Cabin crew work throughout a flight to look after the plane passengers and keep everything running smoothly. It’s easy for fliers to think the flight attendants have a relatively easy job as they serve food and smile. Like many other jobs, however, there’s much more than meets the eye and they are plenty of challenges associated with the role. Simon Marton, once a British Airways cabin manager, has revealed the harsh realities of what working for airlines is like in his book Journey of a Reluctant Air Steward.
“For all the supposed glamour of being an airline employee,” he wrote, “the fact is that it can not only be an incredibly tiring job, but also a lonely and isolated one.
“What I have found, is that most men and women never admitted to that, almost as if they were too caught up in their preservation of the mystique for the watching world, even their colleagues.
“Fake smiles, make-up and deportment, are usually the veneers that cover the aching feeling within, that we would all rather be at home doing something ‘normal’ with our loved ones, or even just mundane, away from work.”
Exhaustion is a huge danger when it comes to flight crew. “Fatigue – the enemy of the roster,” wrote Marton.
He added that it’s a mix of short-haul and long-haul flights that is particularly tiring “because of the disruption it causes to the body’s circadian rhythm.”
Marton wrote: “Flying back and forth through multiple time-zones is incredibly demanding, and younger cabin crew and pilots fare a little better with this, but not always.”
He continued: “After enduring about a year or so of a blend of domestic, European and transatlantic routes I finally visited my GP to have a check-up and chat about my own fatigue.
“I knew I wasn’t alone, but this was my story and I couldn’t help anyone else, so I helped myself.
“He didn’t think one week off was enough, so he prescribed two weeks off, which instigated some mild quizzing by my manager.
“A soon as I mentioned the ‘fatigue’ word, I sensed some backing-off. The rosters for some junior crew, as well as senior, were punishing all right: back-to-back long haul duties, which in fairness was what some had requested, but with minimum rest in between.
“Work to live or live to work? That is the question… I was to find out that there was a steady flow of other staff visiting their GPs dotted around the UK, and rightly so.”
Marton goes onto to tell of a “medical fact” that a colleague had told him about.
“A 40-year-old air hostess had died and the autopsy revealed her organs resembled those of a woman twice her age,” he recalled.
“Easy to believe, as flying can be damaging to your health,” he claimed. “Cabin air-conditioning systems are packed with bacteria, and the recycled air has been the cause of drowsiness among working cabin crew, while passengers don’t tend to notice as they are sitting down.
“You have a 50 per cent higher risk of contracting one of several types of cancer and, at the very last, long-haul C/As have their circadian rhythm is messed about with weekly.”
Another former flight attendant has revealed there is one “volatile issue” cabin crew face that pilots do not.
Elliott Hester’s book Plane Insanity revealed that sometimes the cabin crew are not provided with any airline food at all.
“Food – of lack thereof – is a volatile issue for crew members as it is for airline passengers,” he wrote.
“Many union contracts require that airlines provide onboard meals for pilots. Flight attendants at some carriers have no such luck.