Article created by: Monika Pašukonytė
Commercial flight is definitely something. Sure, you're partaking in the miracle of flight, but it's flight in what essentially is a multipurpose sardine can with wings. And that, ladies and gentlemen, leads to a non-zero chance of being obnoxious, which is ultimately caused by your or anyone else's discomfort, whether they're aware of it or not.
Speaking of being unaware of things, folks on Reddit been sharing things regular mortals don't really know, but flight attendants most certainly do about flying. The viral thread also has flight attendants sharing some of the more frustrating aspects of their jobs. And you're in luck because we have a list for ya. Enjoy. Or don't. It's a free internet.
I always liked the little known fact that the reason for turning the cabin lights off at night, just before landing, is to allow enough time for the eyes to adjust to night vision, so in case of a crash you're already adjusted for the darkness to make it easier to see in the dark and find your way out of the aircraft and away from it in the darkness outside. You'll be thinking about this on your next night flight guaranteed!
The worst part for me is not being able to have a schedule. I can't reliably eat, work out, or sleep ~~work~~ with any consistency. It's also pretty tough being away from home so often if you have anyone at home you want to see. Leaving my husband and dog alone all the time is tough for both me and him.
If it’s a red eye and we are close to landing I might be hallucinating from lack of sleep. Not enough to be dangerous, just enough to see weird things.
Oh and when you ask us to change the temperature we pretend to do it. Planes are generally colder because if we hit turbulence warm temps will make the chances of someone puking much higher. No idea why.
If you curse in general it’s normally not a thing but the second you curse at me I can kick you off.
We have flex-restraints and are trained how to use them should you get disorderly.
Unless you're extremely lucky and your aircraft just rolled out of the hangar after major maintenance, there will absolutely be something broken in it. An aircraft can have a whole host of parts be broken and still be allowed to fly, the broken parts just get labeled, recorded, and put on the to-do list for the next time it goes to maintenance.
To add to this, most airlines I've worked with have a monthly minimum, meaning I get paid for 75 hours a month regardless of if I'm actually flying that amount.
My wife was a flight attendant. The worst part was always being on call so she could never truly relax when she was home. Sometimes she would get a call at 4am to be at the airport in two hours. We live an hour away so she would have to get ready ASAP. She would get sick all the time from being around traveling homebodies, have to deal with people who thought they deserved special treatment and angry people that had a delayed/missed flight when they have no control over those things. No, they can’t help you find a connecting flight, delay the plane because YOUR’RE late and are not responsible for cleaning/maintaining the lavatory. At the end of the day, they’re not maids and shouldn’t be treated as such. They’re there to keep you safe and maintain order on the plane. All of that for $18 per flight hour. And most of her flights were only 1 1/2 hours. So for not flying, she was only getting paid $1.65 an hour until the planes door closed. And if she was at home, they wouldn’t pay her as it wasn’t considered travel.
We don’t get paid during the boarding process, delays or sit time in between flights,
this is generally all airlines. We also don’t get paid for training except for maybe a few airlines.
If you’re flying and you see a crew member sitting in a passenger seat they’re most likely commuting into work or going home, please don’t bother them, as a commuter myself it’s like having a second job and is very exhausting.
Speaking of exhausted, we’re all most likely over worked and completely drained working on fumes. It can be a very tiring job and hard on your body.
Flight attendants generally just meet when we start a trip and we usually have new pilots every leg.
We are a very seniority based career. Seniority is everything.
On a more serious note if someone starts acting up or is suspicious we all know and we will watch over you the entire flight to make sure things don’t escalate. We usually see everything going on.
The negative sides of this job is that it can be a very lonely job. Most of my friends are flight attendants who are either based elsewhere or we just always end up on different trips. Or my 9-5 friends who I hardly see because I work weekends a lot of times. It’s not uncommon to go months, even a year without seeing some of my friends. Plus being away from home so much doesn’t help the loneliness.
It’s very hard on your body. Sometimes after finishing a trip I’ll still be dehydrated or bloated a day or two after. It also causes a lot of skin problems because the air is so dry on the plane.
Being on reserve is the hardest part of the job, it’s basically on call, sitting around not knowing where you’re going to go or when. Being a commuter I’m sitting in a hotel waiting for crew scheduling to call me with something but there’s a chance I’ll wasted my time and money by staying at a base and getting a hotel and end up not flying at all.
There’s A LOT of gossip and drama that comes with this job. I’ve worked some trips where the FA working up front can’t stand the FA working in the back.
Days are long and can turn longer and that messes with your sleep and eating habits. For example day 3 of my 3 day. Woke up at 10am, worked a 2.5 hr flight scheduled at 1pm, had a 3 hour sit time in connecting airport, got delayed 2 hours because of weather delays, boarding the plane takes 30 mins, pushed back and the ramp closed, sat on the tarmac for an hour, finally get to our destination 2.5 hours after take off but 3 hours behind of schedule. I was too tired to drive home 2 hours away so I got a hotel and now I just woke up at 1:30pm.
Depending on domestic or international our duty days can be legally pushed to 16.5 hours. That’s 16.5 hours on a plane and in airports, it can drive you to your breaking point and it’s not uncommon to have 10-15 hour duty days every day of a trip. Actually my total duty time for my last 3 day trip was 35 hours, we got paid for 16hrs.
That tape you see on a plane? Its not duct tape, it's speed tape. Its not used for critical repairs. Its usually a cosmetic or minor aerodynamic fix. Example, the windshield of a plane is sandwiched between the air frame and the outer plates, but the step between the outer plate to the windshield has a seal placed for cosmetic and aerodynamic purposes. Eventually it needs replaced, so they put speed tape over it until its time for the plane to go to scheduled maintenance. Hooking a plane up to a push back, and moving it to the maintenance hangar is a long process. They're not going to do that for every minor repair.
TL:DR Tape on a plane is nothing to worry about.
My wife is a former flight attendant, so I'll offer a few things she's told me:
- When everyone stands near the gate, waiting for their boarding group to call, you prevent other passengers from getting on board. Gate agents and flight attendants affectionately refer to this cloud as "gate lice".
- Flight attendants have a level of authority on the flight that's below the captain, but they can (and do) make the call about whether you will fly or not. If you're too drunk, if you're belligerent, and if you give them the impression you will NOT follow their instructions on a flight, the FA's can kick you off. If you refuse to go, they can have you arrested. Likewise, in flight, they can have you detained and arrested at the destination.
- Flight attendants primary purpose is safety, NOT serving you food and drinks. That's just something extra to help justify their presence on board and add some comfort to the flight. So please don't mistake them as mall security, like they have zero authority and are just a sky waiter/waitress.
- If you knew how little money they made, you'd rethink how you treated FA's and if you'd like to do that as a career. The hourly wage MAY SEEM nice, but they only get paid when the boarding door is closed. Otherwise, sitting at the airport waiting for a delayed flight, riding a shuttle to the hotel or riding back for the next flight doesn't pay the hourly rate. When you add up all the time you're essentially away from home or not in a hotel room, the hourly wage drops to below minimum wage. Some airlines give better pay based on seniority, but most airlines do not. The only real "perks" are flight benefits: FA + spouse/sig other gets flight benefits meaning they can fly anywhere for just the government fee as glorified standby.
Thanks OP for your interest!
1) Hairspray can set off the lavatory smoke alarms. Also, yes, your vape.
2) Whenever I take a flight as a passenger out of uniform, I always greet the flight attendants in the front and usually the pilots, and let them know I’m a flight attendant. It’s not industry standard, but the idea is to let them know where my seat is incase there’s an emergency and I’m an extra set of helpful hands.
3) Junior flight attendants are exhausted. Zombies walking around, facing minor hypoxia, sleep deprivation, negative bank accounts, and general anxiety. That was me during our airlines required ‘reserve’ period. It’s comparable to new RN’s and doctors who are on call. You can be on call for 24 hours, which means at any point you have two hours to be at the airport, in uniform, ready to fly any flight they assign you. Once you finish that assignment, which can be anywhere from 2 hours to 4 days, you have 9 hours of ‘rest’ before you go back on call.
4) Every flight attendant has a ‘base’, but not every airport is a base. Many flight attendants are therefore ‘commuters’. For example, you can live in Ohio but you’re a new hire who was assigned SFO as your base. You can move to the most expensive city in the country, or commute before your assignments from the Midwest to SFO every time. Many flight attendants (and pilots!) mitigate this logistic by staying in ‘Crashpads’ a few nights a month, apartments under one name on the lease but with bunk beds and shared spaces and divided rent.
5) Salary and union representation are interesting topics as well, some great comments already in this thread about that.
6) Most of us love our jobs!
Top things I get asked:
1: What’s your route?
It’s rare that a flight attendant does the same thing over and over again. In some cases, very senior flight attendants will bc they can hold the best trips, like NYC-LAX turns giving them 12 hours pay for one day. Most of us fly a variety of things, and we all like different stuff. I prefer turns that get me home every night by 3pm. Some people like 3 days that have fun layovers. So many options
2: How long do you get to stay on the layover?
Anywhere from 9 hours to 50. There’s are times where we land at a place at 10pm and have to be up for he first flight in the morning. On the flip side sometimes we get to be in a place for an entire day or even longer for some overseas. And everything in between. (My sweet spot is 13 hours bc it’s long enough to get decent rest but not too long that I’m away from home unnecessarily)
3: Do I fly for free?
Domestically yes, internationally you pay taxes in the flight home. This is all standby and you never know if there will be a seat or not. I’ve been stuck places many times (looking at you Athens)
