Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know from house stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: With me is part of your cabin Cruise Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant building the whole thing out is our pilot
Speaker 1: Jerry Rowland, Captain Jars as we'll call her from now on.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to return your seat to its full
Speaker 1: upright position, but along with your trade table. If you've
Speaker 1: lost your device or phone in the seat, don't touch it,
Speaker 1: just come get one of us. Did that happen to you?
Speaker 1: It's a new thing. What uh? No, it's like a
Speaker 1: new thing on on Delta. And like the safety instructions,
Speaker 1: they actually take a little time to say. If you've
Speaker 1: lost your tablet or phone in your seat, don't adjust it,
Speaker 1: Come get a flight attendant. What do you mean lust
Speaker 1: in the seat? What do they mean? Like if you
Speaker 1: have If you're sitting there and you've got the butter
Speaker 1: of fingers and you know, like you turn into Jerry Lewis,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden your phone slides down into the
Speaker 1: seat beside you or in between the seat next to you.
Speaker 1: Your phone is in grave danger. If you adjust your
Speaker 1: seat back upright again, like I say, get a flight attendant,
Speaker 1: because they now have additional skills in their repertoire to
Speaker 1: get your tablet or phone outside. So at some point
Speaker 1: a memo went out to these airlines. It said, we're
Speaker 1: breaking cell phones because people are like, well, maybe if
Speaker 1: I just throw my seat up, it'll pop out, It'll
Speaker 1: shoot right out. Like I, like, I pressed rewind on
Speaker 1: life weird anyway, this is stuff you should know the
Speaker 1: I thought, that's pretty interesting actually, and it gave me
Speaker 1: even more of an appreciation for flight attendance. Yes, then
Speaker 1: I had already gained over my years. Yeah, because if
Speaker 1: you're one of those puts is who's mean to flight
Speaker 1: attendance you get off the plane, you're jerk. Shouldn't be
Speaker 1: mean to people anyway. Like everybody's walking around carrying their
Speaker 1: own burden that you're totally unaware of. And if you're
Speaker 1: mean to somebody usually is because you're not getting what
Speaker 1: you right then. So if everybody can just calm down
Speaker 1: and be nice to each other, that's great, But be
Speaker 1: extra nice to the flight attendants. And if you don't
Speaker 1: agree with me, now, I guarantee you'll agree with us
Speaker 1: at the end of the podcast, and even even in
Speaker 1: our own article here there was a interview with the
Speaker 1: flight attendant a couple of them, a couple of them,
Speaker 1: but one of them very you know. One of these
Speaker 1: vets said, yeah, you know, back in the day, everyone
Speaker 1: was all excited when they flew, they were going someplace fun.
Speaker 1: Now everyone's crabby. Yeah, but she makes a really good
Speaker 1: point why. She says it's because this is all post
Speaker 1: nine eleven, that the added layers of security that they've
Speaker 1: put onto getting from your car onto the plane increases
Speaker 1: stress so much that you're exhausted by the time you
Speaker 1: get onto the plane, and flying has become a chore,
Speaker 1: a task. The seats have gotten way smaller. I do
Speaker 1: by that the leg room has gotten smaller. Um, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that it's just kind of become or of like,
Speaker 1: let's get from pointing to point B. Yeah, I taking
Speaker 1: your shoes off, taking your laptop out, it's about all
Speaker 1: the extra security. No big deal, that's what I say.
Speaker 1: Did I tell you I've gotten kind of on board
Speaker 1: your train about taking your shoes off on a flight?
Speaker 1: Oh to not do it? Yeah? Good, So every once
Speaker 1: in a while, just be like, to hell with that.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I'm taking my shoes off. I know
Speaker 1: my feet don't stink, but I understand that there's people
Speaker 1: like you out there who are deeply offended by that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. So I typically do leave them on
Speaker 1: unless my dogs are just yapping so so loud. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't ignore it. But it's pretty rare these days.
Speaker 1: I think my deal with that is is, uh, you
Speaker 1: can't count on everyone's feet to not stink, And I
Speaker 1: think plenty of people are like, I don't care that
Speaker 1: their feet stink. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty rotten. I just
Speaker 1: want to be comfy. That's pretty rotten. But we live
Speaker 1: in something called society. There are rules. But getting back
Speaker 1: to the new regulations, which is pretty much laptop out,
Speaker 1: shoes off, I mean you still have to go through
Speaker 1: the line just like before. You know, Yeah, it seems
Speaker 1: it feels different to me. Yeah, it does different. Is
Speaker 1: in more time consuming? Yeah, much more stressful, Like it's
Speaker 1: not a it's not an event like it was. It
Speaker 1: definitely used to be an event in a person's life
Speaker 1: to go on an airplane. Well, do you have a
Speaker 1: different feeling when you go on vacation compared to work travel?
Speaker 1: As far as the airport goes, yea, and how you
Speaker 1: feel about it the same same stress. Yes, a lot,
Speaker 1: a lot of it, to be fair, is in my head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: to me, pretty much, the worst thing that can happen
Speaker 1: to you is missing your airplane. I can't I don't
Speaker 1: even want to imagine what happens when you miss your airplane.
Speaker 1: He's like, it's not that bad. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: she's kind of entertained, like purposefully making us miss your
Speaker 1: own version of cognitive debate. Um, but I I don't
Speaker 1: want to miss it, so I generate my own stress
Speaker 1: in a large part. But it does seem like much
Speaker 1: more a process than it was before. Okay, how about you.
Speaker 1: You're fine with it? Yeah, I mean it's no big deal,
Speaker 1: just shoos in the laptop. Yeah, two bits. But but
Speaker 1: it does seem like, um, And I read this Travel
Speaker 1: and Leisure article about flight attendants, um where where the
Speaker 1: author was saying, or I think she was quoting a
Speaker 1: flight attendant who was saying, like, we've all kind of
Speaker 1: decided as a group that we're fine with just getting
Speaker 1: on an airplane and getting to where we're going, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be this luxury experience, and as
Speaker 1: a result, the price of an airline ticket has come
Speaker 1: down dramatically, has compared to the golden age of flying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but then it has gone back up since it was
Speaker 1: pretty cheap. Yeah, but relative to say, average income, it's
Speaker 1: I think much less than it wasn't say, like the sixties.
Speaker 1: But in the sixties they were cutting like um like
Speaker 1: like cut some meat on a cart in front of you.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. There was a carving station that they
Speaker 1: would move. I'm not kidding. I've seen. I believe it.
Speaker 1: I think it's funny that that's the definition of fancy
Speaker 1: is a carving station. It really is. I mean it is.
Speaker 1: The guy had the hat and everything. Yeah, well you
Speaker 1: and my extended family agree on that. But all of
Speaker 1: us take our shoes off while we eat our carvon meat.
Speaker 1: But there there used to be that they were like
Speaker 1: piano lounges in first class lounge like they were. It
Speaker 1: was like it was an event to But the fact
Speaker 1: that it's gone is because we've all said no, we
Speaker 1: want we want to be able to travel for less
Speaker 1: cost with fewer frills. Yeah, I just kind of want
Speaker 1: to get there. I'm with you. There if that's what
Speaker 1: you think. Or I'm with the airline industry. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just put me on the plane and give me there.
Speaker 1: Maybe throw a whiskey down my throat, and that's about all.
Speaker 1: There you go banana maybe, yeah, if it's the morning.
Speaker 1: But the people who are going to help you get
Speaker 1: there banana and whiskey, Uh yeah, sure, okay. The people
Speaker 1: who are going to help you get there, they have Um,
Speaker 1: their job has changed over time, but they have not
Speaker 1: because they are unsung heroes and have been from beginning
Speaker 1: to end. That's right. The early days of plane travel,
Speaker 1: they hired young men to take care of the stewardship
Speaker 1: of the plane. Cabin boys yea Chris Elliot, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that was a boat cabin, but still still a
Speaker 1: cabin boy. Um. And that was just sort of the thing.
Speaker 1: And then this this woman came along and you dug
Speaker 1: this up. It's really great. Her name was Ellen Church
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, uh in nineteen thirty in fact, and
Speaker 1: she was a nurse and a license pilot. So she
Speaker 1: had it going on and she said, you know what, um,
Speaker 1: I have an idea Boeing air Transport, who would become
Speaker 1: United Airlines. Why don't you hire eight women to take
Speaker 1: care of you on your flight for three months? Just
Speaker 1: see how that goes. And it went great, and they said,
Speaker 1: I think we're onto something here. Yeah. She actually um
Speaker 1: pitched the idea because at first the execs were like, no,
Speaker 1: that's a stupid idea. You know, this is no place
Speaker 1: for women. Um and she said, we'll get this. How
Speaker 1: is a man going to say that he can't fly
Speaker 1: because he's afraid of flying if he knows there's a
Speaker 1: woman up there flying around? And they're like, actually, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty good psychology. So they took her up on
Speaker 1: it and it became a thing from that moment on.
Speaker 1: But before her, I have to say, if we're talking
Speaker 1: gender non specific flight attendants, a man had her beat
Speaker 1: by eighteen years. A German Man named Heinrich Cubis who
Speaker 1: was the world's first flight attendant and he worked Zeppelin's
Speaker 1: including the graph Zeppelin and the Hindenburg. Really did he
Speaker 1: die on the Hindenburg? He left. Very few people died
Speaker 1: on the Hindenburg. I think they were mostly on the ground. Remember,
Speaker 1: I don't remember, because the hydrogen burned up and the
Speaker 1: people who died were Once you jump, that's what it
Speaker 1: was is that it did we do a show on
Speaker 1: that we've talked about before. Yeah, yeah, I'm one of
Speaker 1: our many, many, many short lived video series. Oh right,
Speaker 1: of course. So at any rate, Ellen Church changed the
Speaker 1: face of the flight attendant industry. And then in the
Speaker 1: in the sixties and seventies, of course, it was sort
Speaker 1: of a and this is not me talking here, this
Speaker 1: is in the article. It was the sexy stewardess phase
Speaker 1: of airline travel. Yeah, and that was definitely the deal
Speaker 1: that you had, uh, weight limits and height limits. You
Speaker 1: had to look a certain way and um, they put
Speaker 1: you in the just the right outfit and it was
Speaker 1: all about sort of, hey, get up there and look
Speaker 1: good and serve drinks. So and they were they were
Speaker 1: like those limits you talk about. Technically they're still around.
Speaker 1: There are weight limits and height limits, but they're restricted
Speaker 1: to you can't be so short that you can't reach
Speaker 1: the overhead bins. Yeah, they're all practical limits. Right, you
Speaker 1: can't be so ta all that you're just bumping your
Speaker 1: head all over the place. Um, you have to be
Speaker 1: of the of adequate size to fit into a jump
Speaker 1: seat that the flight attendant sit in. But that's it.
Speaker 1: Back then, it was you have to weigh like no
Speaker 1: more than a hundred and twenty pounds, you have to
Speaker 1: be this height, and it had everything to do with
Speaker 1: looks and attractiveness in your thirty two so you're fired. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a thing like very early on, I think
Speaker 1: in the fifties. I think in the nineteen fifties they
Speaker 1: started airlines started instituting age restrictions where once you got
Speaker 1: to age thirty two, you were no longer eligible to
Speaker 1: be a flight attendant. You might have a job down
Speaker 1: on the ground, but you couldn't be a flight attendant
Speaker 1: anymore because you were too old according to them. Um.
Speaker 1: Plus also you couldn't be married or have kids. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very restrictive back in the day. Also maybe the
Speaker 1: most sexist industry that's ever existed. And of course that's
Speaker 1: airline dependent. It's not like it was a federal regulation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it all depended. But um, you need a high
Speaker 1: school diploma at the very least these days, but they're
Speaker 1: very competitive jobs to get. Um you've gone to the
Speaker 1: days where you can just waltzon there with a head
Speaker 1: shot and get a job as flight attendant. A lot
Speaker 1: of people want these gigs and so if you have
Speaker 1: a college degree, then you definitely have a leg up
Speaker 1: these days, definitely. But it's always been pretty competitive. Supposedly
Speaker 1: in two thousand six, Delta announced that they had a
Speaker 1: thousand openings and got like a hundred thousand applications. But
Speaker 1: it's always been like really competitive because from the beginning
Speaker 1: it was viewed as like really glamorous in the beginning.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, I don't know about from the beginning,
Speaker 1: so um, because it's been a really competitive um uh career, chuck.
Speaker 1: And because the airlines were run by like men who
Speaker 1: were decided that they owned their their flight attendants because
Speaker 1: they ran the airlines. There was in that sixties, the
Speaker 1: swinging sixties era of that sexy stewardest thing you were
Speaker 1: talking about, like they were a major draw for airlines,
Speaker 1: and the airlines like advertisements such so, I've got found something.
Speaker 1: This is in that UM Travel and Leisure UM article.
Speaker 1: I found you ready for this? This is going to
Speaker 1: knock your socks off. Purposefully didn't send this to you
Speaker 1: because one of you. Yeah, so, National Airlines in the
Speaker 1: sixties had an advertisement where they had flight attendants Debbie
Speaker 1: Ryl and Karen and they could fly me. They also
Speaker 1: had an alternate slogan, I'm going to fly you like
Speaker 1: you've never been flown before. And these are print ads. Okay,
Speaker 1: um Continental uh well, contin Els was lame. Brand Iff
Speaker 1: had one their advertising said does your wife know you're
Speaker 1: flying with us? Yeah? Um? Pacific Southwest said you want
Speaker 1: an aisle seat because all of our flight attendans have
Speaker 1: mini skirts and sometimes they drop stuff basically, and then
Speaker 1: get this, Eastern Airlines gave out little black books to
Speaker 1: their male passengers so they could get the numbers of
Speaker 1: the stewardesses, the flight attendants. And then Quanta seto slogan.
Speaker 1: Ever seen a tickle fight? Crazy? You're right, it's basically
Speaker 1: the sentiment behind it. Um. And so you've got the
Speaker 1: airlines advertising this, and then the flight attendants unions are
Speaker 1: fighting this stuff tooth and nails, to be treated in
Speaker 1: a dignified manner and not not be fired because you
Speaker 1: weigh a hundred and twenty two pounds, which, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: just crazy. This is like this was the way that
Speaker 1: it was back then. Yeah, yeah, your show for working.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, honey, get on the scale and would
Speaker 1: your birthday again? Yeah? Terrible you kind of went to
Speaker 1: a Bill Clinton. There sounded a little Bill Clinton. I
Speaker 1: thought it sounded like, w all right, well, let's let's
Speaker 1: take a break then and work on our presidential accents
Speaker 1: and we'll come back and talk about post nine eleven flying. Alright,
Speaker 1: So we did mention that after nine eleven, things of
Speaker 1: course did change. Uh, and things change in a big
Speaker 1: way for flight attendance. They um, not that they never
Speaker 1: trained on safety, but I think the training got way
Speaker 1: more intense. Yeah, did you see that when I sent you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: from I think the Points Guys website. Yeah, we should
Speaker 1: go over that now. Actually, so he has a flight
Speaker 1: attendant insider who like writes quite a bit for his sight.
Speaker 1: I don't remember a name. Just look up the Points
Speaker 1: Guy flight Autenant Insider and um, she just she goes
Speaker 1: into great detail about what it's like to go through training.
Speaker 1: It is more intense than I realized it was, for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they and this depends on the airlines, but they sort
Speaker 1: of give averages. The average training is seven weeks, but
Speaker 1: they can be as long as twelve weeks. We're talking
Speaker 1: six days a week, twelve hours a day, and they
Speaker 1: call it Barbie boot camp. Because you don't show up
Speaker 1: in your sweats and tank top with no makeup. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not like you're a passenger. No, yeah, exactly, your
Speaker 1: big fuzzy slippers and your pillow from home. Uh No,
Speaker 1: you show up as if you are there to work
Speaker 1: a flight. So you have to be in whatever attire
Speaker 1: that they require you to be in and have your
Speaker 1: hair done however, you would do it and just basically
Speaker 1: be game day ready. And then they work you that
Speaker 1: many hours a day because that's about how many hours
Speaker 1: day you're gonna be working. Yeah, attended. When you start
Speaker 1: working at first, you have very little will control over
Speaker 1: your own schedule. Um, although I get the impression you
Speaker 1: have flexibility out of the gate, but if you say
Speaker 1: I want to work this many days a month, that's
Speaker 1: the input you have at first until you start to
Speaker 1: develop seniority. So yeah, they expose you to that six
Speaker 1: days a week, twelve hours a day, um, during training
Speaker 1: for many weeks. So um. The first thing they do
Speaker 1: is learn all the safety equipment. They're given written tests
Speaker 1: that she said that they had to score at least
Speaker 1: a ninety on. I said that really weird, didn't I? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: she said, if it was a eighty. They had to
Speaker 1: retake it, so they had to score at least ninety
Speaker 1: two to pass. And then practical exams. We had to
Speaker 1: score a dent on these practical tests, and that basically
Speaker 1: means you were on a fake plane doing the thing.
Speaker 1: And it's not like you're serving that diet cokerong. It's
Speaker 1: all it's mainly of this training, of this training. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what she said, is uh, equipment safety, all that
Speaker 1: stuff right, Like the first stuff where they're giving these
Speaker 1: tests that you have to score high on is here's
Speaker 1: here's all of the stuff you need to know about
Speaker 1: the equipment. And then there's the drills where you're showing
Speaker 1: that you know how to use it. And they simulated
Speaker 1: emergencies right like smokes pouring in a cabin. What do
Speaker 1: you do? Did you see that? One picture of Emirates
Speaker 1: Airlines is like the big like a third of an
Speaker 1: Emirates plane basically the main cabin with the slide out
Speaker 1: going into a pool inside like a hangar, and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to go down that slide. There's no
Speaker 1: way they're not going down that slide and high heels
Speaker 1: and everything too. Um, but they're running these drills and
Speaker 1: apparently this is a big um. This is where most
Speaker 1: people wash out, she said, was was during the drills
Speaker 1: because it's so stressful and and also um. She she
Speaker 1: points out that because this job always has been and
Speaker 1: still is so competitive, that the airlines can choose to
Speaker 1: be super picky so they will drop you for them.
Speaker 1: This these training programs pretty pretty easily and quickly because
Speaker 1: they know that they they can find somebody else who
Speaker 1: could do it better. Right, Yeah, so you end up
Speaker 1: with the cream of the crop in the end. Exactly.
Speaker 1: That's a really good way to put it. And then
Speaker 1: she says that really the last thing they learned and
Speaker 1: the stuff that they spend the least amount of time
Speaker 1: on is the actual customer service stuff like pushing the
Speaker 1: beverage cart, where they know exactly what to do during
Speaker 1: if sudden turbulence hits and there's a beverage cart. They
Speaker 1: they are taught less how to pour that diet coke
Speaker 1: or whatever. I think, like, I think I could do that,
Speaker 1: the pouring the stuff, I would get so stressed out
Speaker 1: the whole thing, Like I've seen it enough. Now we
Speaker 1: travel enough for work where if like a flight attendant
Speaker 1: was like, oh my ankle, I could throw on the
Speaker 1: vest and run beverage service. You'd be like, step aside,
Speaker 1: I've got this, Like I know exactly how how they're
Speaker 1: doing it. I'm paying attention. Would you splint the person's
Speaker 1: ankle first and then take over beverage service? I would
Speaker 1: split the ankle and then I would get up. Do
Speaker 1: you want peanuts, pretzels or biscoff cookie? Do you what
Speaker 1: kind of drink? You want? Cancer? Peanuts anymore? And sure
Speaker 1: you can't. The other day? What, Yeah, you have peanuts
Speaker 1: on a flight? Yeah? I think they don't serve peanuts
Speaker 1: if someone's allergic. But I don't think they peanuts. It
Speaker 1: is my impression they have just stopped. I've been on
Speaker 1: so many flights and they're like, well you we've got peanuts,
Speaker 1: but you can't have them because third teenie is allergic,
Speaker 1: and everybody's like, now they have almonds. Yeah, they did
Speaker 1: have almonds on adult flight the other day, though they're delicious.
Speaker 1: You have peanuts on a flight, that's like a Cela
Speaker 1: can't And then uh, I'm a I'm a sucker for
Speaker 1: those Delta cookies. So are you I have? Um? I
Speaker 1: have desensitized to them. Actually just do pretzels. Now does
Speaker 1: Biscoff cookies. I used to be a junkie for him.
Speaker 1: I like them. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: a little seal treat in the air short bread something
Speaker 1: or other. It's like a gingerbread kinderbread. But it's called speculoas,
Speaker 1: which is the worst name for a dessert treat. On
Speaker 1: on the Planet says that on the package speculus. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the original Dutch name for that. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: where the money is, Chuck. I don't remember what airline
Speaker 1: it is, but they have this Dutch treat. It's it's
Speaker 1: too thin, very sweet waffle cookies with a caramel like inside,
Speaker 1: right caramel sandwich. And they say, take this thing and
Speaker 1: put it over your hot coffee and let the steam
Speaker 1: from the coffee warm it up. And brother, you were
Speaker 1: on cloud nine. Who tells you that the flight attendant
Speaker 1: the package? The flight attendant doesn't tell you that. They
Speaker 1: just go here, read this package. That sounds like some fancy,
Speaker 1: uh international type of fline. I know it was domestic.
Speaker 1: I think it was Midwestern, though there's a lot of
Speaker 1: um European immigrants from the nineteenth century and all the
Speaker 1: best foodie ways. Um we got side check there, where
Speaker 1: were we? Well, we were talking about how difficult the
Speaker 1: training actually is. Yeah, and that's sort of the long
Speaker 1: and short of it. I mean it's long, it's sort
Speaker 1: of grueling. At the very end is when you learn
Speaker 1: just that she said that you learn the that five
Speaker 1: percent of time you spend is what you end up
Speaker 1: doing of the time, but you just have to be
Speaker 1: so prepared for that one percent In case something goes wrong,
Speaker 1: you can just react on instinct. Well, what's what made
Speaker 1: me feel really good was that she said the flight
Speaker 1: attendants you're flying with are so well trained, and they
Speaker 1: also have to go back for annual training every year
Speaker 1: to learn like new stuff that the airlines have figured out,
Speaker 1: learn new procedures whatever um And you know, anytime say,
Speaker 1: like an airline deploys a new um jet in its fleet,
Speaker 1: they gotta go figure that out because the safety stuffs
Speaker 1: in different places, and they need to know this stuff
Speaker 1: and they need to be able to remember it and
Speaker 1: act on it during an emergency. So I guess I
Speaker 1: didn't really realize this, but any flight attendant on a
Speaker 1: commercial aircraft that you're flying is capable of saving your
Speaker 1: life should an emergency arise. Yeah, I mean they talk
Speaker 1: about they even go through like a baby birth and training.
Speaker 1: So the next time you want to yell at them
Speaker 1: because they're saying the overhead space is full, remember that
Speaker 1: that person can save your life if the plane starts
Speaker 1: to go down or lands in the water or something.
Speaker 1: And it's not their fault the overhead space is full.
Speaker 1: It's it's all the people who put their bag up
Speaker 1: and then walk to the back of the plane. Are
Speaker 1: you talking about the worst people on earth? The worst
Speaker 1: people on it? And they took their shoes off as
Speaker 1: they were walking back. Man, why do people do that?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I was on a flight the
Speaker 1: other day and I've never seen overhead space more screwed
Speaker 1: up by just a handful of people who did that.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. Like towards the end, people who were
Speaker 1: sitting in like the first you know, five rows after
Speaker 1: after first class, we're having to go to the back
Speaker 1: of the plane. And he's just like watching them like,
Speaker 1: oh man, you poor person as you're as you're walking
Speaker 1: off the plane and they're just sitting there waiting to
Speaker 1: get their bag. It's crazy. Yeah. I think when they
Speaker 1: started charging for bags, um, that's when everything went berserk
Speaker 1: because nobody wants to check their bag except me. I
Speaker 1: don't mind. Now that's crazy to me. Yeah, I've never
Speaker 1: lost the bags. I don't mind. I don't have to
Speaker 1: sweat it. I mean, this is a if I'm just
Speaker 1: going on a work trip, I don't even have my
Speaker 1: roller bag anymore. I have my and I will buzz
Speaker 1: market them all day. My red Ox Yeah, my red
Speaker 1: Ox shoulder bag. Uh. The thing is great and I
Speaker 1: can fit everything in there. But if I'm going on
Speaker 1: like a vacation, and I know you think it's heresy,
Speaker 1: but I will check that bag and relax my day away.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to yuck you. Um here, Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you want to check your bag, that's fine, or gate
Speaker 1: check it. That's the good deal because you don't have
Speaker 1: to pay there. Okay, I have no problem with gate
Speaker 1: checking it at the plane. So it's just stowed in
Speaker 1: a handy manner, so you just walk off and they
Speaker 1: hand it to you. That's fine. But there are very
Speaker 1: few things that you can do that is a bigger
Speaker 1: waste of time than standing around waiting for your bag
Speaker 1: to make it to the bag carousel. I hate doing that,
Speaker 1: especially when you're ready for vacation to start. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't mind because most airports, my bag's cruising around that
Speaker 1: thing by the time I get to baggage. Yeah for me,
Speaker 1: And that's just because I I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: like having to mess with fighting a bag a suitcase
Speaker 1: on a plane. I don't like contributing to that whole process,
Speaker 1: much less being a business traveler. Like you see those
Speaker 1: dudes that have the the roller bag with a big
Speaker 1: bag on top of that and then a back back.
Speaker 1: You're like, dude, that's like three pieces of luggage. I
Speaker 1: need to merge them, all right. But this is not
Speaker 1: about just us complaining about traveling. Get back to the
Speaker 1: flight attendance, Get back to us. Uh So, customer service
Speaker 1: is the goal of the flight in it to keep
Speaker 1: you happy as possible. Um. But also you know they
Speaker 1: don't have to indulge you once you have passed the
Speaker 1: point of sobriety or just jerking nous. Um. They don't
Speaker 1: deal with that stuff anymore. Like they will stop boarding
Speaker 1: the plane if you're drunk before you get on, and
Speaker 1: have you escorted off. It's it's serious business. Now, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't get on a plane if you're loaded. No time
Speaker 1: was they would get you loaded on the plane. Well
Speaker 1: they yeah, they don't. They don't mess with that. But
Speaker 1: they're they're long days. So like we said, twelve hour days,
Speaker 1: they are if you're if you're new, Like you said earlier,
Speaker 1: they don't have a ton of control over their schedules.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna be working a lot of weekends. Everybody's
Speaker 1: gonna be working some weekends. You're gonna do an overnight trips, uh,
Speaker 1: spending a night in cities, and that can sometimes be
Speaker 1: fun if you put a positive spin on it, or
Speaker 1: it can be a big drag. Yeah. But one thing
Speaker 1: that I had seen across the board from all the
Speaker 1: sources I hit for this was that you it's up
Speaker 1: to you how much or how little you fly. Up
Speaker 1: to I think a hundred hours a month, there's like
Speaker 1: a maximum you can you can work. Um, they're probably minimum,
Speaker 1: don't you think r Now, not that I saw, probably
Speaker 1: probably do. But I get the impression that that's actually
Speaker 1: once you've done it for like six months. Typically when
Speaker 1: you're hired on for an airline, you're on a probationary
Speaker 1: six month period. Yeah, because they don't want just you
Speaker 1: know number when they don't know you from anybody, they've
Speaker 1: known you for seven weeks. They just trained you want
Speaker 1: tin buddy passes and then I'm gonna quit my job exactly. Well,
Speaker 1: I saw another thing too. Apparently buddy passes are like
Speaker 1: the worst thing that's ever happened to a flight attendant
Speaker 1: because everybody begs for him. But they are like really
Speaker 1: actually bad passes. Like you're at the end of standby
Speaker 1: and if your friend, if you give the buddy past
Speaker 1: your friend and they start yelling at the gate agent,
Speaker 1: you get in trouble because it was your buddy past
Speaker 1: that was being used. You might even have your perks
Speaker 1: revoked because your friend was a jerk to the gate
Speaker 1: attendant and everybody's always asking you for him. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people just don't even touch the buddy pass perk.
Speaker 1: That's like, if you're a country club member, you're responsible
Speaker 1: for the behavior of your guests right now. There are
Speaker 1: other perks you don't know. You've seen. Caddy check, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I've never liked belonged to a country club. Um,
Speaker 1: there are other perks where like a family members, immediate
Speaker 1: family members sometimes extended family members of spouses. Um, they
Speaker 1: get the same perks you do, which very frequently is
Speaker 1: like you just pay taxes on the ticket and you
Speaker 1: fly for free. Um, though that's different. Like all flight
Speaker 1: attendants taken advantage of that. Some of them will will
Speaker 1: hop on over to Europe or something for you know,
Speaker 1: lunch hundred bucks. Yeah maybe if that. Yeah, well, buddy
Speaker 1: passes used to be a lot easier when they didn't
Speaker 1: oversell all the flights. You know, Like I used to
Speaker 1: have friends back in the day. I'd get a buddy pass,
Speaker 1: fly no problem. But now you're right, it's you're in
Speaker 1: a bad position. Yeah. Do you remember flights where like
Speaker 1: entire rows would be empty, Like, well, the flight was scheduled,
Speaker 1: so we have to we have to stick to it.
Speaker 1: It's it's strange what a day. Uh. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: be working hours a month generally, but like you said,
Speaker 1: I guess you can't go over that one mark. Uh.
Speaker 1: And interestingly to another thing you get trained for is
Speaker 1: very sadly human trafficking. These days, they will fly kidnapped
Speaker 1: people right in front of people's faces, and so flight
Speaker 1: attendants now are trained just to spot this kind of activity,
Speaker 1: which can mean like an adult who doesn't really understand
Speaker 1: about the final destination, that's a bad sign. Or if
Speaker 1: it's uh, like an adult traveler with a minor and
Speaker 1: they just it definitely looks like a little more than
Speaker 1: parental behavior going on, like don't get up and go
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, that kind of thing. Apparently that's how
Speaker 1: it started. There was a man who caught the suspicion
Speaker 1: of a flight attendant named UM Sandra Fierini. She worked
Speaker 1: for American Airlines. She noticed that like a late eighteen
Speaker 1: year old teenager age guy who was UM had an
Speaker 1: infant that still had the umbilical cord attached, and like
Speaker 1: a bottle of milk in his pocket, a couple of
Speaker 1: diapers stucks in his in his pocket his other pocket,
Speaker 1: so like this baby was stolen or bought or something.
Speaker 1: And UM she started looking into it and found out
Speaker 1: that there was actually a big deal. And UM teamed
Speaker 1: up with a woman named Deborah Sigmund, who founded Innocence
Speaker 1: at Risk and they kind of started this program where now,
Speaker 1: if you're a flight attendant, when the things you're trained
Speaker 1: for is to recognize UM human trafficking, and they actually
Speaker 1: a bunch of flight attendants volunteered at the last Super
Speaker 1: Bowl to look for human trafficking, because apparently the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl is like also the Super Bowl prostitution and human
Speaker 1: trafficking in the world every year. So fight attendants went
Speaker 1: to the Super Bowl and volunteered to kind of like
Speaker 1: keep tabs on things and call out people they thought
Speaker 1: were amazing and traffic. Yeah, somebody wrote in and said,
Speaker 1: you can call it super Bowl. Sure, it can't do anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't like advertise anything using those words. I don't
Speaker 1: think we can't sell our Super Bowl bobble heads that
Speaker 1: we have a box full of. Too bad, it was
Speaker 1: a poor investment. Should we take our final break here? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do that. We'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about some of the perks and drawbacks right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk about pay m Baby, you don't
Speaker 1: make a ton of money. I think starting salaries in
Speaker 1: the mid thirties, Oh no, no, for a flight attendant,
Speaker 1: that's no, No, starting salary can be like eighteen. The
Speaker 1: median in two thousands, twelve or thirteen or fourteen was
Speaker 1: thirty seven the median. That's like, that's the middle, that's
Speaker 1: that's not much, you know. That's why it's such an attractive, um,
Speaker 1: a job for people who are just looking for extra money.
Speaker 1: If you're a parent and you have so much control
Speaker 1: over your schedule, once you start to get some seniority, um,
Speaker 1: it's a great, great way to spend your money. If
Speaker 1: you're a soap opera star, it's a great, great extra job.
Speaker 1: Did you see that? Yeah? What's her name? Kate Linder
Speaker 1: who plays Esther Valentine on The Young and the Restless. Know,
Speaker 1: she's a flight attendant as well, for like thirty two
Speaker 1: years and she's done them both for about the same
Speaker 1: amount of time. And she does it like every week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she says it helps keep her grounded no pun intended. Yes,
Speaker 1: she didn't say the no pun intended part, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she gets those perks, She gets to fly
Speaker 1: to Europe for lunch if she wants, and act on soaps.
Speaker 1: So good for her. And that's not to say that
Speaker 1: that that media and I mean, obviously that's the middle amount,
Speaker 1: but it goes much higher than that. And it all
Speaker 1: has to do all perks, all pay all benefits, all
Speaker 1: that stuff. The flight attendant profession is all about seniority.
Speaker 1: And there are plenty of flight attendants out there who
Speaker 1: are career flight attendants. And you know like Kate, Kate Linder,
Speaker 1: she she's been doing it for thirty two years. There's
Speaker 1: another UM woman named Candy Bruton who was a forty
Speaker 1: three year veteran of flight attendant. UM Like, there you
Speaker 1: can a long, happy career out of it now that
Speaker 1: they've taken that age restriction off. Yeah, twenty one three cents.
Speaker 1: A few years ago an hour was the was the
Speaker 1: rate for a first year attendant. So plus twenty dollars
Speaker 1: an hour. But here's the thing, and this is something
Speaker 1: that I bet human beings don't realize. When you were
Speaker 1: sitting on that plane and those doors are open and
Speaker 1: they're getting you your first class drinks, or they're helping
Speaker 1: you put your bags away and you're complaining because you
Speaker 1: don't have a pillow and coach. They're doing that for
Speaker 1: almost free, because the only hours that they get paid
Speaker 1: for at that rate are flight hours. Yeah, when it
Speaker 1: says the boarding doors now closed, the clock just started
Speaker 1: for them. Never knew that. No, I didn't either. They
Speaker 1: get something like depending on the airline, maybe a dollar
Speaker 1: fifty to a dollar for the pre the boarding stuff,
Speaker 1: the pre while the doors open stuff, I guess is
Speaker 1: what you call it. Yeah, So like, next time you're
Speaker 1: sitting on the tarmac and you're delayed for two hours
Speaker 1: and you're super grumpy, think about that flight attendant who
Speaker 1: is getting paid almost nothing to be dealing with how
Speaker 1: grumpy you are, And if the boarding doors closed, they
Speaker 1: would be getting paid right now they sat in here
Speaker 1: if flight delays, they like, flight time is the only
Speaker 1: thing that matters. I thought it was once the door
Speaker 1: is closed. So if the doors closed and you go
Speaker 1: out to the runway and you're just sitting there on
Speaker 1: the runway, they would be getting paid. I thought that's
Speaker 1: not what it said. Somebody let us know because it
Speaker 1: said in the article. If next time you're on a
Speaker 1: big flight delay, think about the fact that they're not
Speaker 1: making any money. I know you, And that's probably why
Speaker 1: the airline put it in there, because can you imagine
Speaker 1: how much money they would have to pay in flight
Speaker 1: attendance for flight delays. Yeah, but it's not like the
Speaker 1: flight attendants are just like, I'm off the clock, don't
Speaker 1: bother me. Once we get into the air, you can
Speaker 1: bother me. You don't hear that, you know, so they
Speaker 1: should be paying them for that. Hey, I agree, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we should together and start a social movement here.
Speaker 1: I wonder why you should tip flight attendant too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not a thing. They should stand you know, at
Speaker 1: the end, when they stand there and say good day
Speaker 1: and I hope you enjoyed your flight, they should be
Speaker 1: holding the jar as far as I'm concerned, shaking it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: throw five bucks in there on your way out, bye bye.
Speaker 1: I think they'd be great. Uh. You remember Tina Mucklow,
Speaker 1: the DV Cooper heist. Yeah, he tried to give her
Speaker 1: ten dollars and she said no, tipping aloud. That's right.
Speaker 1: What a hero. And quite often flight attendants or the
Speaker 1: heroes on many flights, whether it is dealing with literally
Speaker 1: a terrorist and trying to manage that situation bravely, or
Speaker 1: god forbid, some sort of incident in the air with um,
Speaker 1: you know, like with the with the plane itself. But
Speaker 1: at the very least those jerks on planes that think
Speaker 1: they can just talk to people whoever they want, they
Speaker 1: gotta put up with a lot in a very cramped space. Um.
Speaker 1: Very early on in in flight attendant history, I don't
Speaker 1: know if we said or not. You said that Ellen
Speaker 1: Church was a registered nurse, but that was par for
Speaker 1: the course for early flight attend it's the happy registered nurses. UM.
Speaker 1: There was one named Nellie Granger who was a t
Speaker 1: W A flight attendant and she UM was on a
Speaker 1: flight going to Pittsburgh, I believe in and it crashed
Speaker 1: and she pulled a couple of passengers to safety, and
Speaker 1: UM made it down the mountain to get help and
Speaker 1: went back up with the rescuers to help. UM minister
Speaker 1: to the two injured passengers whose lives she saved an hour.
Speaker 1: She got a trip to the Equas with her aunt.
Speaker 1: That's nice fight, t w A. Yeah, I got a
Speaker 1: couple more things. There's some crazy stuff that flight attendants
Speaker 1: have seen. The one that gets me though, is dead
Speaker 1: bodies on planes that are purposefully brought onto planes, not
Speaker 1: people who die. Apparently, Singapore Airlines says what's called the
Speaker 1: corpse closet on their plane means to stow a passenger
Speaker 1: who might die midair. There in the minority there that
Speaker 1: I think they might be peculiar with that. But sometimes
Speaker 1: because shipping a body is very expensive, it can run
Speaker 1: into the thousands and thousands of dollars. Some people say, well,
Speaker 1: it'd be cheaper if I just bought a plane ticket
Speaker 1: or put my mother in a garment bag and just
Speaker 1: smuggle her body on board and took her where she's
Speaker 1: going to be buried myself. That a guy got caught
Speaker 1: doing that in Miami. Um, there was in this mental
Speaker 1: false article, there was the person who's interviewed said her
Speaker 1: roommate UM found a mother and a daughter trying to
Speaker 1: smuggle the dead father onto a flight, just in a wheelchair,
Speaker 1: and said that he had the flu, but he was
Speaker 1: clearly dead and they had to stop the plane mid flight.
Speaker 1: Maybe he did have the flu, No, he was dead.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's how I done. Oh maybe he previously had
Speaker 1: the flu. Yeah, it could have been. Like there's a
Speaker 1: kernel of truth to what we just said. That's it. Oh,
Speaker 1: and don't order to diet coke. Apparently it takes the
Speaker 1: longest to stop fizzing on a trolley. Okay, that's science.
Speaker 1: If you want to know more about flight attendants, just
Speaker 1: chat up a flight attendant. I'm sure they'd love to
Speaker 1: tell you some great stories. And in the meantime, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this p s
Speaker 1: A about the flu because we had someone Courtney Harmouth,
Speaker 1: who was a Skanni, who says this, um, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: want to basically give you a p s A about
Speaker 1: how dangerous the flu can be. In it was a
Speaker 1: healthy high school freshman was suddenly stricken with a horrible
Speaker 1: digestive distress, chills, fever, coughing. After a week or so,
Speaker 1: my parents took me to the g p UH and
Speaker 1: I was told to go the hospital for observation and
Speaker 1: get an I V. What was supposed to be one
Speaker 1: night turned into a month. I had contracted the swine
Speaker 1: flu that first night. My vitals went crazy and I
Speaker 1: ended up having to be kept in my local hospital
Speaker 1: for two weeks. To my say, I developed pneumonia as
Speaker 1: a complication. Soon after that, fluid began to fill my
Speaker 1: lungs and I had to be helicopter to a larger
Speaker 1: hospital in Madison. UM. She said being in the helicopter
Speaker 1: was pretty sweet. Though, oh really, yeah, even though you know,
Speaker 1: I Wooter would not be comfortable. I think she's a
Speaker 1: bright side person. Uh. For about twenty minutes, I was
Speaker 1: only taking in about thirty percent oxygen. My parents were
Speaker 1: told I could have brain damage or may even die.
Speaker 1: When my arrival to the larger hospital, I was immediately
Speaker 1: put to a medically induced comma for eleven days. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I was finally taken out of my coma.
Speaker 1: I had atrophied and way to measly ninety five pounds
Speaker 1: at twelve years old. I had to relearn how to
Speaker 1: walk right and use basic motor skills. I am extremely
Speaker 1: lucky and I'm completely recovered from the ordeal. Did not
Speaker 1: suffer any long term health effects, and now it's twenty
Speaker 1: three years old. I thankfully not had the flu. Since
Speaker 1: I tell this to everyone to say, please get vaccinated
Speaker 1: against the flu. The flu vaccine doesn't just protect you,
Speaker 1: but also your kids, parents, friends and co workers really
Speaker 1: love your show. Want to thank you for doing such
Speaker 1: a great job about important and sometimes hilarious topics. That
Speaker 1: is our wisconsinite Van Courtney Harmouth. Thanks a lot, Courtney.
Speaker 1: Glad you made it through that one. That was pretty scary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we said the flue could be dangerous, so you haven't.
Speaker 1: Courtney just proved good. Everybody. If you want to tell
Speaker 1: us a great story that is harrowing and amazing, we
Speaker 1: want to hear it or If you have a good
Speaker 1: flight attendant story, that's a gooding too. You can tweet
Speaker 1: to us at s Y s K podcast or at
Speaker 1: josh um Clark. You can hang out with us on
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant, or slash
Speaker 1: stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email.
Speaker 1: The Stuff podcast to how stuff Works dot com and
Speaker 1: has always joined us at at home on the web.
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