Flight attendant work schedule4/16/2023 ![]() ![]() Or there are months where I could work two to three days a week, for months in a row.”Īs for salary and benefits, Delta pays flight attendants by the hour and offers a 401(k) with a company match. “There are months where I could work six days a week, for weeks in a row. “We have one of the most flexible careers in the airline industry,” she said. Pittman and the rest of the crew agreed that you can’t beat the flexibility. ![]() It might be celebrated on Christmas Eve.” They know that holidays like Christmas may not be celebrated on Christmas. I’m missing my son’s 18th birthday today, but my kids are used to that. That said, “the hardest part of my job is being away from my children more than I want to be at times and missing holidays or special events. “Between ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye,’ I probably say it 600 times a day,” she told me.īefore deplaning, Pittman and her crew did post-flight safety checks and made sure everyone was off the plane, which included checking the lavatory. “When things are spilling, that’s moderate.” Red wine was sloshing out of the glasses and it felt pretty “severe” to me, but Pittman assured me, “this is just another day in the life.”Īfter landing, Pittman and the captain stood at the front of the craft and said goodbye to each of the 200 or so passengers. “There’s mild, moderate and severe turbulence,” Pittman explained. The biggest incident we had to deal with on this particular trip was “moderate” turbulence. While they’ve been trained to deal with pretty much any emergency, and can always speak with a medical facility mid-flight, “98 percent of the time, there is a doctor or some sort of medical professional on board," she told me. And medical events happen more than you’d think,” Motter said. “We have to be prepared for anything: a fire, an irate passenger or a medical event. “A lot of people think we’re their waiters and that we’re there to make sure they get drinks and food, but they don’t realize that we’re there to actually save their lives in case something happens,” Modeste told me. While the majority of the flight is spent attending to passengers, Pittman and her crew aren’t just there to serve food and drinks. “I can pour three drinks to one Diet Coke. I learned that Diet Coke takes painfully long to pour and “makes flight attendants want to pull their hair out,” Pittman told me. While the cold meals are ready to serve, the hot meals have to go in the oven and then be plated.īetween the drink and snack refills, which are unlimited in first class, answering individual passenger requests and preparing and serving full meals, Pittman and Motter don’t slow down. They had already started taking drink orders and preparing 20 full meals, one for each first-class passenger. I noticed that while the three female flight attendants boarded the plane wearing heels - there’s a minimum heel height of half an inch for flight attendants making their way to the plane - they had changed into flats before take-off.Īs soon as we reached cruising altitude, I joined Pittman and Motter in the first class cabin. The flight from New York City to Atlanta is relatively short - less than two hours - which meant the flight attendants would be on their feet the whole time except for takeoff and landing. She and Motter would be working the first-class cabin, while the other two flight attendants, Shannon O’Brien and Niguel Modeste, would be covering the main cabin. She also set up the entertainment system and turned on the boarding music. “We live and breathe by this,” Pittman said.īefore the passengers started boarding, Pittman led a brief meeting with her team, checked in with the captain and did her pre-flight safety checks, like making sure all first aid items were in place. It provides information about all of the safety procedures to flight attendants and recognizes any high-value customers on board. Pittman and her crew can’t board the plane without their “SkyPro,” which is a big, red device that looks like a large iPhone. ![]() Being the flight leader is something you can “bid” for when setting your schedule, and it’s typically given to the most senior flight attendant who bids for it. Pittman was the “flight leader” on this particular trip, meaning she led her team’s pre-flight meeting and was in charge of communicating with the pilot and making announcements to passengers. “You’re not always going to know everyone on your crew,” Pittman told me. All four had flown with each other on separate occasions, but they’d never flown together as a group. I met up with Pittman and the rest of her four-person flight attendant crew, including Motter, at the gate about an hour before departure. ![]()
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