Come me fly with me! ✈️ A whole new career opportunity?

A friend of mine has a daughter who was a cabin crew on Etihad. Her husband was a "butler" on the flights where the the Abu Dhabi royal family travelled. I would never have been able to do a job like that, kowtowing to over entitled people. Some of my customers in my antiques business are occasionally rude and disrespectful. I drop them like a stone and block them from my shops.

I know I'd get all bad tempered, pushing that trolley and smiling, in cramped circumstances and shoes with heels.

Callistemon21

Someone we knew was cabin crew. She was tall and beautiful and only worked in First Class.

I’d probably be confined to the hold!!

I’d be more suited for Ground Crew, except that I don’t like loud noises and the cold.

On holiday I met a fairly elderly but glamorous lady and her friend. They were both retired teachers but the glamorous one, for a laugh, had applied to be an air stewardess. She was amazed to be accepted and did it for fifteen years. She said she loved it and all the air crews looked on her as a granny figure. She loved the overnight hotel stays and parties. She was quite a gal! American.

Time for my air stewardess anecdote.
(For those who have heard it before, you may turn over to another channel now.)
On a break in the Peak District we met a lovely couple possibly in their 50’s/60’s like us and the wife’s very elegant sister who was visiting from Montana although English by birth . She was a retired BOAC stewardess (long haul )and they were the crême de la crême as I remember.
She told us how fascinating her early career had been but as a typically middle class English girl - and they were all pretty posh- she found some of it an eye opener.
Including the language differences between the US and U.K.
She was once asked by a male American passenger on a transatlantic flight to direct him to the “rest room”. Not understanding, she thought perhaps he wanted a nap and replied that they didn’t have one on the plane, but she could bring him a pillow if he wanted!

Spinnaker

My friend was cabin crew for Laker years ago (remember them?). An anecdote; one of their male cabin crew, working first class was handed a smelly, crying baby and told (not asked) to change him. He disappeared into steerage area and came back with another baby and asked 'will this one do, madam? Madam was no amused, although everyone else was.

I did it for a couple of years, back in the Dark Ages, with BCal - we wore little kilt-type skirts, with the big safety-pin thing in, and so many would-be witty blokes would say, ‘If I take that off, will your skirt fall down?’

I still remember one bloke I actually knew slightly, off on his hols somewhere, who saw me coming down the aisle with a teapot and said at the top of his voice, ‘Here she comes - the old Tetley Tea Bag!’ 😩

We did some long haul too, and another memory is of the very good looking First Officer (married) who slipped a note under my hotel room door, saying, ‘The door is open - come and kiss me goodnight.’

A friend of mine did just that, more than once - same bloke, randy bugger. He always had a fund of hilarious jokes - would keep us all in fits, which they do say is always a good first step towards getting your end away!

Witzend, my Aunty worked for BCal and when she died her funeral was attended by many BCal and BA staff. She had some great stories and had a fling with a pilot and my lovely cousin was the result! She took on the BA Mgt in salary negotiations and was quite a character. A huge fan of Avon cosmetics she taught me about makeup when I was sixteen and I could always confide in her. I still miss her!

grandaughter is cabin crew for Ryan Air she loves it, has moved to Stanstead, unfortunately she has to pay 600 for a room in large house!!!

The hostess on our recent flight had just started at the young age of 53 said he really enjoyed it

I was a "stew" with Pan Am. As soon as I left the airline went bust! I only joined because I was in San Francisco and wanted to get back to London, which I couldn't afford. Saw an ad in the local paper and went off to the airport for an interview. As luck would have it, PAA were keen to recruit "foreign" girls and, despite my obvious incompetence, I was in. I decided this might after all be an opportunity to see more of the world and spent a happy, though occasionally exhausting, couple of years. It was interesting how my stock with young men increased - same girl, much better profile.

Glorified waitressing.
I tried waitressing in wedding venues in my yoof many years ago.
I kept bashing people in the head with trays.
I can’t imagine what I’d be like on an aeroplane I’m still just as clumsy.

I suppose if they introduced zimmer-trolleys it might work.

can we wear sensible shoes?

A widowed relative whose only child is now 20, has just left a lifetime career and joined BA as cabin crew. She is tall, beautiful, glamorous, and aged 60!

As long as they match the Virgin Red lipstick!

I flew for nearly 40 years. I loved it. I only stopped on the lockdown. I could not go back to getting up at 3am for a 12 hour day or two nights out of bed in a row…. It’s a job to start when your young so your body can get used to the tiredness.

Nurses who are fed up with pay and conditions will be applying.

My DiL was a senior flight attendant for Monarch in the days when they were more glamorously called pursers. She told me that the code for the plane being in serious trouble and likely to crash was, ‘Purser to the flight deck’ - repeated twice.

I do wish she hadn’t told me. It was ages before I stopped holding my breath every time I heard the ‘bing’ before an announcement. 😂

Travelling in the US I've seen any number of 60+ women working as cabin crew.

I got chatting to a few in a coffee shop - two were returning to their former careers after being widowed and one was a retired nurse who had taken it up in later life. All were supplementing their pensions and taking the opportunity to see various family members who live throughout the vast USA.

I am enjoying retirement far too much to go back to work and as I hate flying there is no way I would consider a job as a stewardess.

Nor do I find grown-ups behaving childishly or rudely easy to deal with, so if I do come out of retirement I will go out as an old-fashioned Scots Nanny for young children, who will learn to do as they are told!

I think its great to have more mature people. I remember flying Aeroflot in Russia in the 80s and some of their stewardesses definitely werent in the glamorous or young categories. Of course there are weight limitations. I think that they have found a link between constant flying and miscarriage so using older women would be safer

My new career when I stopped nursing was working for 3 years as a donor carer with The Blood Transfusion service..