In this article I am going to describe to you the "glorious" life of a flight attendant, and its not always as fun as it may seem to be. I'm going to break it down into parts, so that its doesn't get all convoluted. If you come across a word with an asterisk after it, it is defined/explained in the appendix below.

The Application Process

This is the most stressful application process I have done IN MY LIFE! Even more than college applications. The process starts off simple, just fill out an application form, attach your resume, and ship it off. At other places I've worked, maybe they would call me in for an additional interview, but that was it. For the airlines, it goes way more in-depth. I received a questionnaire by email, which took like 20 minutes to finish. The questions were regarding my personality and how I live my life on the daily with answers like: "All the Time," "Sometimes," "Neutral," "Seldom," and "Never." After a month of waiting, they responded by asking me to do a follow up video interview. This one you do at home, on your computer. Basically you send recorded videos of yourself answering basic interview questions. After anxiously waiting another month, I was notified (by email) that my video interview was successful, and that I would be scheduled for an in-person group interview at one of their facilities. I bought myself a ticket and flew down to the group interview. There were 90 applicants there! Needless to say, I was overwhelmed. Glossing over all of those details, I received a call the next morning offering me the position. Then came three whole months of background checks before i could even start training. It was nerve-racking, but all of that was nothing compared to training...

Training

Training occurs at one of the airlines educational facilities, and can last up to two months, non-stop. Meaning, you have to leave you home, live out of your suitcase/suitcases(for those especially needy folks) and stay at the training facility for that time. The dress-code was business casual, you couldn't be late, you could only eat in designated areas, no phones, no computers, no sleeping, no talking, none of that stuff. You are there to learn and they are very strict with the rules, each time you do something wrong (like wearing one too many rings on one hand, or your tattoo showed through your shirt, or whatever) you gained a point. At 3 points you are out of the old flight attendant game...and they won't fly you home.

If all of that stress wasn't enough, the days were 10 hours long, sometimes 12 or 13, and there were tests: computer based knowledge tests, physical tests, and more. If you didn't pass a test they were nice enough to give you a second try, but there is no third try. They just send you home. On top of it all, there was homework, and similar to the tests, if you didn't get a good grade on your homework, they would send your tush home.

Sound stressful enough yet? Well, training isn't over yet.

At the end of training they would conduct 2 last tests (pass/fail). One is regarding all things safety, and the second is a practical exam, where you have to fly a flight under supervision. In my opinion, the safety one was the most stressful. If you fail, all those 2 months of training were for nothing, you are going home (which may be a welcome relief, if you have a home to go back to). Training is one of the most stressful things to endure in this occupation, the next is probably Reserve Life.

Reserve Life

Sweet, you got the job! Now the flying begins...or does it?

Everyone starts off on Reserve* (RSV) at the beginning, and as your seniority* increases, your likelihood of getting a Line* also increases. Seniority can only increase if someone leaves the airline who is above you in seniority, or if someone enters the company below you.

Okay, so lets talk about reserve life. You need to keep your phone on you at all times, and if crew scheduling calls you to work a flight, you must drop everything you were doing, everything you had planned, and make it to the airport for your flight in under 2 hours. If you don't answer, you could lose your job. If you say "No," you could lose your job. If you're running late, you probably won't lose your job the first time, but you better not do it again, or you could lose your job. The trips they call you for could go anywhere (domestic/international) for any duration of time (sometimes 5+ days), and it all depends on what flights/trips need to be crewed at the time. Different airlines have different structures for RSV days, some are in short blocks/ or periods, and others may be a month long. You are required to be accessible to be at the airport in under 2 hours from being "called out." Having to get to the airport in under 2 hours means that you will have to live near the airport, which brings up the topic of Housing.

Housing

You've heard of a House, you've heard of an Apartment, but have you ever heard of a "Crashpad*?"

Crashpads* are one of the most frequently utilized housing options for flight attendants, especially if a flight attendant is on reserve. My crashpad has about 17 or so people utilizing it. It's hard to tell, because everyone including myself is in and out all of the time, going here, and there. I'm usually on call 18-19 days out of the month, leaving 12 days for some R&R, or to pick up trips on my days off. The days I'm on call are the days I'm at my crashpad. When I'm not in my crashpad, or on a trip, I am usually at home. That's right, HOME! I have a second place to live, which is a quick 2.5 hour flight away. You may ask, "Gosh Natalie, do you make that much money that you can afford two different places to live?" Well, the answer to that is simple, no... I do not (I will discuss Pay in a later section). Crashpad life isn't all bad, once you get past the part where everyone who lives there is sick, the part where people take your food, the part where you live in bunk-beds, and the part wher-... Seriously though, you build great relationships, everyone is fairly nice, you all understand the trials and tribulations of the job, and you have people you see on the regular, which is fairly uncommon as a new flight attendant. speaking of relationships...

Relationships and the Fly Life

With this lifestyle, there are two types of relationships you can have: out-of-airline relationships, and in-airline relationships. Both of these are difficult to manage when you work as a flight attendant, and they are incrementally more difficult when you're a flight attendant on RSV. When I started, at first I noticed that my friendships grew stronger with the constant phone calls, texts, and postcards, however as time passed, my friends, family, and others who weren't in the airline slowly drifted away. The phone calls stopped, the texting volume decreased significantly, and I stopped sending postcards. After a time, I started focusing less on those relationships, and more on the in-airline relationships.

To start off, let me tell you about a kind of person called a "Slam Clicker." Slam Clickers are people who as soon as they get to the hotel, slam their door, and click it locked, not to be seen until the next flight (which could be days away). These people make the job a little more lonely. I mean yeah, you make friends with your coworkers, and yeah, you will sometimes hangout with them on your layovers, but its hard to make lasting connections with anyone when you seldom ever see them. -very infrequently do you work with the same people, its usually a new crew every trip.-

Loneliness is a very real issue with the flight attendant community. Think about it, you're away from your family, your friends, your partner/s, and your home. You are consistently thrust into new, unfamiliar places, and you try to make the best of it. I was forced to overcome an issue in my own life, which was 'how do I be by myself, and be happy, and have fun.' It took me quite a while to figure out how to spend time by myself. I remember spending a lot of my layovers just laying in my hotel room and crying myself to sleep. I started leaving the hotel and finding things to do, and yeah it took some time, but I became comfortable with being with me. I specifically remember hiking the Redwood Forest just me, myself, and I, and I think that was the turning point. However, just because I've become more comfortable with myself, that doesn't mean that I have strengthened the relationships I've had with others. I realized that if I didn't make the effort to reconnect with my friends, family, and others then my loneliness was going to persist. So, I made it a point to myself to maintain better communications with the people I love both in-airline, and out-of-airline, which has been increasingly more beneficial to my relationships. One of the activities that nearly every coworker and I have been able to bond over is drinking.

The Drinking Phenomenon

If you have seen a flight attendant in their natural habitat before, then you may have been able to get a whiff of the pandemic that has been sweeping the community for sometime now, Alcohol.

Prior to this occupation, I didn't drink much but something happens to everyone who breaches the cloudy white gates of the aviation industry. We all seem to start drinking, and not just here and there, but I mean drinking a lot. I noticed that some of my coworkers started going to the bar frequently during training and from there it spread like wildfire. Soon the whole class was at the bar almost nightly. We never drank too much, but we maybe had a glass of wine, or a beer, but that was the extent of it. After training, it was tacitly assumed that the crew would meet at the bar after changing out of our uniforms. I'm not sure what the root cause of this phenomenon is but its definitely puzzling. I have a few notions, though nothing is definitive.

Notion 1:Whenever we layover its like a mini-vacation, and who doesn't like to grab a glass of wine on their vacation?

Notion 2:On layovers where the local scene isn't "up to snuff," a casual drink with a coworker is much better than sitting in your hotel room.

Notion 3:After a stressful day of catering to the needs of several hundred customers, its nice to de-stress with people who understand your hardship over a drink.

Who knows, and frankly who cares? Just know that its a thing! Now onto the moment you've been waiting for...the pay.

Pay

$27.50 per hour! Doesn't that sound too good to be true? I mean you probably think I'm "joshing" you or something. Well, you're right, it is too good to be true. See for someone who works an EBJ* $27.50 per hour is decent, comfortable pay equivalent to an approx. $59,000 annual salary. The catch is, with a standard EBJ* a full-time employee will most likely work 40 or so hours PER WEEK, whereas a flight attendant's full-time cap is approximately 70 hours PER MONTH. Now if we calculate that, let see... hmmm... you get approx. $23,000 per year. That's LESS THAN HALF of what the first number was! Also, did I mention that the $27.50 per hour wage is one of the higher starting wages of the industry? When I started, my wage was between $15-$20 per hour, and that annually totals out to $12,600-$16,800. So now you are probably thinking back to when I said I pay to live in two separate locations, and I truly do. But, wait there is more! A second catch, which is that as a flight attendant you only start getting paid after the boarding door CLOSES, and you stop getting paid when it REOPENS at your destination. That means, that the 1.5-2 hours it takes to board, and deplane an aircraft, you are not getting paid. Oh, and remember Reserve Life, where you are on call for a majority of the month? Well, you don't get paid for that either.

Okay, I hope I didn't scare you away yet, there are silver-linings in this paybook, and they are Overtime, Per Diem, and Profit Sharing. Every hour you work over 75 hours in the month you get Overtime pay (1.5x base pay), which really adds up quickly. Per Diem is the money you make during your layover usually $2-$6 based on airline, and whether or not you are flying international. Lastly, you will receive Profit Sharing, meaning if your airline does well then you do too, and they will pay you a percentage of the companies profits factored with how many hours you worked in the year.

Layovers

Some people hate them, whereas I love them. For me its a time to relax and de-stress from rigors of daily life. I like to enjoy the local scene, grub, culture, and much more. From my point of view, its almost as if I am getting paid to go on a bunch of mini-vacations. Some people dislike layovers because they have commitments at home such as, their children, school, a second job, their partner/s, etc., and that's 100% acceptable, and encouraged (more layovers for me) if you have the seniority for it.

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This job has the ability to open the world up like none other. For the most part, it is greatly fulfilling and I am mostly eager to embark on another adventure, even though at times it does have its down sides. This job has become my lifestyle, and I have gained so much from bountiful opportunities. All in all, I am extremely happy with where I am in this role, and am eager to see where it will take me in the future.

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APPENDIX

*All airlines operate based on seniority.

*"Seniority" is the measure of how long someone has been with the company. As you become more senior, your seniority # goes down. For Example: An individual whose seniority # is "1" is the most senior.

*"Reserve" is a fairly simple concept. If there is a flight that is without a full crew, Crew Scheduling will call "reserve" flight attendants to fill the necessary positions.

*A "Line" succeeds reserve, and it is when someone know their flight schedule a month in advance.

*Bid/Bidding is when someone indicates to scheduling the days/trips they would PREFER to work, or have off.

*A "Crashpad" is a temporary lodging accommodation for flight crews with other flight crew members. Each crashpad room will usually have two to six beds using single and bunk beds. You can rent out a bed to one flight crew member for a fixed price or alternate the bed for anyone to use which is know as "hot bedding".

*Out-of-Airline relationships are those with people who aren't involved in the airline business.

*In-Airline relationships are those with people who ARE involved in the airline business.

*EBJ is an acronym for Earth Based Job, ie. someone who works on the planet, usually 40 hours per week full-time.