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. They are members of the
cabin crew.
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 responsibility of a flight attendant is the safety of the passengers, and emergency preparedness. This is followed by the routine tasks of
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.
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 passenger seats onboard, however many airlines have chosen to increase that number. One of the most elaborate training facilities was
Breech Academy which
TWA opened in 1969 in
Overland Park, Kansas. Other airlines were to also send their attendants to the school. However, during the fare wars the school's viability was to decline and it closed around 1990.
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 international 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.
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. ]]
|
Stewardess, circa 1949-50, American Overseas, Flagship Denmark, Boeing Stratocruiser |
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 servicesIn 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.[
1] A policy of at least one airline required that only unmarried women could be flight attendants.
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."
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.
*
1968: In
2001: A Space Odyssey, 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.
*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.
*
Vesna Vulovic, a former flight attendant from
Yugoslavia, survived a fall from 10,160 m (33,330 ft) when
JAT Yugoslav Flight 364 blew up over
Czechoslovakia on
January 26,
1972, after a bomb exploded on board.
*The plural of the often used term "stewardess" to describe a flight attendant is among the longest common English words that are typed only with the left hand on a standard keyboard (there are at least 5 others as long).
Flight Attendant Labor Unions:
*
The Association of Flight Attendants, AFL-CIO*
The Association of Flight Attendants, UAL-MEC*
The Association of Flight Attendants, NWA-MEC*
Association of Professional Flight Attendants *
Collection of flight attendant uniforms, current and historical
