Career Change - Flight Attendant?

[SaveYourHeart]

Hey y'all! I'm thinking of making a career change and was hoping there would be a few people who can give me some insight. I have an interview next week for a flight attendant position, what are the pros and cons of this lifestyle/career, how does it affect your marriage and relationship with your family? What are some of the struggles you've experienced? Why do you love your job? Which airline is the best to work for? Any insight will help! Thanks in advance!

[carhill]

I've talked with a lot of FA's over the past 30 years or so and my takeaway was that most who made a career of it either enjoyed travel, the perks, interacting with people, or any combination. The older ones recalled the cache of air travel when they were young but that aspect is long gone. It's more like a flying bus now.

 

Unless you work for a regional airline , expect to be gone from your domicile for significant periods, unless your domicile happens to also be where you're based.

 

Investigate the nuances of the pay and benefit matrix. It's very different from typical employment. There are FA forums one can read to gain practical insight if not already done.

 

Back when I was flying out of a little town near San Fran, I often ran into the same male FA, a guy my age, who worked for Skywest and bid up and down the coast on the short legs so he could get back to his family each night on the last flight in. He genuinely appeared to enjoy people and made even a short 20 minute hop something to look forward to. From what he told me, he didn't start until he was 50. I don't know what happened to him when Skywest stopped serving that airport a couple years ago but my impression was he'd retire on one of those little turboprops.

 

Best airline? Ha, that's open to wildly disparate opinion. I think it'll depend on your parameters and what airline best fits them, especially considering your family. A stellar airline in another country, as example, wouldn't work at all.

 

If you have secondary or tertiary language skills, that can open up more opportunities, especially if you live in an area bordering countries using those languages.

 

Expect to see a lot of airports and hotels. Heh. I used to overnight at crew hotels just to listen to their stories in the bar or restaurant. Interesting life. Good luck!

[Satu]

It can be very tiring, but that depends on which routes you fly.

 

It might open the possibility of you getting your Private Pilots Licence, which would be a fine thing if that interests you.

 

 

Take care.

[SaveYourHeart]

Satu, that's the end goal! My interview is with Delta, which is a non-union airline. I've never had a union so I don't really know how they work. But I'm hoping to go back to school, get a degree in aviation and start learning to fly in my off time!

[SJS]

My (step) mother in law is a FA for Continental, but not for typical flights. She's on the private, high-end (?) flights...for example she has flown with the President before. She really enjoys it, and is gone for days at a time. My FIL works a ton of hours, and they never had any children together, so I don't think it has affected their marriage. My husband & I have joked that that may actually be why they're still together because they hardly see each other.