The Declining Hotness of Flight Attendants
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
The end result is that the flight attendants that choose the "best" routes (longhaul international) are the ones that care least about their job: they're at the top and they don't need to do a good job to stay there. Ironically, that's where the money is spent, and the people spending that money therefore get worse service. It's no surprise that anyone who pays for their own flights chooses the Asian or European airlines.
(My experience flying international first class on AA is that it's barely worth the taxes on the free flight. OTOH, when my company paid $10,000 for a flight to Singapore on Cathay Pacific, it was worth every penny.)
Cabin crew only get paid from the cabin door closing to the cabin door opening. Therefore longer routes tend to be better because messing around on the ground is roughly constant no matter how long the flight, so the longer the flight the more paid hours there are per 'free' ground hour.
However there are several factors fighting this:
- Layover time in a foreign city. Some destinations have bad flight schedules so you might end up with a long unpaid layover.
- After a few years of layovers in Paris it probably doesn't seem as exciting anymore so you aren't as willing to satisfy time at home for it.
- Domestic flights (especially on smaller planes) take less time to fill up, so crew can arrive closer to 'cabin door closed' time.
- Not all cabin crew live near an international departure airport, and they don't get paid to commute. Also they don't get put in first class when flying as a NONREV anymore thanks to free elite upgrades.
Therefore it varies by airline but some domestic or short routes may get very senior staff because they happen to match up with personal schedules, and some international cities will get junior staff because the schedule or paid-vs-free hours ratio is bad.
I don't know if you're saying it's a bad thing that airlines can no longer fire the recently un-hot, I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume no. Do you think that the service being better on the airlines you mention has any real link with hotness, or just incidental correlation?
I'm not talking about hotness at all. Some employees, attractive or otherwise, are simply bad at their job. Some other employees, are really good at their job. The airlines would get better employees if they fired the bad ones and gave the good ones more money or a better schedule. That's all I'm saying.
In fact, I think the original article is pretty sad. Does anyone really care if their stewardess is hot? I don't. I just want them to hand me a can of diet coke, a napkin, a cup and some ice.
>$10,000 for a flight to Singapore on Cathay Pacific, it was worth every penny.
Also, $10,000 ÷ 17 hours (SF to Singapore) = $533/hr. For that kind of money, the hostesses better be hot, naked, and willing to give a happy ending.
I don't care if my cab driver, dry cleaner, and barrista are good looking. It's about as relevant as promoting programmers based on what kind of funny t-shirts they wear.
I have never worked a customer service job where a neat appearance (or cool, if at a certain kind of place) was not necessary.
I absolutely agree.
But the article bemoans the lack of "hotness", which I feel is incredibly sexist, no matter what sex the flight attendant is.
Ironically, I am the only developer at my job not on a Mac. Sure I get some jokes at times, but I am just as efficient as anyone else, and if I had made a switch to a Mac just to fit in, I wouldn't have been able to hit the ground running.
If so many use these tools, they should be more mature. I conclude that only a vocal minority actually develop on the Mac.
I don't know exactly how Japanese airlines work, but the system you describe (seniority) is pretty much standard in Japanese big corps, even without unions.
While that leads to extremely sad things inside the corporations (shudder), customer service doesn't usually suffer due to it. The high school kids working at my local convenience store displays a higher and more consistent level of service than the average stewardess in a North American airline.
Oh, and don't forget the rise of the MILF meme.
Statements like this, in the article, annoy me. Men aren't the only sex that prefers looking at attractive women to unattractive women. Men and women may have different motivations for our preferences of whom to look at, but we all have the preference.
Cosmopolitan magazine is bought almost exclusively by women.
Cosmopolitan magazine always has women on the cover and they are always attractive.
The point is that not only men are motivated by attractive women to spend money.
Your analogy to men is less relevant because attractiveness in men depends less on physical appearance.
As to why you see younger attendants on short flights, that's because long flights are more desirable for senior flight attendants. The way the flight bidding system works, a senior fa can fulfill their monthly flying hours quota by working 8 days of trans-Pacific flights at the start or end of a month, leaving the rest of the month free.
For me it's getting to my desired destination quickly and without too much discomfort. If I want to have hot women serve me drinks, I'll go to a burlesque club.
Also, their 25th anniversary one (2009) takes a similar track.
I'd guess it's: competition due to being seen as a glamorous job leading to a stream of young, attractive new recruits + it not meeting such expectations + (at least in Japan) girls wanting to get married by 25 and, having English under their belt and a "desirable" job, achieving this goal and stepping down to be a salaryman's wife rather than staying on until they're "less hot".
So I doubt that the average stewardess is the type that is desperate to get married by 25 (which would likely imply marrying a guy who makes less than her!), though you have a point in that when they do get married they'll most likely retire.
(FWIW, I've never been on an AA flight where all the flight attendants seemed to be able to speak a language other than English, but every flight attendant I've seen on Cathay or Dragonair has been able to speak English and probably Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese as well. I always found it very interesting that people even bother flying US-based airlines.)
I think you underestimate the relative skills/responsibilities of flight attendants vs. female Japanese office workers. They former are trained in airplane security and first aid. The latter are just administrative assistants -- even the few ones that can speak English aren't trained to be translators, for instance.
For what is worth, I use US or Canada airlines because their Tokyo-N.America-Sao Paulo flights are way cheaper than the good Asian ones (as in U$1500 instead of $2000).
1. Flight attendants is a way for women to travel before assuming traditional domestic roles. Few of them plan to make a career of it and many see it as a way to meet well connected men. The last flight I took (BA) had a thai and japanese flight attendant. Both spoke many languages fluently and both worked for their national carriers at one point, Thai Airways and JAL. When they started getting too old (>40) they were both unceremoniously booted from the airline. They really enjoyed the time they worked there but were now starting from the bottom at another airline.
2. Customer service. US airlines have gotten much worse at it Asian airlines are doing an outstanding job. Take 200+ passengers that have had a relatively shitty experience of purchasing tickets, airport security, and delays. Now it's the job of 5-10 cabin crew to try and pacify them for the next 2-6 hours. It's a recipe for disaster for everyone involved.