Sorry passengers, but the new flight attendants aren’t all here for the right reasons – and some aren’t very good
IF you're thinking about becoming a flight attendant, please read this first because I know a lot of you aren't in it for the right reasons at the moment.
It's sad to say, but there's a lot of people who have the wrong idea about what being a member of cabin crew entails and they end up making life much harder for the rest of us - and for passengers too.
Simply put, this job is not posing for videos and pictures while flying around between holiday destinations.
It's looking after people, keeping them safe, making sure their journey is comfortable and making sure they get from A to B as happily as possible.
A lot of people seem to think it's the other way around because of what they see on social media and that attitude is starting to become more common in the cabin, where it absolutely shouldn't be.
In my latest blog for Sun Online Travel, I'll explain how cabin crew members are acting out of order and what you should expect if you aim to do this as a job.
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Lately I've seen people posing for photos and videos while serving drinks from the trolley and even had to tell them to stop.
You don't need your phone while you're serving drinks - put it away, be professional and do your job.
The passengers have paid for their holiday and they want to get there with minimum fuss.
What they absolutely don't want is to feature in your videos, or to see you pratting about while you're meant to be making them a gin and tonic.
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It should be pretty obvious that that's the case, yet some people are so desperate to use their cabin crew job to become influencers that they fail to see just how inappropriate they're being.
It goes beyond annoying passengers though - some have even done really stupid and dangerous things just to show off about their jobs.
Recently a cabin crew member was seen posing on the wing of a plane at an airport, which is so unbelievably silly.
The only people who should be out there on the wings are engineers, unless there's an emergency evacuation.
She could easily have fallen off, or even worse caused a bit of damage to the wing if she wasn't careful.
I just don't know why you'd ever consider doing it, given the training you receive before starting the job.
People see five second videos online and all of a sudden they think they have licence to run around the plane trying to make themselves famous, not thinking about what they're doing wrong.
Some have even done video tours of the staff cabin areas, showing people the door codes to the staff bunks or how to access the cockpits, which is so dangerous.
Those are our private and secure areas and if someone wanted to break into them to get at the staff, they should never be able to just find the information online.
As with everything online, it's only the really glamorous side of the job that gets shared.
No one's posting videos of themselves having to clean up baby vomit in the cabins, even though I've done much more of that than I have sat in first class to an exotic holiday destination.
No one's showing all the flight attendants getting in their cars to commute home after a long-haul flight, yet that's something we all have to deal with, much more than posing for pictures by pools.
We're very privileged to do what we do, but there's a lot of hard work that goes into it before you can enjoy the perks.
So for anyone thinking about getting into this job, please understand that it's a lot more difficult and a lot more exhausting than people make it look online.
I know loads of people who have quit because it wasn't what they thought it would be and it's so frustrating for us knowing how many people aren't there for the right reasons.
If you want to keep people safe and happy and try and make their holiday that little bit more enjoyable, and are willing to put in all the hours of effort that entails, then by all means, apply for a job.
But if you're only here for the perks and the photos, then please reconsider because you're not going to last.
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Meanwhile, this flight attendant always packs a £2 item whenever they travel.
And this trick could get the cabin crew to give you a free first class upgrade.
