Selects: How Flight Attendants Work

7:29Chuck Bryant:How about you?

7:30Josh Clark:You're fine with it? Yeah, I mean, it's no big deal. Just shoes and a laptop.

7:34Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Two bits. But it does seem like, and I read this Travel and Leisure article about flight attendants, where the author was saying, or I think she was quoting a flight attendant who was saying, like, we've all kind of decided as a group that we're fine with just getting on an airplane and getting to where we're going, and it doesn't have to be this luxury experience. Right. And as a result, the price of an airline ticket has come down dramatically. Has it? Compared to the golden age of flying, yes.

8:05Josh Clark:Oh, yeah. Yeah, but then it has gone back up since it was pretty cheap.

8:08Chuck Bryant:Yeah, but relative to, say, average income, it's, I think, much less than it was in, say, like the 60s. Right. But in the 60s, they were cutting like cuts of meat on a cart in front of you. I'm not kidding. There was a carving station that they would move. I'm not kidding. I've seen pictures of it.

8:28Josh Clark:I believe it. I think it's funny that that's the definition of fancy is a carving station. It really is. I mean, it is. The guy had the hat and everything. Yeah. Well, you and my extended family agree on that. But it's true.

8:39Chuck Bryant:And all of us take our shoes off while we eat our carved meat. But there used to be that. There were, like, piano lounges in first-class lounge. Like, it was an event. Sure. But the fact that it's gone is because we've all said, no, we want to be able to travel for less cost with fewer frills.

9:01Josh Clark:Yeah, I just kind of want to get there. I'm with you there. Yeah. If that's what you think. Or I'm with the airline industry.

9:08Chuck Bryant:Just put me on the plane and get me there.

9:10Josh Clark:Maybe throw a whiskey down my throat. Sure. And that's about all.

9:13Chuck Bryant:There you go.

9:14Josh Clark:Banana maybe. Yeah. If it's the morning.

9:17Chuck Bryant:But the people who are going to help you get there, banana and whiskey? Yeah, sure. Okay. The people who are going to help you get there, their job has changed over time. But they have not because they are unsung heroes and have been from beginning to end.

9:34Josh Clark:That's right. The early days of plane travel, they hired young men to take care of the stewardship of the plane. Cabin boys. Yeah. Cabin boy.

9:46Chuck Bryant:That Chris Elliott movie?

9:47Josh Clark:Yeah. I think that was a boat cabin, but still.

9:50Chuck Bryant:Sure.

9:51Josh Clark:Still a cabin boy. Yeah. And that was just sort of the thing. And then this woman came along, and you dug this up. It's really great. Her name was Ellen Church in the 1930s, in 1930, in fact. And she was a nurse and a licensed pilot. So she had it going on. And she said, you know what? I have an idea, Boeing Air Transport, who would become United Airlines. Why don't you hire eight women to take care of you on your flight for three months and just see how that goes? And it went great. And they said, I think we're on to something here.

10:26Chuck Bryant:Yeah. She actually pitched the idea because at first the execs were like, no, that's a stupid idea. This is no place for women. Yeah. And she said, well, get this. How is a man going to say that he can't fly because he's afraid of flying if he knows there's a woman up there flying around? And they're like, actually, that's pretty good psychology. So they took her up on it and it became a thing from that moment on. But before her, I have to say, if we're talking gender non-specific flight attendants, a man had her beat by 18 years. A German man named Heinrich Kubis, who was the world's first flight attendant, and he worked Zeppelins, including the Graf Zeppelin and the Hindenburg.

11:11Chuck Bryant:Really? Yeah. Did he die on the Hindenburg? No, he lived. Oh, wow. Very few people died on the Hindenburg. I think they were mostly on the ground, remember? Eh, I don't remember.

11:18Josh Clark:because the hydrogen burned up, and the people who died were the ones who jumped.

11:23Chuck Bryant:That's what it was.

11:24Josh Clark:Is that it?

11:25Chuck Bryant:Did we do a show on that? We've talked about it before.

11:28Josh Clark:Yeah?

11:28Chuck Bryant:Yeah, in one of our many, many, many short-lived video series.

11:33Josh Clark:Oh, right. Of course. So at any rate, Ellen Church changed the face of the flight attendant industry, and then in the 60s and 70s, of course, it was sort of a— and this is not me talking here. This is in the article. It was the sexy stewardess phase of airline travel.

11:53Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

11:54Josh Clark:And that was definitely the deal, that you had weight limits and height limits. You had to look a certain way, and they put you in just the right outfit, and it was all about sort of, hey, get up there and look good and serve drinks.

12:07Chuck Bryant:So, and they were like those limits you talk about? Yeah. Technically, they're still around. There are weight limits and height limits, but they're restricted to you can't be so short that you can't reach the overhead bins.

12:19Josh Clark:Yeah, they're all practical limits.

12:20Chuck Bryant:Right. You can't be so tall that you're just bumping your head all over the place. You have to be of an adequate size to fit into a jump seat that the flight attendants sit in. Yeah. But that's it. Back then it was you have to weigh like no more than 120 pounds. You have to be this height. And it had everything to do with looks and attractiveness.

12:42Josh Clark:Yeah, and you're 32, so you're fired.

12:44Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that was the thing. Like, very early on, I think in the 50s, I think in the 1950s, airlines started instituting age restrictions where once you got to age 32, you were no longer eligible to be a flight attendant. You might have a job down on the ground, but you couldn't be a flight attendant anymore because you were too old, according to them. Plus, also, you couldn't be married.

13:08Josh Clark:Or have kids.

13:09Chuck Bryant:Right.

13:10Josh Clark:Yeah. Very restrictive back in the day.

13:13Chuck Bryant:Also, maybe the most sexist industry that's ever existed.

13:17Josh Clark:And, of course, that's airline dependent. It's not like there was a federal regulation. Right, yeah. So it all depended. But you need a high school diploma at the very least these days, but they're very competitive jobs to get. Gone are the days where you can just waltz in there with a headshot and get a job as a flight attendant. A lot of people want these gigs. And so if you have a college degree, then you definitely have a leg up these days.

13:42Chuck Bryant:Definitely, but it's always been pretty competitive. Supposedly in 2006, Delta announced that they had 1 ,000 openings and got like 100 ,000 applications. Yeah. But it's always been like really competitive because from the beginning it was viewed as like really glamorous.

14:02Josh Clark:In the beginning. In the beginning, for sure. I don't know about from the beginning.

14:05Chuck Bryant:So because it's been a really competitive career, Chuck, and because the airlines were run by, like, men who decided that they owned their flight attendants because they ran the airlines, there was in that 60s, the swinging 60s era of that sexy stewardess thing you were talking about, like, they were a major draw for airlines. Sure. And the airlines, like, advertised them as such. So I've got, I found something. This is in that travel and leisure article I found. You ready for this?

14:43Josh Clark:I am.

14:43Chuck Bryant:This is going to knock your socks off. I purposefully didn't send this to you because.

14:47Josh Clark:You wanted my socks to be on the floor.

14:49Chuck Bryant:Yeah. So National Airlines in the 60s had an advertisement where they had flight attendants, Debbie, Cheryl, and Karen, and they could fly me. They also had an alternate slogan. I'm going to fly you like you've never been flown before. And these are print ads? Yeah. Okay. Continental, well, Continental is lame. Braniff had one. Their advertising said, does your wife know you're flying with us? Yeah. Yeah. Pacific Southwest said, you want an aisle seat because all of our flight attendants have mini skirts and sometimes they drop stuff, basically. And then get this. Eastern Airlines gave out little black books to their male passengers so they could get the numbers of the stewardesses, the flight attendants.

15:40Josh Clark:And then Qantas had a slogan, ever seen a tickle fight?

15:43Chuck Bryant:Crazy. You're right. That's basically the sentiment behind it. And so you've got the airlines advertising this, and then the flight attendants' unions are fighting this stuff tooth and nail to be treated in a dignified manner and not be fired because you weigh 122 pounds. Right. Which, yeah, it's just crazy. This is like, this was the way that it was back then. Yeah.

16:05Josh Clark:You show up for work, and it's like, hey, honey, get on the scale.

16:07Chuck Bryant:And when's your birthday again?

16:09Josh Clark:Yeah. Terrible. You kind of went to a Bill Clinton there. Sounded a little Bill Clinton-y. I thought it sounded like W. All right. Well, let's take a break then and work on our presidential accents. And we'll come back and talk about post-911 flying.

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18:46Josh Clark:All right, so we did mention that after 9-11, things, of course, did change. And things changed in a big way for flight attendants. Not that they never trained on safety, but I think the training got way more intense.

19:02Chuck Bryant:Yeah, did you see that one I sent you?

19:03Josh Clark:Yeah.

19:04Chuck Bryant:From, I think, the Points Guy's website. Yeah, we should go over that now, actually. So he has a flight attendant insider who writes quite a bit for his site. I don't remember her name, but just look up the points guy, flight attendant insider. And she goes into great detail about what it's like to go through training. And it is more intense than I realized it was for sure.

19:27Josh Clark:Yeah, and this depends on the airlines, but they sort of give averages. The average training is seven weeks, but they can be as long as 12 weeks. We're talking six days a week, 12 hours a day. And they call it Barbie boot camp because you don't show up in your sweats and tank top with no makeup.

19:45Chuck Bryant:Right. It's not like you're a passenger.

19:46Josh Clark:No. Yeah, exactly. Your big fuzzy slippers and your pillow from home. No, you show up as if you are there to work a flight. So you have to be in whatever attire that they require you to be in. Right. And have your hair done however you would do it and just basically be game day ready. and then they work you that many hours a day because that's about how many hours a day you're going to be working as a flight attendant.

20:12Chuck Bryant:When you start working, at first you have very little control over your own schedule. Although I get the impression you have flexibility out of the gate, but if you say, I want to work this many days a month, that's the input you have at first until you start to develop seniority. So, yeah, they expose you to that. Yeah. Six days a week, 12 hours a day during training.

20:35Josh Clark:For many weeks. So the first thing they do is learn all the safety equipment. They're given written tests that she said that they had to score at least a 90 on. 80.

20:48Chuck Bryant:I said that really weird, didn't I?

20:50Josh Clark:Yeah. Well, she said if it was 80, they had to retake it. So they had to score at least a 90 to pass. I got you. And then practical exams where you had to score 100 % on these practical tests, and that basically means you were on a fake plane doing the thing. And it's not like you're serving that Diet Coke wrong. It's mainly 90 % of this training, 95 % of this training.

21:14Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's what she said.

21:15Josh Clark:Is equipment, safety, all that stuff.

21:19Chuck Bryant:Right. Like the first stuff where they're giving you these tests that you have to score high on is here's all of the stuff you need to know about the equipment. And then there's the drills where you're showing that you know how to use it in these simulated emergencies, right?

21:32Josh Clark:Yeah, like smoke's pouring in a cabin. What do you do?

21:34Chuck Bryant:Did you see that one picture of Emirates Airlines? It's like the big—

21:39Josh Clark:I did not.

21:39Chuck Bryant:Like a third of an Emirates plane, basically the main cabin, with the slide-out going into a pool inside like a hangar. And you're like, oh, they're going to have to go down that slide.

21:50Josh Clark:Yeah, that's not perfect.

21:50Chuck Bryant:There's no way they're not going down that slide and high heels and everything too. But they're running these drills, and apparently this is a big – this is where most people wash out, she said, was during the drills because it's so stressful. And also she points out that because this job always has been and still is so competitive that the airlines can choose to be super picky. So they will drop you from these training programs pretty easily and quickly because they know that they can find somebody else who could do it better, right?

22:23Josh Clark:Yeah, so you end up with the cream of the crop in the end.

22:26Chuck Bryant:Exactly. That's a really good way to put it. And then she says that really the last thing they learn and the stuff that they spend the least amount of time on is the actual customer service stuff, like pushing the beverage cart, where they know exactly what to do if sudden turbulence hits and there's a beverage cart. they are taught less how to pour that Diet Coke or whatever. I think, like, I think I could do that. The pouring the stuff? I would get so stressed out.

22:52Josh Clark:The whole thing. Like, I've seen it enough now. We travel enough for work where if, like, a flight attendant was like, oh, my ankle, I could throw on the vest and run beverage service. You'd be like, step aside. I've got this. Like, I know exactly how they're doing it. I'm paying attention.

23:06Chuck Bryant:Would you splint the person's ankle first and then take over beverage service?

23:10Josh Clark:I would splint the ankle, and then I would get up. Do you want peanuts, pretzels, or a Biscoff cookie? Yep. What kind of drink do you want?

23:17Chuck Bryant:Can't serve peanuts anymore.

23:18Josh Clark:Sure you can. I had peanuts the other day.

23:21Chuck Bryant:What? Yeah.

23:22Josh Clark:You had peanuts on a flight. Yeah. I think they don't serve peanuts if someone's allergic, but I don't think they ban peanuts.

23:30Chuck Bryant:It was my impression they have just stopped. I've been on so many flights where they're like, we've got peanuts, but you can't have them because 13E is allergic. and everybody's like, now they have almonds.

23:41Josh Clark:Yeah, they did have almonds on a Delta flight the other day. They're delicious.

23:44Chuck Bryant:You had peanuts on a flight. That's like a coelacanth.

23:49Josh Clark:And then I'm a sucker for those Delta cookies, though.

23:53Chuck Bryant:Are you? I have desensitized to them. I actually just do pretzels now. Those Biscoff cookies? I used to be a junkie for them.

24:03Josh Clark:I like them.

24:04Chuck Bryant:Yeah. I mean, you know, it's just a little, was it cinnamon? A little treat in the air. A little shortbread something or other? It's like the gingerbread kind of. Gingerbread? But it's called Spekulose. Ew. Which is the worst name for a dessert treat on the planet. It says that on the package? Spekulose. It's like, yeah, that's the original Dutch name for that. Interesting. I'll tell you where the money is, Chuck.

24:23Josh Clark:Where's that?

24:24Chuck Bryant:I don't remember what airline it is, but they have this Dutch treat. It's two thin, very sweet waffle cookies with a caramel, like, inside. Yeah. Right? Caramel sandwich. And they say, take this thing and put it over your hot coffee and let the steam from the coffee warm it up. And brother, you were on cloud nine. Who tells you that? The flight attendant? The package. Oh, okay. The flight attendant doesn't tell you that.

24:51Josh Clark:Right.

24:51Chuck Bryant:They just go, here, read this package.

24:54Josh Clark:That sounds like some fancy international type of line.

24:57Chuck Bryant:No, it was domestic. Was it? I think it was Midwestern, though. There's a lot of European immigrants from the 19th century. Right.

25:05Josh Clark:So that would explain. Exerting their influence?

25:07Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

25:07Josh Clark:In all the best foodie ways. We got sidetracked there. Where were we?

25:12Chuck Bryant:Oh, we were talking about how difficult the training actually is.

25:16Josh Clark:Yeah, and that's sort of the long and short of it. I mean, it's long. It's sort of grueling. And at the very end is when you learn just the – she said that you learn that 5 % of time you spend is what you end up doing 99 % of the time. Right. But you just have to be so prepared for that 1%.

25:34Chuck Bryant:Yeah. In case something goes wrong, you can just react on instinct. Well, what made me feel really good was that she said the flight attendants you were flying with are so well trained. And they also have to go back for annual training every year to learn new stuff that the airlines have figured out, learn new procedures, whatever. And, you know, anytime, say, like an airline deploys a new jet in its fleet, they got to go figure that out because the safety stuff's in different places. and they need to know this stuff, and they need to be able to remember it and act on it during an emergency. So I guess I didn't really realize this, but any flight attendant on a commercial aircraft that you're flying is capable of saving your life should an emergency arise.

26:20Josh Clark:Yeah, I mean, they talk about they even go through, like, baby birth and training.

26:23Chuck Bryant:Right. So the next time you want to yell at them because they're saying the overhead space is full, Yeah. Remember that that person can save your life if this plane starts to go down or lands in the water or something.

26:35Josh Clark:And it's not their fault the overhead space is full.

26:37Chuck Bryant:It's all the people who put their bag up and then walk to the back of the plane.

26:41Josh Clark:Are you talking about the worst people on earth? The worst people on earth.

26:45Chuck Bryant:And they took their shoes off as they were walking back. Oh, man. Why do people do that? I don't know, but I was on a flight the other day, and I've never seen overhead space more screwed up by just a handful of people who did that. It was crazy. Like toward the end, people who were sitting in like the first, you know, five rows after first class were having to go to the back of the plane. And you're just like watching them like, oh, man, you poor person as you're walking off the plane and they're just sitting there waiting to get their bag.

27:16Josh Clark:Yeah.

27:17Chuck Bryant:It's crazy.

27:18Josh Clark:Yeah. Yeah, I think when they started charging for bags, that's when everything went berserk. Because nobody wants to check their bag except me. I don't mind now.

27:31Chuck Bryant:Yeah, it's crazy to me.

27:32Josh Clark:Yeah, I've never lost a bag, so I don't mind. I don't have to sweat it. I mean, if I'm just going on a work trip, I don't even have my roller bag anymore. And I'll buzz market them all day, my Red Ox.

27:45Chuck Bryant:Oh, really?

27:46Josh Clark:Yeah, my Red Ox shoulder bag.

27:47Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

27:48Josh Clark:The thing is great, and I can fit everything in there. But if I'm going on like a vacation, and I know you think it's heresy, but I will check that bag and relax my day away.

27:58Chuck Bryant:I'm not trying to yuck your yum here.

28:00Josh Clark:Yeah.

28:00Chuck Bryant:If you want to check your bag, that's fine.

28:02Josh Clark:Or gate check it. That's the good deal because you don't have to pay there.

28:05Chuck Bryant:Okay. I have no problem with gate checking it at the plane so it's just stowed in a handy manner so you just walk off and they hand it to you. That's fine. But there are very few things that you can do that is a bigger waste of time than standing around waiting for your bag to make it to the bag carousel. I hate doing that, especially when you're ready for vacation to start. Yeah, I don't mind because most airports, my bag's cruising around that thing by the time I get to baggage. Oh, yeah?

28:32Josh Clark:Yeah, for me.

28:32Chuck Bryant:Okay.

28:34Josh Clark:And that's just because I don't know. I don't like having to mess with fighting a bag, a suitcase on a plane.

28:43Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

28:43Josh Clark:I don't like contributing to that whole process. Much less being a business traveler. Like you see those dudes that have the roller bag with the big bag on top of that and then a backpack. You're like, dude, that's like you've got three pieces of luggage. Yep.

29:00Chuck Bryant:Need to merge them.

29:01Josh Clark:All right. But this is not about just us complaining about traveling.

29:03Chuck Bryant:No, all the flight attendants are like, get back to the flight attendants.

29:07Josh Clark:Get back to us. So customer service, it is the goal of the flight attendant to keep you happy as possible. But also, you know, they don't have to indulge you once you have passed the point of sobriety or just jerkness. They don't deal with that stuff anymore. Like they will stop boarding the plane if you are drunk before you get on and have you escorted off. It's serious business now. You shouldn't get on a plane if you're loaded.

29:38Chuck Bryant:No. Time was they would get you loaded on the plane. Right. Yeah, they don't mess with that.

29:44Josh Clark:But they're long days. So like we said, 12-hour days. They are, if you're new, like you said earlier, they don't have a ton of control over their schedule. So you're going to be working a lot of weekends. Everybody's going to be working some weekends. You're going to be doing overnight trips, spending the night in cities, and that can sometimes be fun if you put a positive spin on it. Sure. Or it can be a big drag.

30:07Chuck Bryant:Yeah. But one thing that I have seen across the board from all the sources I hit for this was that it's up to you how much or how little you fly. Up to, I think, 100 hours a month. There's like a maximum you can work. Right. They probably have minimums too, don't you think, or no? Not that I saw. Probably minimums to get perks. Probably do.

30:30Josh Clark:Yeah.

30:31Chuck Bryant:But I get the impression that that's actually once you've done it for like six months.

30:35Josh Clark:Typically when you're hired on for an airline, you're on a probationary six-month period. On the perks?

30:41Chuck Bryant:Yeah, because they don't want just, you know, number one, they don't know you from anybody. They've known you for seven weeks. They just trained you. Right. They don't know what you're really like.

30:48Josh Clark:I want 10 buddy passes, and then I'm going to quit my job.

30:50Chuck Bryant:Exactly. Well, I saw another thing, too. Apparently, buddy passes are like the worst thing that's ever happened to a flight attendant. Oh, yeah? Because everybody begs for them, but they are like really actually bad passes. like you're at the end of standby, and if your friend, if you give the buddy pass to your friend and they start yelling at the gate agent, you get in trouble because it was your buddy pass that was being used. You might even have your perks revoked because your friend was a jerk to the gate attendant, and everybody's always asking you for them. So a lot of people just don't even touch the buddy pass perk.

31:25Josh Clark:That's like if you're a country club member, you're responsible for the behavior of your guests. Right. Now— Not that I would know.

31:31Chuck Bryant:There are other perks. You don't know? You've seen Caddyshack.

31:35Josh Clark:Yeah, but I've never, like, belonged to a country club.

31:38Chuck Bryant:There are other perks where, like, family members, immediate family members, sometimes extended family members, spouses, they get the same perks you do, which very frequently is, like, you just pay taxes on the ticket and you fly for free. That's different. Like, all flight attendants take advantage of that. And some of them will hop on over to Europe or something for, you know, lunch.

32:04Josh Clark:A hundred bucks?

32:05Chuck Bryant:Yeah, maybe, if that.

32:07Josh Clark:And tax?

32:08Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

32:09Josh Clark:Well, buddy passes used to be a lot easier when they didn't oversell all the flights. You know, like I used to have friends back in the day. I'd get a buddy pass, fly, no problem. Right. But now you're right. You're in a bad position.

32:22Chuck Bryant:Yeah, you are. Do you remember flights where, like, entire rows would be empty? It was the best. They'd be like, well, the flight was scheduled, so we have to stick to it. It's strange now.

32:33Josh Clark:What a day. So you're going to be working 75 to 85 hours a month generally, but like you said, I guess you can't go over that 100 mark. And interestingly, too, another thing you get trained for is, very sadly, human trafficking these days. They will fly kidnapped people right in front of people's faces. And so flight attendants now are trained to spot this kind of activity, which can mean like an adult who doesn't really understand about the final destination. That's a bad sign. Or if it's like an adult traveler with a minor and they just – it definitely looks like a little more than parental behavior going on.

33:15Chuck Bryant:Yeah.

33:16Josh Clark:Like don't get up and go to the bathroom, that kind of thing.

33:18Chuck Bryant:Apparently that's how it started. there was a man who caught the suspicion of a flight attendant named Sandra Fiorini. She worked for American Airlines. She noticed that like a late 18-year-old teenager age guy who had an infant that still had the umbilical cord attached and like a bottle of milk in his pocket and a couple of diapers stuffed in his pocket, his other pocket. So like this baby was stolen or bought or something. Yeah. And she started looking into it and found out that this was actually a big deal and teamed up with a woman named Deborah Sigmund who founded Innocence at Risk. And they kind of started this program where now if you're a flight attendant, one of the things you're trained for is to recognize human trafficking.

34:07Chuck Bryant:And they actually, a bunch of flight attendants, volunteered at the last Super Bowl to look for human trafficking because apparently the Super Bowl is like also the Super Bowl of prostitution. Right. and human trafficking in the world every year. So flight attendants went to the Super Bowl and volunteered to kind of like keep tabs on things and call out people they thought were human traffic. You mean the big game? Yeah. Somebody wrote in and said, you can call it Super Bowl. Sure. It can't do anything.

34:36Josh Clark:Yeah, you can't like advertise anything using those words.

34:39Chuck Bryant:Right.

34:39Josh Clark:I don't think.

34:40Chuck Bryant:We can't sell our Super Bowl bobbleheads that we have a box full of. It's too bad. It was a poor investment.

34:46Josh Clark:Should we take our final break here? Yeah. All right, let's do that. We'll talk a little bit more about some of the perks and drawbacks right after this.

35:07Josh Clark:Introducing the all-new Mazda CX-5, featuring more connection. Hey, Kukul, where's the nearest Pilates class? Safety that has your back. more discovery on the scenic routes more passion in the details and more control in changing weather the all-new Mazda CX-5 more to move every side of you see it in five films at mazdausa.com slash five sides google is a trademark of google llc sequences shortened and simulated guys we got to talk about your secret late night internet searches you know the ones? Bumpy leg rash, hair loss, itchy bum. Trying to figure out your body by endlessly searching for answers.

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37:20Josh Clark:All right, let's talk about pay. Baby. You don't make a ton of money. Think starting salaries in the mid-30s? Oh, no, no. For a flight attendant?

37:31Chuck Bryant:No, no. Starting salary can be like 18. Oh, really? The median in 2012 or 13 or 14 was 37. The median.

37:40Josh Clark:Yeah.

37:41Chuck Bryant:That's like, that's the middle. That's not much, you know? That's why it's such an attractive job for people who are just looking for extra money.

37:55Josh Clark:Right.

37:56Chuck Bryant:If you're a parent and you have so much control over your schedule once you start to get some seniority, it's a great, great way to spend your money. If you're a soap opera star, it's a great, great extra job. Did you see that? Yeah. What was her name? Kate Linder, who plays Esther Valentine on The Young and the Restless.

38:15Josh Clark:Who knew? She's a flight attendant as well.

38:17Chuck Bryant:For like 32 years. Yeah. And she's done them both for about the same amount of time.

38:21Josh Clark:Yeah. And she does it like every week. Yeah, and she says it helps keep her grounded, no pun intended.

38:28Chuck Bryant:Yeah, she didn't say the no pun intended part. Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, she gets those perks.

38:33Josh Clark:She gets to fly to Europe for lunch if she wants. Right. And act on soaps.

38:37Chuck Bryant:Right. So good for her. And that's not to say that median, I mean, obviously that's the middle amount, but it goes much higher than that. And it all has to do, all perks, all pay, all benefits, all that stuff. The flight attendant profession is all about seniority. Oh, sure. And there are plenty of flight attendants out there who are career flight attendants. And, you know, like Kate Linder. She's been doing it for 32 years. There's another woman named Candy Bruton who is a 43-year veteran of flight attendant. Like you can make a long, happy career out of it. now that they've taken that age restriction off.

39:21Josh Clark:Yeah,$21.23 a few years ago an hour was the rate for a first-year attendant.

39:28Chuck Bryant:Right.

39:29Josh Clark:So plus$20 an hour. But here's the thing, and this is something that I bet 95 % of human beings don't realize. When you are sitting on that plane and those doors are open and they're getting you your first-class drinks or they're helping you put your bags away and you're complaining because you don't have a pillow and coach, They're doing that for almost free because the only hours that they get paid for at that rate are flight hours.

39:55Chuck Bryant:Yeah, when it says the boarding door is now closed, the clock just started for them. Never knew that. No, I didn't either. They get something like, depending on the airline, maybe$1.50 to$1.95 an hour for the pre-boarding stuff, the pre-while-the-door-is-open stuff, I guess is what you'd call it.

40:14Josh Clark:Yeah, so like next time you're sitting on the tarmac and you're delayed for two hours and you're super grumpy, think about that flight attendant who is getting paid almost nothing to be dealing with how grumpy you are.

40:27Chuck Bryant:If the boarding door is closed, they would be getting paid, right?

40:30Josh Clark:No, they said in here if flight delays, like flight time is the only thing that matters.

40:34Chuck Bryant:I thought it was once the door is closed. So if the door is closed and you go out to the runway and you're just sitting there on the runway, they would be getting paid, I thought.

40:42Josh Clark:That's not what it said. Somebody let us know. Because it said in the article, if next time you're on a big flight delay, think about the fact that they're not making any money.

40:50Chuck Bryant:I know.

40:51Josh Clark:And that's probably why the airline put it in there, because can you imagine how much money they would have to pay in flight attendants for flight delays?

40:58Chuck Bryant:Yeah, but it's not like the flight attendants are just like, I'm off the clock. Don't bother me. Once we get into the air, you can bother me. You don't hear that, you know? So they should be paying them for that.

41:08Josh Clark:Hey, I agree.

41:08Chuck Bryant:You know?

41:09Josh Clark:I think we should be in together and start a social movement here. I wonder why you should tip flight attendants, too.

41:16Chuck Bryant:Yeah, that's not a thing.

41:17Josh Clark:They should stand, you know, at the end when they stand there and say good day and hope you enjoyed your flight? They should be holding a jar, as far as I'm concerned.

41:24Chuck Bryant:Shaking it? Yeah, throw five bucks in there on your way out. Bye-bye. I think that'd be great. Do you remember Tina McClough? Oh, sure. The hero of the D.B. Cooper heist? Yeah. He tried to give her$10 ,000,$20 ,000, and she said, no tipping allowed. That's right. What a hero.

41:39Josh Clark:And quite often flight attendants are the heroes on many flights, whether it is dealing with literally a terrorist and trying to manage that situation bravely or, God forbid, some sort of incident in the air with the plane itself. But at the very least, those jerks on planes that think they can just talk to people however they want. They got to put up with a lot in a very cramped space.

42:05Chuck Bryant:Very early on in flight attendant history, I don't know if we said or not, you said that Ellen Church was a registered nurse, but that was par for the course for early flight attendants. They had to be registered nurses.

42:17Josh Clark:Makes sense.

42:17Chuck Bryant:There was one named Nellie Granger who was a TWA flight attendant, and she was on a flight going to Pittsburgh, I believe, in 1936, and it crashed. And she pulled a couple of passengers to safety, and made it down the mountain to get help and went back up with the rescuers to help minister to the two injured passengers whose lives she saved.

42:46Josh Clark:And she got 30 cents an hour.

42:48Chuck Bryant:She got a trip to the Indies with her aunt. That's nice. By TWA, yeah. I got a couple more things. Sure. There's some crazy stuff that flight attendants have seen. The one that gets me, though, is dead bodies on planes that are purposefully brought onto planes. Not people who die. Apparently, Singapore Airlines has what's called a corpse closet on their planes to stow a passenger who might die midair. That's nice. They're in the minority there. I think they might be peculiar with that. But sometimes, because shipping a body is very expensive, it can run into the thousands and thousands of dollars.

43:28Chuck Bryant:Yeah. Some people say, well, it'd be cheaper if I just bought a plane ticket. or put my mother in a garment bag and just smuggled her body on board and took her where she's going to be buried myself. Yeah. A guy got caught doing that in Miami. In this Mental Floss article, the person who was interviewed said her roommate found a mother and a daughter trying to smuggle the dead father onto a flight just in a wheelchair and said that he had the flu, but he was clearly dead and they had to stop the plane mid-flight.

44:01Josh Clark:Wow.

44:02Chuck Bryant:Maybe he did have the flu. No, he was dead.

44:05Josh Clark:No, I mean, maybe that's how he died.

44:06Chuck Bryant:Oh, maybe he previously had the flu? Yeah. They could have been like, there's a kernel of truth to what we just said. That's it. Oh, and don't order Diet Coke because apparently it takes the longest to stop fizzing on a trolley. Okay? That's science. If you want to know more about flight attendants, just chat up a flight attendant. I'm sure they'd love to tell you some great stories. And in the meantime, it's time for listener mail.

44:32Josh Clark:I'm going to call this PSA about the flu. Because we had someone, Courtney Harmuth, who's a scony, who says this. Hey guys, I just wanted to basically give you a PSA about how dangerous the flu can be. In 2012, I was a healthy high school freshman who was suddenly stricken with a horrible digestive distress. Chills, fever, coughing. After a week or so, my parents took me to the GP. and I was told to go to the hospital for observation and get an IV. What was supposed to be one night turned into a month. I'd contracted the swine flu.

45:07Chuck Bryant:Oh my gosh.

45:08Josh Clark:That first night my vitals went crazy and I ended up having to be kept in my local hospital for two weeks. During my stay I developed pneumonia as a complication. Soon after that, fluid began to fill my lungs and I had to be helicoptered to a larger hospital in Madison. She said being in the helicopter was pretty sweet though.

45:26Chuck Bryant:Oh really?

45:26Josh Clark:Yeah. Even though, you know. I would think being sick in a helicopter would not be comfortable. I think she's a bright side person. Okay. For about 20 minutes, I was only taking in about 30 % oxygen. My parents were told I could have brain damaged or may even die. Upon my arrival to the larger hospital, I was immediately put into a medically induced coma for 11 days. Oh, my gosh. I was finally taken out of my coma. I had atrophied and weighed a measly 95 pounds. At 12 years old, I had to relearn how to walk, write, and use basic motor skills. I am extremely lucky that I am completely recovered from the ordeal.

45:58Josh Clark:did not suffer any long-term health effects. And now at 23 years old, I've thankfully not had the flu since. I tell this to everyone to say, please get vaccinated against the flu. The flu vaccine doesn't just protect you, but also your kids, parents, friends, and coworkers. Really love your show and want to thank you for doing such a great job about important and sometimes hilarious topics. That is our Wisconsinite fan, Courtney Harmuth.

46:24Chuck Bryant:Thanks a lot, Courtney. Glad you made it through that one. That was pretty scary. Yeah, we said the flu could be dangerous. There you have it. Courtney just proved it, everybody. If you want to tell us a great story that is harrowing and amazing, we want to hear it. Or if you have a good flight attendant story, that's a good one, too. You can send us an email to StuffPodcasts at iHeartRadio.com.

46:48Josh Clark:Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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