Flight Attendant Information

information on being a flight attendant?

Hi, I'm 19 years old, and I live in Indiana, I'm currently attending a community college, and my career goal is to become a flight attendant, and I understand that there really isnt a need for flight attendants to have any schooling beyond high school, so this could potentially be my final semester, but I need opinions, I plan to attend The Travel Academy, anyone ever attended that school? Is it truly worth it? And with their placement program how well do they place you? I also understand first year flight attendants are gone alot with little pay, any experiences? AND kids? If I do plan to have kids while I'm still a flight attendant, would that put my career on hold? or what I was thinking was once I have kids, I was going to be a travel agent. Is that a good idea? THANKS IN ADVANCE what airline did you work for?

Public Comments

1. Hi, I was a flight attendant for two years, and I decided to move on. However, I have some pretty good insight on your questions, so I'll just get straight to them: 1.) Schooling. You only need a high school diploma and a great deal of customer service oriented jobs. You're interacting all the time with customers, so you need that good face to face interaction skill. 2.) Travel Academy? Never heard of it and I would assume that it's not worth it. The way to get hired by the airlines is to just simply apply on their webiste in their career section. If they are recuriting for flight attendants, it'll be posted there. From there, they'll review your resume and usually have a big group interview. From there all the airlines are different, but the basic process is the same. 3.) Your first few years or more of being a flight attendant you are on what's called "reserve" status. You're basically the sick time, vacation relief person. You will have to commute to your base city (not anywhere in Indiana) and you will have to probably get a crash pad (an apartment usually split between 5-10 flight attendants.) While you are in your crash pad, you just sit and wait to get called with a trip. The airline I work for, my reserve time was only 7 months because we grew into certain routes and we needed for flight attendants. But for those seven months, I'd go to my crash pad and sit down and wait for a four day trip. Sometimes, I'd do my four days and didn't go anywhere. When that happens, you're pay guranteed for 75 hours a month. That's not a lot, and you're right, you can expect to make from the mid 20's to low 30's your first few years. Not until you are off of reserve and can start bidding your lines based on your seniority can you start to expect to earn more. 4.) You may want to wait until you have kids. Sure, you can take a maternal leave once you have your kid, but think about this, while you're pregnant, you'd be standing up for up to 12 hours a day depending on which carrier you work for, and the routes you fly. 12 is a stretch, but that's a worse case scenario. At some point you will have to take a leave of absence before you have your kid because it's not recommended to fly when you're about to burst! Okay, so that answers your questions, but now I want to give you a reason why should re-consider being a flight attendant. First of all, airlines are not looking for flight crews right now. If you follow the airline industry, then you should be aware of all the airlines that went out of business in the US this year alone. We're talking thousands of flight attendants and pilots. Those who still want to be in the industry will have a leg up on you in the competition for jobs. Also, when airlines cut back, and they do in cycles, then they cut people solely on seniority. As a new flight attendant, you could be in that bottom group of seniority for up to 10 years or more depending on what carrier you're with. It's a very unstable industry to be in. Thousands of super senior flight attendants are getting out with buy out packages to keep their retirement packages. Almost all the airlines are losing money right now. And with our economy going into a downspin, it'll get worse. Sure, the fuel is going down a lot, but if no one is flying, then they don't need all of these new flight attendants. That's just the grim relaity. If this is your dream, then by all means, pursue it. I just wanted to give you a bit of the grim reality that you could end up facing.