Spilling the Tea With a Flight Attendant

The interview below is part three of a conversation with my friend, who's a flight attendant. This article contains the "gossip" portion of our discussion. (Check out parts one and two if you haven't already!)

So, to start the conversation, I guess we could start with how you became a flight attendant, whether it's something you've always wanted to do, and how it fell into place.

So, I've always wanted to be a flight attendant ever since I was a little girl with my first flight. My first flight was on a [redacted] flight to Las Vegas, Nevada for my cousin's high school graduation, and the flight attendants on the plane just left a mark on me, just with their service, with making sure I felt safe and that I wasn't scared and making me feel like I'm at home, but I'm away from home.

And I realized, "oh, that's something that I wouldn't mind doing when I'm older." And then when I went to Germany, when I was a teenager, I flew on [redacted]. And I realized it was the exact same experience from when I was five years old. And that just stuck with me again.

And at that point, I'm like, "I want to be a [redacted] flight attendant." And just being able to speak with them about… hearing how they travel the world and how they're in Amsterdam one day, they're in Los Angeles another day, and then going off to Tokyo. I just thought it was so exciting and exhilarating.

And also just taking care of other people and having compassion and being that light for someone else, while they are traveling for celebration, or to say their last goodbyes to a loved one. It makes a difference.

Thanks for sharing that. So, what judgments or stereotypes do you make based off of what people wear on the airplane?

Oh, my God. Oh. Oh, Lordy. I don't believe in wearing bonnets on the airplane. Like, being an African-American woman, I hate seeing majority African-American women coming on with a bonnet on their head. That immediately ticks me off just because of the stereotypes that we already get. And I just… immediate disappointment when I see that. Especially with my airline because it's the most prestigious, I would say, out of all the major U.S. airlines. So I wish my company will bring back a stricter policy for revenue passengers with their attire because you will never see an employee wearing that. You won't because you just never know who you're going to meet. Your manager there, the CEO, you just never know. 

The other thing I hate seeing is pajamas. I know you want to be comfortable in the airport, but please dress appropriately for… pajamas and sweatsuits, like you're not going to the gym, honey.

Please stop it. Including the baggy sweats, no. Like, no.

Put on some linen pants. Linen pants are nice. If it's cold out, you can… jeans, some looser jeans with some undergarments underneath it, like wool leggings underneath.

But just dress appropriately. You never know who you're going to meet. You never know if you're going to get upgraded, and upgrades do—they do look at appearances for upgrades, like status, but also "Okay, hey, we need to upgrade some people. Or payload optimized. We need to upgrade some people from main cabin up to a premium class area."

And hey, at that point, yeah, they're going to go off the price ticket. But they're also not going to allow someone who's in a low… or 437 tight legging sweatsuit. I don't know. Like workout gear up there. No, that's inappropriate. Don't wear club wear. It's too… stop showing off your midriff. Don't. Just cover up and then don't bring anything political. That's the other thing. You're an asshole if you wear that. Yeah, you are an asshole, and you're looking for a response from anyone—like attention.