Feb 9th, 2012 at 11:30AM: The first thing a flight attendant does before opening an emergency exit during an evacuation is assess the conditions outside. This is one reason why some airlines require passengers seated in the exit rows to keep their window shades up during takeoff and landing. The last thing you want to do is escape one bad situation only to find yourself in an even worse one. Think fire. Water. Captain ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
flightattendants posts
Galley Gossip: Why flight attendants might not open an emergency exit during an evacuation
Feb 9th, 2012 at 11:30AM: The first thing a flight attendant does before opening an emergency exit during an evacuation is assess the conditions outside. This is one reason why some airlines require passengers seated in the exit rows to keep their window shades up during takeoff and landing. The last thing you want to do is escape one bad situation only to find yourself in an even worse one. Think fire. Water. Captain ...Galley Gossip: Improve your travel with Bruce Lee
Jan 13th, 2012 at 9:30AM: The following quotes are from the book Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living by John Little.
1. Something for nothing - "There is only something for something, never something for nothing."
Think about that next time you feel nickel and dimed by an airline. Ticket prices are less than they were twenty years ago, so in the end you're still paying the same price you were in ...In the unlikely event of College Humor's parody on air travel.....
Dec 28th, 2011 at 3:00PM:
Anyone who has even been on an airplane has seen the flight attendants mimic a range of unlikely events, like what to do if you need to use your seat as a floatation device or if the cabin loses oxygen. Apparently, however, they have been leaving a lot of information out of the safety tutorial. What do the passengers do if the plane crash lands in the mountains and everyone begins eating ...
Galley Gossip: How do flight attendants survive on such a small salary?
Nov 16th, 2011 at 9:00AM:
I've been offered a position as a flight attendant. Training hasn't started yet, but I'm freaking out a little. Should I back out? It seems like a fun and exciting job, but the pay is $20/hour with only a 79-hour guarantee of work per month. The first year I would have to be on reserve and would need to live within 20 minutes of the airport. A one bedroom/studio within 30 minutes of the airport ...Galley Gossip: Flight attendant haunted layover hotel ghost stories (and a haunted plane!)
Oct 31st, 2011 at 12:30PM: In the spirit of Halloween, I'd like to share a few layover hotel ghost stories from flight attendants I know...
At a hotel in San Francisco the water kept turning itself on during the night. After the 3rd or 4th time, instead of getting up and turning it off, I had a little talk with the ghost. I was thinking I must have lost my mind. Water went off automatically. Never came on again! - Vicki ...Galley Gossip: Pilot sexually harassed by a passenger!
Oct 25th, 2011 at 12:00PM:
Dear Heather, I have to share this with you. I'm a pilot and I was sexually harassed last night. While jump-seating home, the lead flight attendant calls the cockpit and says a passenger thinks one of the flaps is out of position. The captain sends me back to check the wings. I squeeze into the fully occupied exit row to peer out the window. While looking out the window, ...Galley Gossip: Elbow attacks and armrest wars (the battle continues)
Oct 13th, 2011 at 4:00PM: Recently a friend shared a story about a woman who accused him of being an "elbow assaulter" on a flight from San Francisco to Dallas. To make a long story short, my friend is 6' 2" and 230 pounds. The woman who sat beside him was, in his words, not petite. During the flight he made various maneuvers in his seat to try and flatten himself against the wall to give her as much room as possible while ...Galley Gossip: Flight attendant interview - The pros and cons of speaking a second language and how it affects reserve
Sep 30th, 2011 at 9:30AM: Dear Heather, I am hoping to become a flight attendant soon (have a face to face interview next week!) and have a question about reserve status. I speak Japanese fluently and was wondering how different things are for flight attendants who speak a different language. Are they on reserve for the same amount of time? Is anything different? - Natasha
For the first time in history being a flight ...Galley Gossip: A letter to the producers of Project Runway regarding flight attendant uniforms
Aug 31st, 2011 at 11:00AM:
Dear Project Runway Producers,
Have I got a challenge for you! With the premiere of the new television show Pan Am airing September 25th on ABC, there's been a lot of talk about airlines in the news lately. One can't help but compare stewardesses of yesterday to flight attendants today, and yet the job rarely resembles what it once was so many years ago. Long gone are the days of glamour ...Galley Gossip: Is it okay for passengers to dump their drinks on the floor during turbulence?
Jul 21st, 2011 at 9:30AM: Dear Heather, Today I heard an announcement in-flight I'd never heard before and was wondering if you make it often, or ever. After serving drinks, it got a little turbulent and the flight attendants had to sit down. A few minutes later the purser came on and said, "if you're having trouble controlling your drinks, please just dump them on the floor." WHAT? And waste all this good wine, I thought. ...Boeing moves flight attendant call button
Jun 22nd, 2011 at 10:00AM: It happens on many flights: you or a seatmate is groping blindly for the reading light or trying to plug earphones into to the armrest, accidentally hitting the flight attendant call button. This may happen several times per flight, causing flight attendants needless trips up and down the aisle to check on embarrassed passengers. It's a pet peeve on the Gadling team, among both crew and other ...Galley Gossip: Age, weight and height requirements for flight attendants (and why Christina Ricci could never be a Pan Am stewardess)
Jun 7th, 2011 at 9:30AM:
"In this male-dominated world, in that famously openly chauvinistic culture, these women were really taking the reins and running their lives in a way most women didn't," Christina Ricci said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter about her upcoming television show, Pan Am, a night time soap opera revolving around the lives of flight attendants and pilots in the 1960's. Think Mad Men ...Nine groovy retro flight attendant uniforms
May 23rd, 2011 at 3:30PM: Good looks never go out of style, but (thankfully, in some instances) "air hostess" uniforms do. The Los Angeles Times travel section has published this great photo gallery of swinging stews from the "Style in the Aisle" exhibit at Seattle's Museum of Flight.
The exhibit, which runs through May 30th, features flight attendant uniforms from the 1930's through the '70's. Couture designers of the ...Galley Gossip: Electronic devices & the passenger with the cat-like reflexes
May 5th, 2011 at 1:30PM:
When a passenger said to me with a straight face that he had cat-like reflexes, I tried not to laugh. Only it's impossible not to laugh when a person says something like this, and actually means it. FYI: I've been around a lot of passengers and I have yet to meet one with these kind of reflexes. At least not in this day and age of distracted air travel.
How did I meet my funny feline ...American Airlines flight attendants to protest company success
Apr 21st, 2011 at 4:00PM: Boston's Logan Airport is one of 10 across the country to host flight attendant protests today. The American Airlines employees are pissed about compensation paid to the company's executives.
Here's the deal: flight attendants have had to stomach pay cuts, while executives have picked up a cool $100 million over the past six years. The flight attendants gave up $340 million a year in 2003.
I ...Flight attendant weight restriction causes uproar
Mar 2nd, 2011 at 4:30PM: Thai Airways International imposed body mass index and waistline restrictions on its 6,000 flight attendants last June. According to the Bangkok Post, all flight attendants, both male and female, were given six months to comply with the weight restriction. For female attendants, a BMI of 25 and a waistline maximum of 32 inches was implemented. The male attendants had restrictions of 27.5 BMI and a ...Naughty Flight Attendants: Playboy, calendars and sex scandals
Mar 1st, 2011 at 1:30PM: The flight attendant may be there "primarily for your safety", but that hasn't stopped them being included in a variety of sources to satisfy male fetishes. As early as the 30's, the stewardess was used to market airline tickets.
Back when women's rights were non-existent, the stewardess was not allowed to be married, had to undergo regular grooming inspections and underwear checks.
Back ...Galley Gossip: Why are so many male flight attendants gay?
Feb 21st, 2011 at 9:30AM:
Scary flights. International layovers. Old flight attendants. Gay flight attendants. In that order these four topics often arise whenever someone who doesn't work for an airline finds out what I do for a living. I have no problem discussing my job. In fact I love sharing interesting stories and helpful travel tips with those who are interested. While sexual preference has nothing to do with the ...Galley Gossip: Flight attendants trained to spot human traffickers at the Super Bowl
Feb 3rd, 2011 at 9:30AM:
What do hundreds of flight attendants, thousands of under-age prostitutes and the Super Bowl all have in common? Dallas. On Sunday they're all traveling to Texas. American Airlines, American Eagle, Delta, United, and Qantas hope to help stop human traffickers from pimping out women and children by holding training sessions that will enable flight attendants volunteering their time on the ground ...Thailand's new PC Air first airline in country to hire transsexual flight attendants
Jan 31st, 2011 at 3:00PM: Being the hostess with the mostess just got more competitive. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Thailand's newest airline, PC Air, is raising the bar on airline personnel. It's the first Thai airline to hire transsexual flight attendants, as part of a pioneering effort to redefine equal rights within the industry. PC Air is slated to debut in April, running charter flights across Asia. The ...
