do it anyway – knock knock, knocking my knuckles against the hard, cold door, and that’s when I hear a powerful flush.

I smile and state the obvious, “They should be out in a second.”

Suddenly the door swings opens and the passenger walks out. As the passenger passes you by, you think to yourself, surely they weren’t doing that, because they just don’t look like the type to do that – at least not on an airplane. So you play it safe, holding your breath as you walk inside, locking the door behind you. Hoping for the best, you finally exhale, and strangely there is no odor. You can’t believe it. Grabbing a paper towel, you wonder just what that passenger was doing in the bathroom for all that time.

Well I think I know. I’ve even got the photos to prove it. While working on my last Galley Gossip post about trusting fear (on and off the airplane), I needed to find a photograph of the lavatory to go along with it, so I logged onto Flickr.com and typed the words LAVATORY AIRPLANE and BATHROOM AIRPLANE into the search bar. I could not believe what popped up. In fact, I’ve already told everyone I know all about what I found. I had to tell someone!

So let me be the first to tell you that something very strange and disturbing, yet quite intriguing, is going on behind that locked lavatory door. Passengers, and I’m talking all kinds of passengers, are photographing themselves in the bathroom. What I want to know is how long has this been going on? And why didn’t anyone ever tell me? You’d think I would have seen all those cameras going into the bathroom! Oh you better believe I’ll be taking my own self portrait in the lav on my next flight to New York on Wednesday. Until then, check out these interesting shots..

%Gallery-48328%

%Poll-28392%

Photo courtesy of Dpstyles

Ryanair flight attendant moonlights in porn

by Tom Johansmeyer on

When the crew yells, “Brace!” one Ryanair flight attendant probably looks for the cameras. London tabloid The Sun (NSFW) alleges that flight attendant Edita Schindlerova (hopefully under a shorter name) moonlights in porn – on video and the web. The sexy 22-year-old also makes an appearance in the airline’s 2009 calendar.

The sultry stewardess wore a bikini and a smear of grease in the calendar, but this would be considered fully clothed at her second job. At night, she operates under the name “Edite Bente” and helps people part with their cash. Thanks to The Sun‘s investigative reporting, a tough job for some reporter, involves baring a pair of 34Bs.

The people she works for have apparently taken a more enlightened attitude than one would expect, saying, “What people do before or after they work for Ryanair, or when they’re not working for us, is entirely their own business.”

He adds a few remarks about putting the comfort and safety of passengers first (without editorializing) and makes a comment about employees being able what to do what they want on their own time, as long as their not breaking any laws. He could have stopped there and remained on the high road, but he had to keep talking: “All this proves is that the best-looking girls fly Ryanair.”

Not everybody at Ryanair, however, is on board with Edita’s calling hobby. Her secret was discovered by a fellow Ryanair employee. Schindlerova claims, “I had this shit a year ago with a pilot with nothing better to do than check the internet.”

A friend from work remarked, “We had no idea what she was up to in her spare time.” This person astutely observed, “There can’t be many airlines who have porn stars serving drinks on flights.”

I guess this is the trade-off for having to pay to use the lavatory on a flight …

%Gallery-10616%