The great debate...
The following is from a post to a message board I belong to that talks about the aviation industry. The question, "Are flight attendants under, over or adequately paid?" comes up quite regularly. Some people on the board have grand ideas flight attendants get paid lots to poor Cokes and stay in nice hotels at great locations. There are so many misnomers about flight attendants and the Hollywood glamorized lifestyle they lead that I felt compelled to respond. This is what I wrote:
I think those who are trying to use doctors and the training they go through as a reason why flight attendants are paid what they're paid simply don't get it. There are plenty of jobs out there that require the same amount of intelligence and skill as a flight attendant yet make six figures. Example: loan officers. There is training involved in any job, including working at McDonald's. You can't compare one to the other, but you do need to compare the responsibilities and the knowledge level necessary to fulfill those responsibilities.
I love how some like to think that just because we don't go through emergencies everyday we aren't entitled to more money, or even the money we currently earn. Crash landing and evacuating passengers has never earned a flight crew a bonus or increase in salary. Knowing exactly what to do when the situation arises does. I hope I never have to use my emergency and medical training, but just because I don't use it doesn't make the time it takes to learn it, become proficient in it and prepared to use it any less valuable. The fact that flight attendants can handle any number of responsibilities from hijackings, firefighting and attending heart attack victims makes them very valuable assets, especially if they save a passenger or prevent a plane crash because they were able to put the fire out in the lav. Doctors make their wage because they are trained and prepared to act to save someone's life. Their wage doesn't increase the moment they save their first patient. They are paid for the knowledge they have which allows them save someone's life.
How many doctors can classify a fire, chose the right type of agent to fight the fire and successfully put out the fire? How many lawyers can deliver a baby, save a heart attack victim or stabilize a broken tibia? Flight attendants aren't trained to the level of doctors and lawyers. I don't recall a flight attendant every saying they were. But flight attendants are highly trained, highly skilled professionals who are able to handle numerous threats from safety to fires to mechanical malfunction to stabilizing severely ill or dying passengers. The environment in which they work is isolated, cramped, fast moving and very fluid. They constantly have to be on their toes and ready to put on that lab jacket, turnout or (police) badge at a moments notice. Currently, we are being paid for what we do daily: customer service. We should be getting paid for the ability we have to adapt so quickly to fast changing and increasingly more difficult situations and the training it took to get us there.
Now, as far as hours go, I think more clarification is necessary. I just got into SABRE and pulled up a trip that leaves on Tuesday morning, and it returns Wednesday night. So it's what we call a two-day. The trip is worth 10.15 hours of pay, yet the actual on-duty time is 16.34 hours. The actual time away from home is a little over 37 hours. If you want to compare that to a "normal job," let's. Say I were to go to work for two days, I would likely get paid 16 hours, 8 hours/day. And, I would actually spend 16 hours at work, away from home. For the flight attendant on this trip, they're working the same 16 hours-plus, but are spending 21 more hours away from home and getting paid only 5 hours/day. I'm not complaining about they way our pay is determined (although I do think it could be better), I am simply using this argument to point out that non-flight attendants DO NOT work twice as many hours a month. We work them, and often times more, but are paid for much less. Here's the extreme: the minimum daily pay for a duty day is five hours. We can be actually be on duty for 16 hours, and on-duty means at work, not sitting at home on-call, and still only get paid five hours. So you might think the flight attendant only worked five hours, when in actuality they worked 16. That's a huge disparity.
This notion that flight attendants get great perks, bonuses, benefits and stay in nice hotels is a fantasy conjured up by Hollywood. True, I have flight benefits, but they're not all free, quite contrary. My wife and I rarely have time together to take a vacation, and since she is a teacher and I'm a flight attendant, we can rarely afford to take one. I use my benefits mostly to fly to see my parents, but for ten dollars more I can buy a ticket on Southwest and not worry about the hassle of traveling stand-by. The only bonus I've ever gotten in eight years was a profit sharing check worth $300. Who knows when I can expect another one of those? Nice hotels? I've always enjoyed staying at the Holiday Inn next to the prison in Newark. I think AAA rates it a five-star! Or is that five-bar, as in jail cell bars? I forget. And on top of that, the six or so hours I get to enjoy that Holiday Inn are simply magical.
Hey, I'm not using this thread to complain, only to compare the reality of flight attendant pay to the trumped up conclusions those without adequate understanding of the profession have made. I truly love my job, and am here as an accident as I wanted something fun to do after I left college and waited a year for my wife to get her degree before moving and marrying. I decided to stay not because of my inability to do something else (I'm also a pilot), but because I love the people I work with, I love the challenges my day to day job presents, and best of all, I love that I am not surrounded by four walls and a time-clock that whistles on eight-hour intervals.
The following is from a post to a message board I belong to that talks about the aviation industry. The question, "Are flight attendants under, over or adequately paid?" comes up quite regularly. Some people on the board have grand ideas flight attendants get paid lots to poor Cokes and stay in nice hotels at great locations. There are so many misnomers about flight attendants and the Hollywood glamorized lifestyle they lead that I felt compelled to respond. This is what I wrote:
I think those who are trying to use doctors and the training they go through as a reason why flight attendants are paid what they're paid simply don't get it. There are plenty of jobs out there that require the same amount of intelligence and skill as a flight attendant yet make six figures. Example: loan officers. There is training involved in any job, including working at McDonald's. You can't compare one to the other, but you do need to compare the responsibilities and the knowledge level necessary to fulfill those responsibilities.
I love how some like to think that just because we don't go through emergencies everyday we aren't entitled to more money, or even the money we currently earn. Crash landing and evacuating passengers has never earned a flight crew a bonus or increase in salary. Knowing exactly what to do when the situation arises does. I hope I never have to use my emergency and medical training, but just because I don't use it doesn't make the time it takes to learn it, become proficient in it and prepared to use it any less valuable. The fact that flight attendants can handle any number of responsibilities from hijackings, firefighting and attending heart attack victims makes them very valuable assets, especially if they save a passenger or prevent a plane crash because they were able to put the fire out in the lav. Doctors make their wage because they are trained and prepared to act to save someone's life. Their wage doesn't increase the moment they save their first patient. They are paid for the knowledge they have which allows them save someone's life.
How many doctors can classify a fire, chose the right type of agent to fight the fire and successfully put out the fire? How many lawyers can deliver a baby, save a heart attack victim or stabilize a broken tibia? Flight attendants aren't trained to the level of doctors and lawyers. I don't recall a flight attendant every saying they were. But flight attendants are highly trained, highly skilled professionals who are able to handle numerous threats from safety to fires to mechanical malfunction to stabilizing severely ill or dying passengers. The environment in which they work is isolated, cramped, fast moving and very fluid. They constantly have to be on their toes and ready to put on that lab jacket, turnout or (police) badge at a moments notice. Currently, we are being paid for what we do daily: customer service. We should be getting paid for the ability we have to adapt so quickly to fast changing and increasingly more difficult situations and the training it took to get us there.
Now, as far as hours go, I think more clarification is necessary. I just got into SABRE and pulled up a trip that leaves on Tuesday morning, and it returns Wednesday night. So it's what we call a two-day. The trip is worth 10.15 hours of pay, yet the actual on-duty time is 16.34 hours. The actual time away from home is a little over 37 hours. If you want to compare that to a "normal job," let's. Say I were to go to work for two days, I would likely get paid 16 hours, 8 hours/day. And, I would actually spend 16 hours at work, away from home. For the flight attendant on this trip, they're working the same 16 hours-plus, but are spending 21 more hours away from home and getting paid only 5 hours/day. I'm not complaining about they way our pay is determined (although I do think it could be better), I am simply using this argument to point out that non-flight attendants DO NOT work twice as many hours a month. We work them, and often times more, but are paid for much less. Here's the extreme: the minimum daily pay for a duty day is five hours. We can be actually be on duty for 16 hours, and on-duty means at work, not sitting at home on-call, and still only get paid five hours. So you might think the flight attendant only worked five hours, when in actuality they worked 16. That's a huge disparity.
This notion that flight attendants get great perks, bonuses, benefits and stay in nice hotels is a fantasy conjured up by Hollywood. True, I have flight benefits, but they're not all free, quite contrary. My wife and I rarely have time together to take a vacation, and since she is a teacher and I'm a flight attendant, we can rarely afford to take one. I use my benefits mostly to fly to see my parents, but for ten dollars more I can buy a ticket on Southwest and not worry about the hassle of traveling stand-by. The only bonus I've ever gotten in eight years was a profit sharing check worth $300. Who knows when I can expect another one of those? Nice hotels? I've always enjoyed staying at the Holiday Inn next to the prison in Newark. I think AAA rates it a five-star! Or is that five-bar, as in jail cell bars? I forget. And on top of that, the six or so hours I get to enjoy that Holiday Inn are simply magical.
Hey, I'm not using this thread to complain, only to compare the reality of flight attendant pay to the trumped up conclusions those without adequate understanding of the profession have made. I truly love my job, and am here as an accident as I wanted something fun to do after I left college and waited a year for my wife to get her degree before moving and marrying. I decided to stay not because of my inability to do something else (I'm also a pilot), but because I love the people I work with, I love the challenges my day to day job presents, and best of all, I love that I am not surrounded by four walls and a time-clock that whistles on eight-hour intervals.
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