My Former Life as a Flight Attendant - Braniff International

Sometimes one phone can turn your life completely around.

For months, I'd been working the late shift as receptionist in a hair salon and attending school in the  morning. My cosmetology training was nearly complete when I decided to take a short vacation. I had a job lined up as a hairstylist once I graduated and passed the State Bar Exam. 

One of my regular beauty school customers found out I was headed to Texas for a few days. She asked me to call her daughter while I was there. Long-distance calls used to be expensive while local calls were free. She gave me her daughter's business card with the phone number. Little did I know that phone call would change my life.

Once I settled in with the family in Texas, I gave the daughter a call. She was happy to hear news about her mother in Florida. We had a nice conversation. She was an executive in Flight Attendant services for a major airline. I mentioned that I'd always wanted to work as a flight attendant.

"Well, we're currently recruiting flight attendants." My heart skipped a beat. "But I'm not allowed to interview you."

"I understand," I told her somewhat disappointed.

"I'll ask someone to give you a call, but I can't promise anything."

I figured that was the end of it when the phone rang at my mom's house.

"This is Flight Attendant staffing," the caller announced. "Are you available for an interview tomorrow?"

Of course, I said yes. My mom and I immediately went out looking for an appropriate outfit to wear. All I had packed with me were vacation clothes. We had a great time shopping in downtown Fort Worth where she grew up.

The next day, I borrowed their car and headed to the airport. I weaved my way through the twisting maze of the huge airport, located the building and found a good parking spot. Walking toward the door in the summer Texas heat, I could feel my hair and makeup withering.

The Interview

I was asked about my work history and the reasons I wanted to be a flight attendant. I'd been a hostess at a couple of expensive restaurants and told them about that experience. I'd also worked at banks and had the cosmetology training almost finished.

"Why would you make a better flight attendant than someone else?"

They asked dozens of questions designed to evaluate my personality and suitability for the job. Despite my nervousness, I thought the interview went okay.

Once I got back home, the phone rang again.

"Would you be available tomorrow for a group interview.?" There would be a panel of pilots, senior flight attendants, and training instructors that would interview several applicants at the same time. If we made it to the finals, we'd have individual interviews after the group session.

There was an advantage to not being chosen first to answer a question. We learned from the reactions of the panel what not to say, like "I want to be a flight attendant because I love people." They were sick of hearing that.

The challenge was to come up with something original after several others already answered the same question. When the group session finished, I was chosen for an individual interview after which I resumed my vacation.

That's when the phone rang again.

This call changed all my plans going forward. The friendly voice on the phone said I'd been selected to attend Flight Attendant Training starting in one month. A couple of days later, I flew home to Florida. I could hardly believe this happened, until the offer letter arrived with the date to report for training. It was like a dream come true.

Over the next few weeks, I finished beauty school, quit my job at the salon, sold most of my belongings, and packed my car for the trip. Driving through Florida I stopped in Pensacola and took my State Board Exam for my Cosmetology license. My roommate had come with me to serve as my hair model for the practical exam. She flew home after that was over while I continued the twelve-hundred-mile drive to Dallas alone.

I had tried to become a flight attendant years earlier. At twenty-one, I'd applied with Eastern Airlines. At that time, they didn't accept married applicants and I got a letter of rejection for that reason.

Once I was single again I applied again. This time, they sent a round-trip ticket to Miami for an interview. It took a few weeks before another rejection letter came in the mail.

At twenty-five, I applied with Northwest Orient Airlines and went for an interview in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the middle of winter. There were only thirty positions available and they had 800 applicants. We were rushed through the process and told they would let us know the results. A few weeks later, another rejection letter came and I pursued other jobs.

Training in Dallas at the Royal Dunfey's Hotel

During the five-week training course, we lived in The Royal Dunfey's Hotel in Dallas. After breakfast, we were bused to the training facility on Lemon Avenue for classroom training and to practice emergency drills and CPR. We had to memorize the different codes for airports and those used between the cockpit and crew.

We jumped out of second-story windows onto scorching hot evacuation slides, learned to use fire extinguishers on real fires and fumbled our way through dark airplanes to locate safety equipment. We trained to open exit window hatches. One test required us to open the door of a 747 which was five stories above the ground.

"Again!" the emergency procedures instructor would yell as we practiced pulling the emergency hatch off the mock-up airplane.

"Now toss that hatch on the seat and move those passengers along."

We spent hours practicing airline announcements, reading them from our manuals as required by the FAA. We worked in galley mock-ups learning how to use convection ovens and coffee makers. We served seven-course dinners on real dishes with glassware. We trained for a week on bartending skills learning cocktails and how to serve wine and make cappuccinos.

At night we studied our training manuals and memorized configurations for the fleet of Braniff jets. We formed groups and quizzed each other on airport codes and their abbreviations. We practiced and role-played for hours, but it was nothing like serving onboard a flight with real passengers.

After Graduation

Our travel assignments were based on seniority or the length of time we had with the airline. Each month we bid on different schedules that were available. Some flight attendants had fifteen years or more with the company. The schedules with only five trips to Hawaii during the month usually went to them.

Newbies like us had little seniority and usually won a schedule flying as a reserve. This type of schedule had nine specified days off during the month with the rest of the time serving on twenty-four-hour call. The scheduling department could assign us a trip with as little as a one-hour notice to fill in for absent employees or those delayed by mechanical difficulties on a previous flight. We had to be ready to fly out at a moment's notice and kept a packed suitcase handy.

Despite the unusual hours, the waiting by the phone, the meal service on back-to-back commuter flights, and the rigors of standing for hours at a time, the job was a lot of fun. I'll always remember those days as some of the best of my life.