What to expect from flight attendant training, part 2

After six weeks of waiting, I finally got the letter telling me I got accepted for flight attendant training for my favorite airline! I was so excited – my lifelong dream finally came true!

My favorite airline has sent me a non-revenue ticket to come to training for seven weeks at their home base city. Here is an account of my experience, which is typical in the industry.

I received my packet for training, which included some information about the airline that I would need to know by the time I arrived for training. I had to learn aircraft definitions, the 24-hour clock, and Airport Codes, the three-letter codes of the cities the airline flies to. I had to pack on Friday in order to leave for training Sunday afternoon.

My flight got into the airline’s home base about 3 pm on Sunday, the day before training was to begin. I checked in at the training center and found my roommate, Mary, an energetic brunette from Boston. We would be sharing a room for the next few weeks, so we spent that evening getting acquainted. We brushed up on the information we had to learn for our first quiz, and retired early before the long day ahead of us.

Monday morning we arrived at the training academy at 0830. Dressed in the required business attire, we first completed the human resources forms, then were given a physical by the airline physician. Next, we took the test on the pre-training packets and learned about the history of the airline.

After lunch we launched right into the 7 different types of aircraft this airline uses. We begin to study the layout of each aircraft, where all the exits are located and where all the emergency equipment is located. Throughout the course of the next seven weeks, we must learn how to operate all the safety equipment such as the fire extinguishers, protective breathing equipment, oxygen systems, life vests, megaphone, emergency locator transmitters and exits on each of the airplanes this airline operates.

The reason our training is seven weeks is because they have so many different types of aircraft to learn, and EVERYTHING IS IN A DIFFERENT PLACE on all the airplanes! Major airlines typically have several different types of aircraft, but smaller airlines may have fewer planes to learn.

The second week we tried on and ordered our uniforms. This was the best day during training – we could finally see what we would look like all decked out in our flight attendant finery! The uniforms had many items from which we could choose – skirts, dresses, slacks, blouses, vests, scarves, jackets and coats, as well as a flight bag that would hold the Grand Canyon. At least it had wheels!

Each week we studied a different type of aircraft and a test was given every day. I was now getting writers’ cramp and a numb brain – they sure cram a lot into seven weeks! We were also taught about FAA regulations, company policies, drug awareness, crew relations, personal appearance standards, service procedures, pre-flight briefings, and first aid. We learned about decompressions and other inflight emergencies, security, HAZMAT and COMAT.

We fought fires and learned commands to shout during emergencies. We even had a simulated emergency evacuation, complete with smoke, red lights indicating fire and a rocking, contorting fuselage that we had to exit within 90 seconds – by jumping into a slide that was 3-stories high! What an experience – scary, but lots of fun! We felt like we could conquer the world at that point!

The sixth week of training we performed a water ditching. We were given a packaged life raft and were told to toss it (TOSS 100 pounds?!) into the water, pull the red handle to inflate it, and get in with our bulky life vests on! Rubber against rubber makes this an extremely difficult task. I never dreamed what a fiasco my entry into the life raft would be. But after much tugging and pulling on the part of my trusted classmates, my rear end up in the air for all to see, I finally made it into the raft. And of course, some wise guy on the side of the pool had to take a picture, which is now indelibly etched in the brains of my classmates!

We then had to set up a canopy on the raft and identify all the survival equipment. Our group got entirely too much water in the raft and had to bail it out. Our rendition of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” was not a required part of this particular exercise – it certainly wasn’t in the training manual, and effectively unhinged our instructor! But how else were we to cope with the stress of a water ditching? We joked a lot along the way, but still managed to keep in mind the seriousness of our training.

Interspersed throughout our weekends in the academy were our training flights. These brief missions were a tedious test of our ability to withstand the embarrassment of wearing the TRAINEE button on our serving smocks. They couldn’t just make this a small, unobtrusive nametag – it was the size of Missouri and had our designated titles in big red letters. When standing in the front of the first class cabin, these tags could be easily read all the way to the last row in tourist! Everyone knew we were flunkies and took full advantage of our obvious stupidity and innocence! The passengers and crew alike had us jumping through hoops, but were actually supportive in the end, giving us a hand for all the patience we had displayed.

Before the end of training, we received our base assignments. I had buddied up with a couple of people who were assigned to the same home base, and we decided to become roommates. The airline gave us a list of apartment complexes frequently used by their crews, and we were all set. Fortunately, I had saved about $1500 before training to help with deposits on rent and utilities and other expenses until our first paycheck arrived. We would be given a week after graduation to return home to get our cars and other belongings and drive to our base city.

Finally graduation day arrived – we would soon be official. Our class had begun with 35 people, but two never showed up the first day, three quit after the second week, and 2 were mysteriously sent home in the middle of the night, or so it seemed, after failing too many tests. Most airlines require that you maintain an 85 - 90% grade while in training, and if you fail one too many tests, you are O-U-T, no questions asked!

Crisp in our new livery, twenty-eight of us proudly stood in front of our families, instructors and new friends, and received our golden wings, the reason for it all. These wings indicated that we had survived training and that we know how to help everyone on our flights survive if we ever need to. Flight crews are among the closest in any profession, and unbeknownst to me at the time, the camaraderie I encountered in training would follow me throughout the rest of my life.

---By Wendy Stafford, a former flight attendant and president and senior recruiter of Airline Inflight Resources, a professional recruiting company devoted exclusively to airlines. She can be reached by e-mail at jetfa@cfl.rr.com.

Take our FREE online evaluation to see if you qualify to become a flight attendant