Talk:Flight attendant

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Isn't "stewardess" British English and "flight attendant" American? --Menchi 14:33 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

They used to be called stewardesses in America. In the '70s it was decided to adopt a gender-neutral term and they became "flight attendants", but many Americans who learned the term before that time still call them stewardesses. I've never heard anyone call a male in that line of work a steward, although certainly that term has long been used for their counterparts aboard passenger ships. What they call them in Britain I cannot say. Michael Hardy 00:17, 15 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No, it's not BE vs AE, although it seems the term has been dying a slower death in Britain. It was still oficially used by British Airways until about 10 years ago (insiders please correct me), and for example Virgin Trains introduced "stewardess service" in 1998 or so. It seems there are still a lot of people on both sides of the Atlantic who don't think (or realize, if you prefer) the term is sexist or obsolete. --ProhibitOnions 04:51, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)

I think they also use Cabin Crew. The Missing Piece 11:05, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] relationj to biology

what's the relation of biology to a flight attendant? or how's the knowledge about biology applied in this kind of job?

[edit] Question about NLRB ruling

Somebody asked this inline in the article: "When did that ruling happen?" Samaritan 06:46, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] I'm Kristin, fly me?

OK, what airline was it? I recall the tagline, too; unless you can name the line, perhaps it should be removed... Trekphiler 12:32, 2 December 2005 (UTC) The Airline was National Airlines, which was later bought/merged into Pan Am.

[edit] Coining of word "stewardess"

I'm afraid the word "stewardess" predates flight by many years. Female stewards aboard liners were called stewardesses before Ellen Church was born. The RMS Titanic had at least twenty stewardesses who were called such. They're even referred to as such in Archibald Gracie's 1912 book "The Truth about the Titanic". --Charlene 18:49, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Time of training

I have a concern about the Training information... The text says it takes about 6 weeks. I believe it is in the US, but the time it takes depends a lot on the country we are.

I am a flight attendant myself, and where I live (Brazil), we must accomplish a 4 months course, pass a written exam, to start sending resumés. After hired, we have a 2 month training in the company. So in here it is 6 months training. (Not counting the training inflight)

I think we should change the text to be more "world wide correct". Marlon Braga 15:40, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

there is no standard for how long the training needs to be in the us. just what information needs to be taught and how many hours need to be spent. for southwest, i trained for 4 weeks and 2 days. its longer for different airlines

[edit] No more stewardesses?

The article says flight attendants are 'formerly known as stewardesses', not 'also known as'. Is the word 'stewardess' no longer English then? Surely people use it a lot, so shouldn't it be 'also known as'? Is this political correctness? In that case some reason why 'stewardess' should not be used may follow. But as it stands it isn't correct, is it? DirkvdM 06:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Because up to half of flight attendants (depending on airline) aren't stewardesses. They're men. Now if you want to start a hew and cry, try calling a man by a woman's job description - generally the same men who scream about how "rampantly politically correct" gender-neutral terms like "firefighter" and "letter carrier" are also cringe in horror at the idea of calling a male flight attendant a "stewardess". Nobody had better say it's insulting to call a woman by a man's title, but by God it's clearly and undeniably insulting to call a man by a woman's title.
For some reason, male flight attendants have never been called stewards. So why have a gender-neutral term (flight attendant) for the men and a gender-specific one (stewardesses) for the women? Sounds demeaning to me. --Charlene 09:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
For some reason, male flight attendants have never been called stewards.
That's baloney. In fact, international flight crews, in parallel with ship crews, where the terms originated, very often have a single individual listed as "Steward", which would be roughly comparable to the term "Head Flight Attendant" in an operation that doesn't use the word "Steward".--chris.lawson 05:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
I've always used "steward" for men and "air hostess" for women. Is this common usage or not? --81.145.242.7 16:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
Steward was a common name for the job in the UK. To give an example of the situation in some UK airlines now, British Airways employs cabin staff under the general title "cabin crew", with ranks such as "main crew", "assistant purser", "purser" and "cabin services director". In EasyJet, it's "cabin crew" and "senior cabin crew". With Virgin Atlantic, it's "cabin crew", "senior cabin crew", "cabin service supervisor" and "flight service manager". Wexcan (talk) 19:02, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Why I removed the 9/11 attendants

I removed the two flight attendants who were on duty during 9/11 because they didn't do anything notable and just happened to be on the unlucky flights.The Little Internet Kitty 00:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Waiters/Waitresses or emergency workers

The article seems to imply that the hospitality role of cabin crew is secondary to their emergency role, which seems the wrong way round to me. Petecarney 23:00, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

You would be wrong, safety is always our #1 priority, even if you see the customer service role more often. In the US the FAA requires flight attendant for safety reasons only. 72.198.110.131 20:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Offensiveness/POV of "Stewardess"

Something that has not been addressed in this article is that the term "flight attendant" was coined not only to apply to male flight attendants, but also because many female flight attendants found the term "stewardess" to be reminiscent of the era when discrimination based on physical attractiveness ruled airline hiring policies. As a result, many female flight attendants today find this term demeaning and offensive. I don't know what support there is for this, but I know many people in the industry who have this view. I didn't include it because from me, it would be original research, but someone should track this down. OcciMoron 21:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a good start: [1]. Also claims Church was also a certified pilot, who as a woman had of course no chance of ever becoming a commercial pilot. --Paul Pieniezny 15:48, 13 November 2007 (UTC)