Flight attendant

Flight attendants, formerly called sky girls, air hostesses, stewardesses and stewards are airline staff employed as attendants specifically to see to the well-being of the passengers. The role is based on similar positions on passenger ships or passenger trains, but has more direct involvement because of the confined quarters and often shorter travel times on aircraft. Flight attendants on board during a flight collectively form a "cabin crew," while pilots (in the cockpit) and technicians see to the technical aspects of the flight.

The primary responsibilities of a flight attendant is safety of the passengers and customer service, serving meals and drinks and accommodating the individual needs of passengers. These roles sometimes conflict, as when flight attendants must cut off alcoholic drinks for a passenger who has had too much, or to ask passengers to fasten seat belts, sit down, or otherwise follow safety procedures.

Requirements

Training

Flight attendant training is usually done in a hub city of the airline and lasts about six weeks, covering both safety and comfort. One flight attendant is required for every 50 passengers onboard, however many airlines have chosen to increase that number.

Language

Multilingual flight attendants are often in demand to accommodate international travelers. The most common languages are Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian. Most airlines also require the cabin staff to speak English.

Height

Some airlines, such as EVA Air, have height requirements for aesthetic purposes. Horizon Air and other regional carriers have height restrictions because their aircraft have low ceilings.

Beginnings

The first flight attendant, a steward, was reportedly a man on the German Zeppelin "LZ10 Schwaben" in 1911. Imperial Airways of the United Kingdom had 'cabin boys' or 'stewards' in the 1920s, and first female flight attendant was a 25 year old registered nurse named Ellen Church who reportedly coined the term "stewardess." Hired by United Airlines in 1930, she also first envisioned nurses on aircraft.

Other airlines followed suit, hiring nurses to serve as stewardesses on most of their flights. The requirement to be a registered nurse was relaxed at the start of World War II, as so many nurses enlisted into the armed services.

In Advertising

In the 1960s and 1970s, many airlines began advertising the attractiveness and friendliness of their stewardesses. National Airlines began a "Fly Me" campaign using attractive stewardesses with taglines such as "I'm Lorraine. Fly me to Orlando." Braniff Airways, presented a campaign known as the "Air Strip", where similarly attractive young stewardesses changing uniforms midflight.^* A policy of at least one airline required that only unmarried women could be flight attendants.

Unions

Flight Attendant unions formed to challenge what they perceive as sexist stereotypes and unfair work practices such as age limits, size limits, limitations on marriage, and prohibition of pregnancy. Many of these limitations have been lifted by judicial mandates.

Perceived Discrimination

Some Airlines have been accused of firing female flight attendants if they were deemed too old or unattractive,. A decision by the National Labor Relations Board, in the United States, attempted to end such practices and recognize the professionalism of the job. By the end of the 1970s, the term stewardess was generally replaced by the gender neutral alternative, "flight attendant."

Sept. 11

The role of flight attendants received heightened prominence after the September 11, 2001 attacks when flight attendants (such as Sandra W. Bradshaw, Betty Ong and Madeline Amy Sweeney) actively attempted to protect passengers from assault and also provided vital information to air traffic controllers on the hijackings. In the aftermath of the attacks, flight attendants were given heightened responsibilities for the security of their planes.

In the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, many flight attendants at major airlines were laid off on account of decreased passenger loads.

Pop-culture Portrayals

1968: In A Space Odyssey (film), there is a flight attendant wearing gravity shoes and a uniform with the Pan-Am logo. The attendant has the classic scene when she uses her shoes to walk upside down to the cockpit. Ironically, Pan-Am filed for bankruptcy in 1991, 10 years before the movie was to have taken place.
1980: The movie Airplane! satirizes earlier aircraft-disaster movies and features flight attendants behaving absurdly.
1985: The Replacements recorded a song called "Waitress in the Sky," about the drearier aspects of the work.
1997: The Quentin Tarrantino film Jackie Brown centers on a "stewardess" involved in criminal activity.
1998: Saturday Night Live began featuring David Spade and Helen Hunt as flight attendants wishing their passengers a dismissive "Buh-bye."
2003: Gwyneth Paltrow, Candice Bergen, and Christina Applegate portray flight attendants in the comedy film View from the Top.
2003-2005: Mile High is a British television comedy/drama centering around the lives of several flight attendants.
2004: Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a flight attendant in the film The Terminal.
2005: Kirsten Dunst plays a flight attendant in the film Elizabethtown.
2005: The independent film The Aviary is centered around the sentimental and professional life of a flight attendant. The writer and producer was a flight attendant herself.
2006: The Travel Channel began airing a reality television show, Flight Attendant School, which follows trainees for Frontier Airlines.

Trivia

The oldest active flight attendant, Iris Peterson, is still flying for United Airlines at the age of 85, having been born in 1921 and joining the company in 1944.
A term used in popular psychology is "Pan American (or Pan Am) Smile." Named after the greeting flight attendants (or at least actresses playing flight attendants on TV ads) of that airline supposedly gave to passengers, it consists of a perfunctory mouth movement without the activity of facial muscles around the eyes that characterizes a genuine smile.

External links

Flight Attendant Labor Unions:

Flight attendants | Personal care and service occupations

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