Flight attendants

Decades before the #MeToo movement, flight attendants navigated a workplace in which their employers required them to stay thin, remain unmarried, and squeeze into revealing clothing every day. In the early 1970s, flight attendants organized one of the first campaigns against workplace sexual harassment, assault, and sexual discrimination.

In contrast to the beautiful and shining outfit of a flight attendant, there is an unbelievable stress arising from various aspects of the airline work perceived to be physically threatening, as well as emotionally devastating. Therefore, flight attendants are required and expected to handle such stress provoking job. This stress management would be more effective if the main causes of work stress, their related symptoms, and methods of coping them are known and investigated. So the current study tried to identify the main causes of work stress, as well as the most frequent stress-related symptoms which Iranian flight attendants experience during flight. The evaluation and ways in managing stress were also examined. For this purpose, both qualitative and quantitative data collection were conducted through in-depth interview and questionnaire survey for answering the research questions. The result of the study demonstrated that causes of stress were peers, customers, and dominating work climate. Moreover, it was found that the most frequent symptom caused by stress within Iranian flight attendants was fatigue, whereas backache, and headache were the second and third frequent symptoms. Anger, worries, loneliness, powerlessness, frustration, depression, crying and yelling were the other symptoms in the order of frequency. Drinking coffee or coke, as well as talking with someone who they can trust onboard and using relationship techniques were the most frequent coping methods respectively. Furthermore, eating, taking aspirin, exercising and, using medications were the other coping methods they used in relieving their stress. Finally, it was found that the airlines failed to have specific well-organized program for stress management due to a miscommunication existing between the airline and their aircrews, specifically with their flight attendants. This situation resulted in less productivity among the aircrews and also their main reason for requesting a leave from work.

This paper proposes and tests a conceptual model that investigates job embeddedness (JE) as a mediator of the effects of high-performance work practices (HPWPs), as manifested by selective staffing, job security , training, empowerment, rewards, teamwork, and career opportunities, on creative performance (CP) and extra-role customer service (ERCS). Data obtained from flight attendants with a time lag of two weeks in Iran were used to test the aforementioned relationships through structural equation modeling. The results suggest that JE functions as a full mediator of the joint effects of HPWPs on performance outcomes. Specifically, HPWPs jointly enhance JE. JE in turn leads to elevated levels of CP and ERCS. Implications of the results are discussed and future research directions are offered.

– Flight Attendants or Cabin Crew are among the professional airline personnel whose primary
responsibility is to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers aboard an aircraft. This paper is aimed to
determine the alignment of the College of International Tourism and Hospitality Management’s Tourism
Curriculum to the employment qualifications on both domestic and international flight attendants. The
result of this study may be utilized to further enhance the existing curriculum to suit the employment
standards of both local and international airline companies. Moreover, this study may serve as a guide for
tourism students to confidently pursue a career of flight attendant in the future. A descriptive-correlation
design was used in the conduct of the study. Questionnaire was used as main data gathering instrument
utilizing percentage, frequency and weighted mean as statistical tool. A commercial airline is a company
that transports passengers via air wherein professionals are hired to effectively deliver ultimate satisfaction
to the traveling public. With the in depth training that each company provides, including service, safety and
emergency, fist aid and others, trainees must be fully equipped with the right attitude and learning which
could be acquired in a university offering quality education. As flight attendants are among the front liners
of an airline company, one is expected to properly represent the company in the eyes of the public at all
times.

In Thailand, flight attendants are considered good at English communicative skills, which is an amazing thing to most Thais. This is because, after spending at least 12 years learning English in primary and secondary schools and universities, they still cannot understand or communicate in English fluently, especially with listening and speaking skills. However, previous studies found that flight attendants did have English communication problems. The paper focuses on linguistics-related problems that Thai flight attendants, including senior flight attendants, encountered while communicating with passengers in English. Accents and pronunciation play some of the major parts in terms of listening and speaking proficiencies. Pronunciation is the basics of listening skills which leads to speaking skills. Failing to pronounce correctly, the English learners could have problems with all four English skills (speaking, listening, reading, and writing). Nonetheless, it could be said that pronunciation has been overlooked in Thai education.

O objetivo desta tese é explorar como as trajetórias de vida das comissárias de bordo da extinta Varig formam parte do processo de individualização feminina em contextos urbanos contemporâneos. Através de entrevistas biográficas com mulheres que pertenceram a essa companhia entre 1970 e 2006, o trabalho reconstrói essas trajetórias desde o afastamento do núcleo familiar de origem até as últimas instâncias de uma promissora carreira, caracterizada pela estabilidade financeira, a aventura e o glamour. Acompanhando as narrativas com a análise de documentos históricos (artigos de jornais, depoimentos, fotografias e objetos), são também examinadas dinâmicas institucionais da companhia, como o tipo de relações laborais propugnado e o papel das comissárias nas estratégias comerciais e publicitárias da empresa. Cara ao enfoque privilegiado, a relação entre o projeto profissional, o casamento e a maternidade, é abordada no terceiro capítulo. A falência da companhia, narrada como um forte “baque”, representou uma bifurcação biográfica na vida dessas fieis funcionárias. Os movimentos biográficos posteriores dependeram de disposições (capitais, afetos e valores) variáveis, e foram denominados adaptação, reconversão e renúncia. Produto de relações de trabalho perduráveis e da luta pelos direitos trabalhistas e previdenciários negligenciados, a sociabilidade atual desses ex-colegas é descrita no quinto e último capítulo. Concluo com alguns apontamentos sobre o modo como independência, autonomia e gênero se interconectam neste particular setor das camadas médias metropolitanas.

This was a phenomenological study sampling 20 former flight attendants and their perceptions and experiences with unions in the industry. The study summarized personal reflexive interviews
and the conclusions were based on the three principle research questions that guided the study:
(1) Are unions creating an antagonistic environment between employers and employees or
encouraging a better relationship?
(2) Are flight attendant unions addressing the concerns of their
membership?
(3) Are corporations doing a better job of identifying worker concerns and executing solutions than unions in the 21st Century? It was conclusive that unions still play a significant role in the structure and protection of worker rights. The study revealed that unions of
present day have been languid in the securing the standard set forth by the inaugurating union that had a long standing commitment towards the working class and their constituents.
The underlying factors lie within the Psychological Contract between Corporations, Unions and how they relate to their employees/membership. Additional research is needed in the field of
interpreting what the more successful unions and corporations are doing to maintain unionism or non-unionism in the work place. Concentration on two or more corporations who are willing to disclose current opposing methods about unionism is another facet that should be explored in future studies. The study also discovered that unions of today are not in step with using the technology of today to reach membership and getting them involved with their union’s specific agenda. Further research is need to uncover if there are any unions that are in lock step with technological wants and needs of union memberships unveiled in Chapter 5 and if so, how they
fair with membership confidence paralleled with unions who do not.

This paper analyzes the shift in gender roles and relations throughout the twentieth  century through the lens of the flight attendant occupation. It ties the grassroots of feminism in the career to the second-wave feminism movement and analyzes how the women were impacted by Title VII and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also shares the stories of several women impacted both positively and negatively by the relationships between men and women from the 1930s to the late 1980s.

This study looks at the effects of job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and individual factors on flight attendants’ turnover intentions. It makes use of samples of the attendants from a Taiwanese airline company. From the results of a logistic regression analysis, two aspects of organizational commitment (i.e. normative commitment and continuance commitment) as well as job-itself satisfaction were found significantly negative

“Emergency equipment checked. Cabin sweep done. Mobile phones off mode.” is a standard routine used by the cabin crew of one of the Polish airlines after checking the emergency equipment before each rotation. But what is cabin sweep and why isn't the Polish equivalent of the word used? At first glance, it is clear that communication between cabin crew members is quite specific and governed by its rights. The paper, which will be based on ethnographic studies (participating observation) carried out on board of Enter Air aircrafts between June 2017 and October 2019, will present selected aspects of specialised communication between flight attendants. However, the main focus will be on the terminology used by cabin crew in conversations with each other. One of the hallmarks is the use of many English words. This should not come as a surprise, because English is the language of aviation. The terminology used by cabin crew is intended to transfer as much content in as less words as possible. Also numerous abbreviations and neologisms will be presented as well as those terms that are successfully used in everyday situations, but gain a whole new meaning in the language of cabin crew members.

This article considers the affective design and atmospheric manipulation of spaces of transportation before they are made available for use or consumption. Recent scholarship emphasises the experiential aspect of these onboard spaces, and how affective atmospheres are spontaneously conjured and felt amidst mobility. This article aims to develop a keener understanding of the role of transport providers in (co)founding such ambiences, and makes a case for the importance of their prior manipulations. Taking the aircraft cabin as an example where transport operators labour to (pre)shape passenger experience, I interrogate the early organisational practices of one non-Western airline – Singapore (SIA) – in deploying flight attendants known as Singapore Girls to imbue its cabins with certain strategic atmospheres by design. Empirical sections draw on staff newsletters and newspaper reports to show how SIA sought to induce comforting moods of Oriental hospitality, familiarity and quickened senses of care within its cabins through its crew members. While this research focuses on the design intentions of an airline, its findings have wide-ranging implications on the future study of affective atmospheres in terms of their pre-fabrication in a variety of consumer contexts. Relevant to scholars of geography, mobilities, tourism and beyond, this article draws ethical attention to the politics of such methods of anticipatory atmosphere-making, and prompts further questions about their global circulation.

... TABLE 1. Demographic Profile ... of other researchers of the relationship are in the context of significantly positive or negative job satisfaction and internal service quality, creating a ... When reviewing the results in terms of the demographics, the similar-ity to previous studies is mixed ...

type="main"> This paper examines union grievances dealing with the body, appearance and demeanour fought by the Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants Association, on behalf of its female and male members over a 30-year period. Taking a historical, materialist-feminist approach, we examine how workers used the grievance system to resist regulations they believed contradicted their right to dignified labour. We ask how and why bodily regulation differed for men and women, and how this changed over time, as the union merged its male and female job occupations. Using arbitrated grievances, union records and discussion of these issues in the mass media, we show how both feminism and service union activism encouraged flight attendant resistance to airlines’ efforts to regulate the appropriate body and attire for male and female workers. The use of labour law offered workers some respite from regulation, but did not facilitate fundamental questions about the power of management to ‘dress’ its workers.

This paper provides an empirical investigation of Israeli flight attendants in order to characterize the structural underpinnings of the liquid self, and their resultant phenomenological consequences on personal morality, conceptions of self and interpersonal relations. The study touched upon the motivations and behaviours of flight attendants, how they juggle family and personal commitments, and the internal persona they adopt vis-à-vis their own selves. By contextualizing their narratives through the structural elements of their jobs, the study exposes the attendants’ ambivalent and incoherent lives and the complex ways in which they manage their social networks across place and time. While flight attendants evince chameleon-like selves and fluid morality in their interpersonal relations – taking advantage of their ability to stage different selves in different ports of life – they maintain their multiple selves in functioning ways.

This article explores the body politics of Thai female flight attendants, starting with the ways in which corporate mandates, training, and management seek to shape a standardized model of Thai female beauty. Workers are expected to comply with these mandates and some go to great lengths to conform. On the other hand, there are bodily practices which are outside the realm of these mandates which flight attendants also engage in, as they are not entirely complicit with management’s directives. Ultimately, the body politics of Thai female flight attendants lies at the nexus between corporate image, national ideology, and notions of gendered labour.

This paper provides an empirical investigation of Israeli flight attendants in order to characterize the structural underpinnings of the liquid self, and their resultant phenomenological consequences on personal morality, conceptions of self and interpersonal relations. The study touched upon the motivations and behaviours of flight attendants, how they juggle family and personal commitments, and the internal persona they adopt vis-à-vis their own selves. By contextualizing their narratives through the structural elements of their jobs, the study exposes the attendants’ ambivalent and incoherent lives and the complex ways in which they manage their social networks across place and time. While flight attendants evince chameleon-like selves and fluid morality in their interpersonal relations – taking advantage of their ability to stage different selves in different ports of life – they maintain their multiple selves in functioning ways.

This paper provides an empirical investigation of Israeli flight attendants in order to characterize the structural underpinnings of the liquid self, and their resultant phenomenological consequences on personal morality, conceptions of self and interpersonal relations. The study touched upon the motivations and behaviours of flight attendants, how they juggle family and personal commitments, and the internal persona they adopt vis-à-vis their own selves. By contextualizing their narratives through the structural elements of their jobs, the study exposes the attendants' ambivalent and incoherent lives and the complex ways in which they manage their social networks across place and time. While flight attendants evince chameleon-like selves and fluid morality in their interpersonal relations – taking advantage of their ability to stage different selves in different ports of life – they maintain their multiple selves in functioning ways.