“Working as a flight attendant will change your perspective the same way working as a waiter changes your dining experience, or how working in retail changes how you treat anyone who works in sales,” Poole said. “You make eye contact, you say hello, please, and thank you, and you treat workers with respect. You have patience, and you know when something goes wrong there’s only so much a person can do. You know a flight attendant can’t blink and, poof, magically create more baggage space or fix a broken plane.”
Poole and other flight attendants who spoke to HuffPost emphasized that their primary job is ensuring safety. Although they do serve food and drinks, flight attendant training focuses on skills like evacuating airplanes, applying first-aid techniques, using emergency equipment, putting out fires, handling dangerous items and surviving in the event of a water landing.
“Obviously as a flight attendant, I want everyone to be comfortable and hydrated and have a great flight, but it’s our job to keep everyone safe first,” Treat said. “That’s why we are so rigid about the rules. Our job is to get you from point A to point B safely.”
Flight crews in the U.S. also typically aren’t paid until the airplane doors shut, which means their efforts during the boarding and deplaning process — and the hour they’re required to be at the airport before the flight and the time between consecutive flights — are not compensated. During long workdays involving many unpaid hours, kindness from passengers can really go a long way.
“A flight attendant has no control over why the Wi-Fi is not working, or an aircraft maintenance issue, or whether or not you will make your connection ― and no, we can’t call your next flight and tell them to hold the plane,” Lentini said. “But at the end of the day, a flight attendant will bend over backwards for you as long as you’re kind and treat them with respect.”
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
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