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11 Things Every Flight Attendant Is Guilty Of

Travel Jobs Student Work
by Ashley Durance Nov 3, 2014
1. Taking a 7+ hour flight somewhere “just for the weekend”

Because you work in an industry that sees travelers coming and going on a daily basis, you are forever planning your next trip. There’s no destination that isn’t worth an extreme flight duration, even if you’re just going there for two nights. To airline folk, flying to one destination and back within 24 hours is completely normal.

2. Using the 24-hour clock and phonetic alphabet out of habit

You can’t stop referring to your postal code as: “Whiskey 2 Foxtrot 3 Zulu 8.”

3. Referring to thunderstorms as “areas of weather”

Heavy rain, thunderstorms — they’re all just areas of weather. No big deal.

4. Calculating the next time you can go “bottle to throttle”

Airline employees — flight crew especially — have to obey a time allowance between consuming an alcoholic beverage and operating a flight. After a stressful flight, there’s usually at least one crew member crunching numbers to figure out whether or not she can have a drink.

5. Packing for a two-week vacation in a carry-on bag

You have the art of packing down to an exact science. Two weeks in Europe? That’s a breeze. And when you return home, you probably just keep your bag packed until your next trip.

6. Exclusively bathing with mini-soap

You also only write with hotel pens and you only drink micro-bottles of Jameson.

7. Referring to cities solely by their airplane codes

YVR, CDG, LAS — you know them all by heart. Not only do you depend on these codes in your social media updates, you say them out loud as if everyone knows exactly where you’re talking about.

8. YouTubing scarf tutorials

You can tie a scarf 22 different ways. And you look damn good in every variation.

9. Successfully estimating a bag’s weight just by looking at it

You can tell if a carry-on will fit into the overhead bin from 60 feet away.

10. Using the term “standby” in normal conversation

When confronted with a question you don’t know the answer to — or can’t answer right away — your go-to responses are “standby” or “standby one.”

11. Fantasizing at work about where you’ll travel to next

But you never forget to put a smile on your face as you send your guests on a vacation of their own.

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