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| Home>> About the job >> Who are cabin crew? |
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Who are cabin crew? |
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Cabin crew, also known as Flight Attendants, Air Hostess or even trolley dolly's! are primarily on board an aircraft for the safety and welfare of the passengers and secondly for their comfort. If there were no services of food or drink during a flight, there would still have to be a minimum presence of cabin crew for safety which is a legal requirement.Because cabin crew members are the face of the airline they are expected to excel in customer service and always remain friendly, approachable and enthusiastic with a good sense of self presentation. The role of cabin crew can be physically demanding and you must be prepared to be flexible to work any day of the year. This does however give you a perfect opportunity to get away from the repetitiveness of a normal 9 to 5 job! Cabin Crew can encounter many different situations whilst working on board an aircraft and must be an excellent team player with the ability to work on their own initiative using quick thinking and organisational skills.Duties and taskswhilst working as a cabin crew member you may be required to perform the following duties or tasks during a flight:g conduct pre-flight cabin checks and receive prepared meals, beverages and equipment g check boarding passes and direct passengers to seats g advise passengers of safety regulations g distribute reading material and serve meals and drinks g provide first aid treatment and assist sick passengers g anticipate and provide for the comfort of passengers needing special attention, including unaccompanied children, parents with infants, people with disabilities and the elderly g take action in the event of decompression, turbulence, mechanical malfunction, or unlawful acts by passengers g prepare for emergency landings and the evacuation of passengers
Working hours
Cabin crew will be required to work in shifts which will involve unsociable hours, working weekends and public holidays you may even be required to work on Christmas day.
The history of the Cabin Crew role
The first cabin crew was a reportedly a man working on a German Zeppelin in 1911. The first airliners were actually mail planes with a few extra spaces for passengers. On these flights, you had to take care of yourself as the plane crew only included the pilots, and they were too busy flying the plane that they didn't have time to tend to the passengers.
Imperial Airways a UK airline started recruiting cabin boys in the 1920's. These crew members were usually teenagers or small men and were mainly on board to load luggage, reassure nervous passengers and help people get around the plane.
In 1930 a 25 year old registered nurse named Ellen Church along with Steve Stimpson of Boeing Air Transport, came up with a new kind of flight attendant. Church proposed that all cabin crew should be registered nurses as they can then take care of any passengers that may fall sick. Boeing, then an airline as well as a plane manufacturer, hired eight nurses for a 3 month trial run. Other airlines soon followed suit, hiring only nurses to serve as cabin crew during their flights. This in turn soon became an integral part of the airline industry. The requirement to be a registered nurse was relaxed at the start of World War II, as so many nurses were enlisted into the armed forces.
Until fairly recently air cabin crew were under strict control. They were not allowed to be married and there was strict restraints on their weight and features. Their clothing was similarly restrictive, the majority of airlines required their cabin crew to wear form-fitting uniforms with white gloves and high heels throughout most of the flight. Although it was thought of as a perfectly respectable occupation for younge women to have, early cabin crew members were generally underpaid, had minimal benefits and were in a subservient role to the pilots. During the 1960's, 70's and 80's cabin crew unions, as well as representatives from the equal rights movement, brought about sweeping changes in the airline industry which addressed these problems.
Since the 1970's the policy of major airlines has been to hire both men and women for the role of cabin crew and have no restrictions on weight as long as the person is not overly over the average weight for their height and that it does not pose any health problems. The airlines also recognised their cabin crew as a crucial component of the air-travel industry. After all, to most passengers, the cabin crew members are the face of the airline.
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