Flight attendant

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Image:Embraer ERJ 145 LR-PBAir.cabin.jpg

Image:Stewardess, circa 1949-50, American Overseas, Flaghip Denmark, Boeing 377 Stratocruiser.jpg

Flight attendants, formerly known as sky girls, air hostesses, stewardesses and stewards, are airline staff employed as attendants primarily for the safety of the passengers. Their secondary function is the care and comfort of the passengers. They are members of the flight 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 flight deck) and technicians see to the technical aspects of the flight.

Although it is often assumed by passengers that flight attendants mainly exist to attend to the comfort of those on board, they actually exist primarily to guard the safety of the passengers and to prepare the passenger cabin in the case of an emergency.

1 Requirements
2 Beginnings
3 In advertising
4 Unions
- 4.1 Perceived Discrimination
5 September 11, 2001
6 Notable flight attendants
7 Flight attendants in Pop-culture Portrayals
8 Trivia
9 External links

[edit] Requirements

[edit] Training

Flight attendant training is usually done in a hub city of the airline and lasts from six weeks to six months, depending on the country; the main focus of training is safety. One flight attendant is required for every 50 passenger seats on board, or for each door on the floor level (the rule used is the one that gives the higher number of Flight Attendants), but 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, United States. Other airlines were to also send their attendants to the school. However, during the fare wars the school's viability declined and it closed around 1990. Safety training includes, but is not limited to: emergency passenger evacuation management, use of evacuation slides/life rafts, in-flight fire fighting, survival in the jungle/sea/desert/ice, first aid, CPR, defibrillation, ditching/emergency landing procedures, decompression emergencies, crew resource management and security.

[edit] Language

Multilingual flight attendants are often in demand to accommodate international travelers. The most common languages are Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian and English.

[edit] 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.

Flight attendants are also subject to weight requirements as well. If height and weight are not proportionate, you may not be hired for health reasons, etc. Height varies in between 5'2 and 6'0.

[edit] Beginnings

The first flight attendant, a steward, was reportedly a man on the German Zeppelin "LZ10 Schwaben" in 1911.^{[citation needed]} Imperial Airways of the United Kingdom had 'cabin boys' or 'stewards' in the 1920s. The first female flight attendant was a 25 year old registered nurse named Ellen Church. 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 forces.

[edit] 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", with similarly attractive young stewardesses changing uniforms midflight.[1] A policy of at least one airline required that only unmarried women could be flight attendants.[2]

[edit] 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. The largest flight attendants union is the Association of Flight Attendants, representing over 50,000 flight attendants at 22 airlines within the United States.

In the United Kingdom, cabin crew can be represented by either Cabin Crew '89, or the much larger and more powerful Transport and General Workers Union.

[edit] Perceived Discrimination

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

[edit] September 11, 2001

The role of flight attendants received heightened prominence after the September 11, 2001 attacks when flight attendants (such as Sandra W. Bradshaw, Betty Ong, Madeline Amy Sweeney and Robert Fangman) 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.[3]

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.[4]

[edit] Notable flight attendants

Kathy Augustine, was a flight attendant prior to entering Nevada politics
Regina Bird - Big Brother Australia 2003 winner
Deborah Burlingame
Sherylynn Butt
Ellen Church - first flight attendant in history
Ester Cordet - Playmate
Uli Derickson - on duty during TWA Flight 847 hijacking
Gaëtan Dugas
Sandra Force - beauty pageant winner
Jennifer Hosten - 1970 Miss World winner
Suzen Johnson
Evangeline Lilly - Canadian actress
Avis Miller - Playmate
Betty Ong - On duty on American Airlines Flight 11 during September 11, 2001 attacks
Froso Papaharalambous - singer
Michelle Parma
Linda Louise Rowley
Ellen Simonetti - first flight attendant to be fired for blogging
Tania Soni
Madeline Amy Sweeney - On duty on American Airlines Flight 11 during September 11, 2001 attacks
Vesna Vulović - Guinness World Record holder for surviving the highest fall without a parachute
Julie Woodson - Playmate

[edit] Flight attendants in Pop-culture Portrayals

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 ended operations in 1991, 10 years before the movie was to have taken place.
1975: Karen Black plays a flight attendant forced to control the aircraft following a mid-air collision in Airport 1975.
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.
1986: Hanna Schygulla played a flight attendant in the movie The Delta Force loosely based on the hijacking of TWA Flight 847.
1994: Two Saturday Night Live sketchs featured Total Bastard Airlines flight attendants (played by David Spade and Helen Hunt) wishing their passengers a dismissive "Buh-bye."
1996: Halle Berry played a flight attendant in the movie Executive Decision where she tried to help save a hijacked Oceanic Airlines flight. She performed opposite Kurt Russell.
1997: The Quentin Tarrantino film Jackie Brown centers on a "stewardess" involved in criminal activity.
2003: Gwyneth Paltrow, Kelly Preston, 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.
2005: Erika Christensen and Kate Beahan play key roles as flight attendants in the movie Flightplan.
2006: The Travel Channel began airing a reality television show, Flight Attendant School, which follows trainees for Frontier Airlines.

[edit] 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.
"Stewardesses" is the longest word in the English dictionary that can be typed with only the left hand.
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.