cristiana silva 
Hi, my name is Cristiana and I’m a flight attendant. For many people, being a flight attendant it’s one of the most glamorous jobs in the world. I have to say that I love my job, I’ve been working in the skies for 11 years now, but not everything is perfect, so let’s see the advantages and disadvantages of being a flight attendant in the aviation world.
Advantages of Being a Flight Attendant
- There are plenty of travel benefits in our job, this is the major reason why a lot of people want to become a flight attendant. You can fly for free with some airlines, or have great discounts on flight tickets.
- Meeting new people from all around the world is one of my favorite things about our job. If you are a social person like me, you’ll love to be a flight attendant. From your cabin crew colleagues, pilots, airport staff, and even passengers, you’ll create long-term relationships.
- Increasing your social skills is also one of the good points in our career. You deal with more than 500 people a day, so this teaches you how to read human behavior. You’ll be interacting with many different cultures, so you’ll be able to deal with all kinds of situations.
- There is no routine in our job, so you’ll never get bored! One day you operating a flight to France and the other you’re flying to Greece. No two flights are ever the same when you work as a flight attendant, you have different destinations every day, different crew every day, and also different passengers on each flight.
Disadvantages of Being a Flight Attendant
- In this job, you’ll be away from home for long periods. You’ll lose Christmas, Easter, weddings, birthdays, and all different family/friends celebrations you can imagine, even a simple dinner. Good, we have internet now to stay connected.
- Changing shifts every week is also very hard. One day you start working at 5 am, in two days you can start at 12 pm, and in four days you can start at 00.00. Also, you need to adapt to different timezones and jet lag, so it’s very hard to have a good night’s sleep in our job (for me almost impossible).
- Love relationships are difficult in our career, or you find someone working in the same area that will understand your schedules and lifestyle, or you’ll have issues in creating a solid relationship.
- Health is the most important thing that we need to worry about. You’ll not eat proper food, you’ll not sleep properly, you’ll feel tired after a 12h shift. The best you can do it’s to cook your own food and pack your meals to eat as healthy as possible (airplane food is tasty but not to eat every day!). Also, rest your body on the days off, drink a lot of water, and exercise your body as much as you can.
Last Words
Even if is not the most glamorous job in the world, it’s wonderful to be a flight attendant with all the advantages and disadvantages of it and I wouldn’t change for anything else. If you focus on the positive aspects of our job instead of the negatives you’ll have a great experience.
All the jobs have advantages and disadvantages, so if what you do makes you happy at the end of the day, that is what matters.
See you in the skies!
Cristiana Silva
