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

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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


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..

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Photo courtesy of Dpstyles

Galley Gossip: The Gift of Fear (on and off the airplane)

by Heather Poole on

Out of nowhere you feel it – fear. You’re not sure why you feel it, and because it doesn’t make sense, at least not yet, you choose to ignore it. Perhaps you just don’t want to be rude or look stupid in an effort to avoid whatever it is you can’t quite grasp that is scaring you. Well I’m here to tell you there could be a very good reason you’re afraid, and it doesn’t always have to make sense and it’s okay to look stupid or act rude, even if you are a woman. Better safe than sorry, I say.

Two years after I first started flying in 1995, the airline I work for sent out a newsletter with a little blurb about an interesting sounding book called The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker. I bought the book and several years later it’s still one of my favorites. De Becker discusses what it means to be fearful and how that fear is truly a gift. If you trust it. Some people call it a sixth sense. Whatever it is; a shiver down your spine, hair standing up on the back of your neck, a lump at the bottom of your stomach, something has alerted your senses. You shouldn’t ignore it. That fear could very well save your life.

One of the first stories Gavin shares is about a pilot who enters a convenience store and then immediately walks right back out because his sixth sense told him to leave. The pilot had no idea the store was being robbed, but when De Becker asked the pilot why exactly he left, the pilot said he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. De Gavin pressed the pilot for more details, and soon the pilot realized what really triggered his reaction; a man wearing a winter coat in the middle of summer, customers all turning to stare at him when he walked through the door. All these clues came at the pilot so quickly, he couldn’t make sense of why he felt the way he felt, but he trusted his gut and got out there quickly.

So why did the cop who walked into the very same convenience store seconds later not feel the same way the pilot did? Because when the customers in the store spotted the cop, relief swept over them, replacing fear, which may have been why the cop did not pick up on what was going on quickly enough to prevent him from getting shot.

Remember Richard Reid, the shoe bomber? At flight attendant recurrent training we learned there was something about the man that made each flight attendant on his flight take note of him right away. For some reason those flight attendants got an uneasy feeling the minute he walked onto the airplane. But no one said a word to each other. At least not until the ordeal was over. If you feel a little uneasy about a certain situation, tell someone. If someone tells you they feel a little weird about a certain situation, listen. I know I do.

Fear on the airplane: A few years ago a passenger on one of my flights from New York to Los Angeles caught my eye. Constantly he kept getting up to use the bathroom, and once behind the locked lavatory door he stayed there for an unusually long amount of time. When I tried to address him as he passed me by to get to his seat, he ignored me – several times.

“There’s a passenger making me a little nervous,” I told a fellow coworker. We were just about to begin the first beverage service.

“The one wearing a black polo shirt and dark sunglasses sitting in a middle seat near the front of the cabin who keeps getting up to use the lavatory?” my coworker asked, nonchalantly rearranging the napkins, stir sticks, and sugar.

Two hundred passengers aboard our flight that day and my coworker knew exactly who I’d been talking about. Coincidence? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. Because right after the passenger wearing the polo shirt returned to his seat, another passenger came running, literally running, down the aisle to the back of the aircraft.

“I’m sitting next to this guy and I can’t explain it, but he’s scaring me!” a young woman cried, literally, she was crying.

I handed her a Kleenex, assuring her I knew exactly who she spoke of and that we, the crew, were not only watching him, but we had already informed the cockpit who had contacted the ground. As soon as the words were out of my mouth another passenger walked into the galley.

Flashing a crew ID, the off duty flight attendant pulled me aside so no one else could hear and whispered, “I just want to let you know that there’s this guy…”

This guy, the one wearing a polo shirt who sat a few rows away from her, had made her nervous. Funny enough, he never did do anything wrong. Yet we continued to keep an eye on him. When we landed in L.A. the aircraft was met by several serious looking men and women dressed in dark suits. An FBI agent pulled me aside and asked a few questions. I told him everything, even though there wasn’t much to tell. Eventually the passenger in question was let go. But how strange is it that the one and only passenger we all feared had been issued a passport two days prior, had purchased a one way ticket with cash, and had a connecting flight to Florida where he said he was going to school?

Coincidence? You decide.

On a layover: Once at a layover hotel in a city I no longer remember, I signed in and collected my room key from the front desk in the hotel lobby. Because all the other flight attendants had gone up to their rooms to make the most of our short, nine hour, layover, I stood all alone in my uniform waiting for the elevator. Finally the doors opened wide and I stepped inside. A well dressed man holding a garment bag stood leaning against the mirrored wall. I smiled, and when I went to push the button, I noticed there were no other floors illuminated. Just mine. Immediately I felt a little weary.

When the elevator stopped at my floor, I stepped out, rolling my Travelpro bag behind me. So did the man with the garment bag. I took a left and quickly walked down the hallway. So did the man with the garment bag. My heart began to race. Because I’d read De Gavin’s book, and because I trusted my fear, I passed my room, continuing on down the short hallway to the big red sign that read Exit. The man continued to follow me. Once I reached the fire escape, I circled around and quickly passed the man, heading back to the elevator and down to the lobby to report the incident. Of course I got a new room. Sure, the man with garment bag could have been an innocent guy, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

Neither should you.

If you haven’t read The Gift of Fear, you really should. It’s an amazing book and I’ve recommended it to more passengers and flight attendants, particularly women, than any other book. What you read may one day save your life.

Galley Gossip: Lost in first class

by Heather Poole on

It was dark in the cabin, the seat belt sign was on, passengers were watching the in-flight movie, and we, the crew, stood in the coach galley talking about…oh I don’t remember, but I do remember we were flying from Los Angeles to New York and it had been an uneventful flight. Which was nice for a change. I had been just about to remark on the nice flight when the flight attendant working in the first class galley called us in the back.

I answered the phone, “This is Heather.”

An exasperated voice asked, “Is he back there?”

“Yeah, he’s here, hold on.” I shrugged my shoulders and handed the phone to the one in charge, a tall, tough-looking guy with a goatee. Don’t let the looks fool you. He’s really sweet and mushy inside.

“What!” he exclaimed, holding the phone to his ear. He rolled his eyes. “There’s a child lost in first class,” he said, and that’s all he said, hanging up the phone and making his way up the aisle to sort the matter out.

Of course the first thing that went through my mind was a visual of a very young child running through the first class cabin causing a ruckus. I figured the parents were asleep in coach and totally oblivious to the child’s whereabouts. I mean what else could it be?

Once while deadheading on a flight years ago, I felt something strange moving between my ankles. When I looked down, I gasped. Oh my. There on the floor crawled an infant – right out from underneath my seat! I picked up the baby, cradled her in my arms, and turned around. Behind me slept a young lady. I spotted what looked like a diaper bag lying on the seat beside her.

“Excuse me,” I said, tapping her on the bony shoulder. I held out the infant. “Is this yours?”

She nodded, took the baby into her own arms, leaned her head against the side wall, and closed her eyes.

Leesa, a Gadling reader (and soon to be flight attendant), wrote and told me about her experience with not just a lost child, but a child traveling with a parent who might as well have been lost, considering he knew no boundaries, another common occurrence on flights these days…

Once last year while on a Qantas flight back to the US from SYD, we were lucky enough to have one of the exit rows on a 747 where you have like 6 feet of wonderful leg room. Ahhhh, so nice. Anyhow, this man had his 2 year old screaming child for 2 hours dancing and singing right in front of us – in OUR leg room. Of course the crew was busy working so we were given an up close and rather unwanted performance RIGHT in our very coveted leg space!!! Hey, we booked early for those seats!!! The nerve!

I know this might be hard for some of you to believe, but no one wants to play with your child. So please do not assume that just because your little bundle of joy is adorable and smart that we all want to share our space with him or her. Nor does anyone want to watch your child making laps around the airplane. Now I’m not talking about walking up and down the aisle doing the bouncy bounce to make baby stop crying, or the quick lap around to get the blood flowing (just make sure the seat belt sign is not on), I’m talking about the trek from coach, through business class, all the way up to first class, and around again. People pay big money for those premium class seats and they do not want to be disturbed by you or your adorable little monster, which is why when the flight attendant in charge got the call, I assumed – we all assumed – there was just another child making the rounds.

Hey, it happens. But it’s our job to keep it from happening.

Unfortunately, in this case, there was nothing to stop from happening, because the child turned out to be a teenager, a very well mannered one, and the teenager happened to be looking for her father who was supposed to be sitting in first class while the rest of the family sat in coach. His empty seat had apparently been unoccupied the entire flight. No one had noticed. Immediately the purser grabbed the paperwork and sure enough, we really were missing a passenger in first class, and we were three hours into the flight.

Turns out the father had decided to run and get something to read at the bookstore prior to departure while the rest of the family boarded the aircraft and took their seats in main cabin. Because they were in coach and he was (supposed to be) in first class, they had no idea he never made it back in time. Can you imagine his face when he got to the gate and found the plane, along with his family, had departed to New York without him?

Which brings me to the lesson of the day. Passengers, do be on time! The airplane will not wait for you, even when you’re seated in first class. Flight attendants, do not assume anything, especially when it comes to passengers. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, something new happens.

Photos courtesy of (little girl) artolog (first class seat) Richard Moross

Galley Gossip: A question about turbulence and being scared at work

by Heather Poole on

H i Heather,

Are you ever afraid to fly? Or were you in the beginning of your career? I have recently been invited to training for a FA position with a major airline. It has been a dream of mine my whole life! I am so excited….however….sometimes I am nervous to fly! I fly A LOT. Usually a few times a month. Sometimes I am perfectly fine, and other times I am nervous. I’m worried about this and wondering if you ever felt this way?

I was on a flight last month from MCI to SMF with a stop in DEN and within about 3 minutes of take off we hit severe turbulence. I have never felt turbulence that strong before and neither had my husband who also flies at least once a week. We had the whole zero gravity thing going on, the plane was actually rolling from side to side and I’m positive that if someone hadn’t had their seat belt on they would have hit the ceiling. I mean, it was pretty darn scary! After we reached altitude and smoothed out I went to the back and talked to the flight attendants. One of them told me that it was probably one of the roughest take offs she had ever experienced. I know it’s not common but I was terrified!

Well, thanks for any advice. I WANT to do this, I just want to make sure that I’m not going to be scared at work everyday!

Leesa

Leesa,

Congratulations on getting hired with a major airline! Flight attendant training is not easy. A lot of information will be thrown at you all at once. There will be late nights, early mornings, and lots of caffeine, but whatever you do, don’t get tired and quit! It’s going to be the longest seven and a half weeks of your life, but you’ll be glad you did it when those silver wings are pinned to your blue lapel.

As far as turbulence at work goes, the only way you’re going to know if you’ll be scared or not is to go to work and test it out. If you are scared, I’d give it a few months, or as long as I could take it, just to see if flying is something I could get used to. Worst case scenario is you’ll have to quit. So what. At least you gave it a shot, gained an amazing experience, and won’t spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been if you’d given it a shot. Being a flight attendant is a great job, but it’s not for everyone.

Thankfully severe turbulence is rare. I’ve only experienced it three times in my fourteen years of flying. When you go through training, Leesa, you’ll learn all about turbulence, the four different kinds (light, moderate, severe, extreme), and how you should always take care of yourself first, which means sit down, fasten your seat belt, and worry about the beverage service later!

Hundreds of flight attendants get hurt every year from ignoring turbulence. We get so used to it, I believe, we try to do things we probably shouldn’t be doing when the ride gets a bit too bumpy, like serving those last three rows drinks when we should probably wait and serve them later. When I first started my flying career, it was mandatory to do seat belt checks as soon as the seat belt sign went on. A few times I remember barely being able to walk down the aisle and thinking to myself, how can this be safe? Now flight attendants only check belts if we feel comfortable doing so, meaning we feel safe enough to walk through the cabin. What good is a flight attendant if that flight attendant hits the ceiling during a compliance check and has to be taken off the flight in a wheelchair?

As far as being a nervous flier, I am not afraid to fly and have rarely ever been nervous in flight. Turbulence does not scare me, but it’s what can happen to those who are not seated with their belts fastened during turbulence that I find frightening. I’ve heard horror stories from flight attendants that include all sorts of broken bones and back surgeries, but not one of those stories involved a seat belt. Ninety-nine percent of the time the Captain will give the flight attendants a warning so we have a chance to put things away and take our seats. But turbulence does happen even without warning, which is why it’s so important for passengers to remain in their seats with their seat belts fastened at all times- even when the seat belt sign is not on.

Like I said, I’ve only experienced really bad turbulence three times, and the first time happened on a training flight for Sunjet International Airlines, a low cost carrier I worked for years ago. I still consider that flight the most frightening flight I’ve ever worked in terms of turbulence and scared passengers. We were working a Super80. Except for the side wall lights that had been flickering on and off throughout the flight, it was dark in the cabin. The Captain had told us to take our seats, so we did, and there we sat for quite a long time. Nothing happened. The ride was smooth. Just when I wondered why we were sitting, we suddenly began to violently rock side to side and those flickering lights only made the situation worse. Passengers began to scream, a few prayed, and one even lit up!

“Put that cigarette out!” I yelled from my jumpseat

“This could be my last flight!” The passenger screamed back.

While it was an eerie flight with the flickering lights and the bumpy ride, the turbulence didn’t scare me half as much as the hysterical passengers.

A few months ago on a flight from New York to Los Angeles the flight attendants were told to prepare for landing a little early due to turbulence in the area. I’d been flying the same route for a few days in a row, so I thought I knew what to expect, which is why I had already done my compliance checks, taken my seat, and had my belt strapped across my lap, but nothing prepared me for what happened next!

As soon as the Captain asked the flight attendants to take their seats, the flight attendant in the galley attempted to lock up the inserts of sodas (so they wouldn’t fly out and hit us in the head), but because she took those three extra seconds to secure the galley, she did not make it back to her seat in time. Onto the floor she crashed. When she tried to stand up, holding onto the walls for support, she fell back down. Again she stood, but ended up landing in my lap. I held onto her tightly as we bounced up and down, my fingernails digging into her skin. If not for my tight grip, she would have hit her head on the ceiling. After it was over, I had a difficult time releasing my fingers from her waist. Of course the turbulence was scarey, but it was the flight attendant who fell on the floor and then ended up in my lap that could have been seriously injured that worried me the most.

On my last flight from Dallas to New York , Colleen, my coworker, and I had just pulled the beverage cart to the front of the aircraft. The ride was smooth, so the seat belt sign was off. I had just served a passenger a vodka tonic and had collected $6, when we experienced our first hard jolt. Clear air turbulence, the captain later told us. I grabbed onto the seats and looked at Colleen who was already looking at me, eyes wide. We didn’t say one word to each other as we quickly rolled the cart to the back of the aircraft. Passengers actually tried to stop us for drinks.

“Flight attendants take your seats!” boomed the Captain’s voice over the PA system. We were only halfway to our jumpseats. I didn’t think we were going to make it.

“Should we angle the cart?” asked Colleen, as we continued moving backwards down the aisle at a fast pace.

“I don’t know!” I said, not about to stop for a second. Somehow we kept on moving, holding onto the seats and overhead bins for support, until we were almost at our seats.

Because I was on the far end of the beverage cart and my jumpseat was behind the last row of coach seats, I knew I wasn’t going to make it, so I sat down in the first open passenger seat I could find and buckled up. Thank goodness the flight wasn’t full. The passenger seated at the window looked green, so I handed him the barf bag located in the seatback pocket in front of me. Colleen took a few more steps, angled the cart and locked the break, before strapping into the jumseat located in the galley. I threw her a blanket and she tossed it over the pots full of hot coffee and tea. For ten minutes we rode it out.

At some point a passenger seated in the middle of the cabin got up and ran to the back, stopping at the cart blocking the aisle. “Sir, you need to be in your seat right now!” Colleen barked.

Without saying a word, he ran back to his seat. I figured he was sick and wanted to use the bathroom. What else could it be? A few minutes later, after the worst of the turbulence was over, he got up again, even though Colleen and I were still strapped into our seats.

“The seat belt sign is still on!” I said as he passed by. Passengers seated nearby just shook their heads.

Before Colleen could tell him to go back to his seat again, he said, “Ummm…are you still selling snacks?”

Now this is what scares me, Leesa, passengers asking for snacks when the captain has ordered the flight attendants to take their seats, not turbulence. Because one big jolt and this guy who wants to purchase a cookie is now on the floor and I’ve got to take care of him. But not until I take care of myself, first.

Hope that helps, Leesa. Good luck at flight attendant training! Make sure to write back and let me know how it’s going.

Heather Poole

To read more about turbulence, check out Kent Wien’s Plane Answers post, when are pilot’s afraid of turbulence.

Photos courtesy of (wings), (flight attendant) Cartel82 – flickr