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- Get paid to travel the world
- Work in a people-based, customer service role
- You may work irregular hours, including evenings and weekends
Sometimes known as flight attendants or stewards/stewardesses, air cabin crew provide customer care to passengers while ensuring their comfort and safety throughout the flight. They serve refreshments and meals and will also sell gifts and duty-free items to passengers.
Cabin crew are trained to deal with security and emergency situations, which can include administering first aid to passengers, as well as ensuring that all emergency equipment is in working order prior to take-off and conducting pre-flight safety demonstrations.
DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES
Before a flight you'll:
- Go to a meeting about the flight and its schedule
- Check that there are enough supplies on the plane and that emergency equipment is working properly
- Greet passengers
- Demonstrate emergency equipment and procedures
During a flight, your duties may include:
- Making sure passengers are comfortable
- Serving food and drinks
- Selling duty-free items
- Making announcements
- Reassuring passengers in the event of an emergency
- Making sure they follow safety procedures
At the end of a flight you'll be:
- Making sure passengers leave the plane safely
- Writing a flight report
- Adding up and recording food and drink orders and duty-free sales
DAY-TO-DAY ENVIRONMENT
An exciting but demanding role with the opportunity to travel around the world. You could work on an aircraft, and your working environment may be physically demanding and cramped. You will most likely need to wear a uniform.
Cabin crew work shifts, which usually involves irregular and unsocial hours. This can mean working early mornings, through the night, at weekends and on public holidays. Shift patterns can vary from week-to-week, and the nature of the tourism industry means that many staff are recruited on a seasonal basis.
You'll need
You'll need good customer service skills, patience and the ability to remain calm in stressful situations, and to enjoy working as part of a small team.
You can apply directly to airlines for cabin crew roles or you could start by completing a relevant college course like a Level 2 Certificate in Air Cabin Crew or study a cabin crew module as part of a broader travel and tourism course.
You could also start by doing a cabin crew advanced apprenticeship. This will usually take a year to complete. You'll do on-the-job training and spend time with a college or training provider.
CAREER PROSPECTS
With experience, you could progress to cabin crew supervisor or a senior air cabin crew role. You could also move into a ground-based role like cabin crew training, recruitment, passenger services, marketing or sales.