One woman takes us inside the mysterious world of a flight attendant, from unruly passengers to 3-inch heels
"People think there's glamour associated with this job, and there is to some extent when you're talking about, 'I just got back from Beijing, and I know the best shops in the Pearl Market,' or 'I spent Chinese New Year in Hong Kong,' or 'after spending the day at Ipanema Beach in Rio, we went to a fabulous churrascaria,'" says Annette Long, a flight attendant with 13 years of experience.
"But the job itself is far from glamorous," she continues. "Even if you're working in first class or business class, it's not glamorous at all." Many flight attendants don't realize just what the job entails until they're doing it, she says.
This includes early wake-up calls and sporadic hours; flight delays and cancellations that will nix plans; weekends and holidays spent working; and often dealing with difficult or ungracious people.
But while the job isn't as glamorous as many people think, being a flight attendant does come with its own unique set of perks, among them the ability to travel the world at little cost and the flexibility to arrange your work schedule.
Because of this, the competition among flight attendant candidates is so fierce that, for certain airlines, applicants compete with thousands of other applicants. It has even been said that it's harder to get invited to certain flight-attendant training centers than to get into Harvard University.
"It's very competitive, and people get passed over all the time," Long says about becoming a flight attendant.
To find out what makes the job so appealing, we spoke to Annette about what it's really like to be a flight attendant. Here's what she said: