Certified Flight Attendants

Most airline passengers understand that pilots are required to qualify initially through FAA guidelines, are also required to regularly undergo a physical exam just to make sure some small problem doesn’t lead to incapacitation aboard a flight.

Did you know that flight attendants are not normally required to undergo any kind of regular physical exam? When they’re hired sure, but not after that. Flight attendants also don’t fall under any FAA certification guidelines. Once the company says they are good to go, that’s it.

Most good airlines do require recurrent cabin training for flight attendants, but those standards are not near as rigorous as for pilots. But regular FAA required physicals, nope.

Although a few bone-headed flyers believe a flight attendant is around in case they want a snack or a drink, flight attendants are FAA required personnel on any airliner of more than 19 seats. Those men and women are there for the safety of passengers in an emergency. Drinks and snacks are incidental.

A Continental Expression

I climbed aboard a Continental Express Embraer RJ flight at Newark a few weeks ago on the way back to ORD. The flight was as smooth as silk. The landing perfect. Inside the cabin, however, things were not quite so smooth. In fact, by the time we landed in Chicago, I was worried. Honestly, it’s the first time I’ve ridden on an airplane when I thought the flight attendant would have gotten in the way during an emergency.

The only required flight attendant – I’ll call her Helen – was about 60 years old. As we belted in, she gave the briefing from the front while the cockpit door was still open. When she gave the flight number she got it wrong. We were flight 1602 or something like that while she mentioned 3642. Not even close I thought.  interestingly, while Helen was on the PA, the captain, another lady, could be heard in the background giving her the correct number.

That in itself is not big deal. Ever leg on an airline flight is a different number. Unless you have a cheat sheet in front of you, mistakes are common.

The temperature in the cabin was a problem though, almost from the moment of takeoff, cycling between hot and cold. Uncomfortable, but not life threatening. About the time we reached cruise altitude, it became really uncomfortable, enough that people were mumbling amongst themselves about it.

The pilot in me rang the FA call button. Maybe they had no idea what was going on since we hadn’t seen the flight attendant since takeoff. I waited … and waited. After about five minutes, Helen still hadn’t shown her face. I rang it again. Four or five minutes more and still no Helen.

The guy next to me looked at the front and then at me raising his eyebrows as if to say, “Good thing we didn’t need her for anything.” Maybe she was in the lav, I thought. A few minutes later Helen came walking down the aisle from the cockpit area. Finally, I thought. She walked right past me and the call light.

“Excuse me maam. Ah, maam.”

Helen looked the other way as she passed like she wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from. I waved my hand and eventually grabbed her attention.

People were looking at me by now with me waving my paw, but I was really starting to worry about this lady. I mentioned the call button. “I tried to ring you a few times,” I said. She asked what I needed and I mentioned the now-sweltering cabin temperature. “This particular airplane always does that,” Helen said. “Nothing we can do about it I’m afraid.” She disappeared up the aisle. I turned off the call button myself.

No more was said until we headed into ORD. After landing, Helen was a little quiet. Once we parked, she came back on the PA to say thanks for flying. When she reached the part about baggage claim and all that, she stopped in the middle of her conversation. “For those of you who checked bags at the gate at Newark, you’ll find your bags … ah … ah.” The PA clicked off. Then Helen came back on and struggled to explain what we should do to find our bags and essentially just gave up saying welcome to Chicago. On the way off the aircraft, Helene said “bye.”

An Overreaction?

I’ve spent a heck of a lot of my life in both the front and the cabin side of airliners. Never in my life have I ever encountered an employee I thought was physically impaired. If there had been a crash during this trip, we’d have needed to help this woman, not the other way around.

In defense of this flight attendant, she could have simply been sleep impaired. It happens a lot in the aviation business. In case you hadn’t noticed, the FAA barely cares about how long pilots are on duty, let alone flight attendants. But what if it was more than that?

I spent the better part of a day thinking about the incident. Was this flight attendant a problem or was I simply being silly. I called a few flight attendant friends mainly because I really wasn’t sure what to do next.

A friend from American set me straight. “Flight attendants are in the cabin for the safety of passengers,” she reminded me. “How are you going to feel if something happens on some other flight and you find out it was this same flight attendant … and that you knew and did nothing?”

I agreed and called customer service at Continental. The fellow who answered was pleasant and was clearly concerned. He said the airline would probably have someone fly with this woman a few times to see if anything was going on. He also made it clear they would not contact me in the future about the incident, period.

Did I make more out of this than was necessary? I still don’t think so.