CNN
—
“I got here of age when the jet age got here of age,” says Ann Hood, an American novelist and New York Occasions best-selling creator, whose e book “Fly Lady” is a memoir of her adventurous years as a TWA flight attendant, proper on the finish of the Golden Age of air journey.
As a baby, rising up in Virginia, she witnessed the primary flight of the Boeing 707 – which ushered within the period of passenger jet journey – and watched Dulles airport being constructed.
On the age of 11, after she moved again to her native Rhode Island together with her household, she learn a 1964 e book titled “Find out how to grow to be an airline stewardess,” and her thoughts was made up.
“Though it was sexist as hell, it enticed me as a result of it talked about having a job that allowed you to see the world and I assumed, nicely, which may work.”
When she graduated from school, in 1978, Hood began sending job purposes to airways. “I feel 1978 was a extremely fascinating 12 months, as a result of most of the girls I went to school with had one foot in previous concepts and stereotypes, and the opposite foot sooner or later. It was type of a complicated time for younger girls.”
“Flight attendant” was a newly minted time period, a gender impartial improve from “hostesses” and “stewardesses,” and deregulation of the airline trade was across the nook, able to shake issues up.
However for probably the most half, flying was nonetheless glamorous and complicated and flight attendants had been nonetheless “stunning and attractive ornaments,” as Hood places it, though they had been already preventing for girls’s rights and towards discrimination.
The stereotype of stewardesses in miniskirts flirting with male passengers nonetheless endured, popularized by books like “Espresso, tea, or me? The uninhibited memoirs of two airline stewardesses” – printed as factual in 1967, however later revealed to have been written by Donald Bain, an American Airways PR govt.
Pictures of classic inflight eating experiences
A few of the worst necessities to be employed as a flight attendant – similar to age restrictions and dropping the job in case of marriage or childbirth – had already been lifted, however others remained.
Essentially the most stunning one, maybe, was the truth that girls needed to keep the burden that they had on the time of hiring.
“All airways despatched a chart together with your software, you checked out your peak and the utmost weight and for those who didn’t fall inside that, they wouldn’t even interview you,” says Hood. “However as soon as you bought employed, a minimum of at TWA, you couldn’t go as much as that most weight. You needed to keep at your hiring weight, which in my case was about 15 kilos lower than my most restrict.
“My roommate acquired fired over this. The actually horrible factor about it, apart from what it did to girls, is that this restriction was not eliminated till the Nineteen Nineties.”
Hood was considered one of 560 flight attendants, out of 14,000 candidates, employed in 1978 by TWA, then a serious provider, acquired by American Airways in 2001.
The job began with a couple of days of intense coaching in Kansas Metropolis, the place cadet flight attendants would study all the things from plane half names to emergency medical procedures, in addition to the security protocols of seven completely different plane. The listing included the Queen of the Skies, the Boeing 747.
“It was type of terrifying, as a result of it was so huge – and the steps, the spiral stairs that led to top quality that you simply needed to go up and down not occasionally,” says Hood. “I might maintain pondering: don’t journey. Finally I acquired used to it.”
Carving chateaubriand
She says her favourite airplane to work on was the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. “Domestically, solely Japanese Airways and TWA flew it. It was a really approachable, workable widebody airplane with a beautiful setup of two seats on all sides after which 4 seats within the center, so all people may get out simply. No person was sad on that airplane.”
Flying was nonetheless glamorous on the time, she says.
“Folks dressed as much as fly and remembered the meals in a great way. It’s actually completely different from at present. I can solely evaluate it to being in a wonderful lodge, or possibly on a cruise ship. Nothing was plastic and coach was tremendous good,” says Hood, who remembers donning her Ralph Lauren-designed uniform and carving chateaubriand cooked to style for top quality passengers, who additionally had a selection of Russian caviar and lobster bisque to go along with their Dom Perignon.
It wasn’t all a mattress of roses. Smoking on board was widespread, and for flight attendants it was a nightmare.
“When you went on a five-day journey, which wasn’t unusual, you needed to pack a separate entire uniform since you simply would scent a lot like smoke,” Hood says. “Boy, was I glad when that stopped. The entrance rows of every part had been deemed non-smoking, however the entire airplane was stuffed with smoke since you couldn’t maintain it from going backwards, it was ridiculous.”
What concerning the Mile Excessive Membership? “It wasn’t unusual on worldwide flights to see a person go into the lavatory and a minute later his seatmate be a part of him, or some model of that,” says Hood. “It didn’t occur on each flight, however you noticed it.
“Worldwide flights normally weren’t as full as they’re now, so in these center sections of 5 seats on a 747 you possibly can see a pair put the armrests up, take a blanket and disappear underneath it. I can’t say what they had been doing, but it surely appeared suspicious.”
As for passengers flirting or asking flight attendants out, it was additionally widespread. “I did date passengers, however that was principally disastrous. It was by no means what I had imagined. However in 1982, I met a man on a flight from San Francisco to New York. He was sitting in 47F – and I dated him for 5 years.”
Hood has seen her justifiable share of weird issues on board. “The weirdest would undoubtedly be the girl in top quality who gave the impression to be breastfeeding her cat. I imply, I can’t say that it was really taking place, however she had her cat to her breast.
“After which the man who flew the entire approach in his tighty-whities and his costume shirt and tie, as a result of he didn’t need to wrinkle his pants for a job interview. Or the man on a 747 in Frankfurt who was using his bicycle down the aisle,” she reveals.
That mentioned, the routine would generally kick in, and never each flight was a wondrous focus of journey and glamor.
“I might say the job was 80% enjoyable and 20% boring. In some flights, particularly those who weren’t very full, there was plenty of time to fill. You possibly can solely serve folks a lot meals and so many drinks, and play so many motion pictures. I made the job enjoyable. I liked speaking to folks. I liked the texture of it. I nonetheless love flying at present,” says Hood.
She says it was certainly doable to truly go to and expertise the cities she traveled to. “Generally your layover was actually quick otherwise you had been simply drained, however for probably the most half, the town was proper out the door. I very a lot took benefit of that when flying internationally.”
She left the job to concentrate on her writing profession in 1986, and by that point issues had modified. Deregulation, which eliminated federal management over all the things from fares to routes, had come totally into impact, altering flying eternally.
Planes grew to become stuffed with extra seats and coach stopped being as nice, however flying was additionally democratized and made accessible to a far bigger share of society.
Hood says she is happy with her profession within the skies.
“Flight attendants are a power. They’re extremely unionized. They’re impartial. Within the cabin, they make all the choices. They need to troubleshoot. They’re there for the emergency stuff. They land in cities the place they don’t know something or anybody and discover their approach.
“It’s such an empowering job, but it’s a sexist job. In itself, it’s as contradictory at present because the time wherein I began it,” she says.
However, she recommends it as a profession choice.
“I used to be 21 after I was employed, and it gave me confidence, it gave me poise, and the power to assume on my ft,” she provides. “To take cost on that airplane, and as soon as I acquired off, to stroll right into a metropolis and really feel fully at dwelling – or a minimum of determine the best way to really feel at dwelling in it.
“I don’t know if it ought to be somebody’s life’s work – if they need it to be that, nice. However I feel a couple of years working as a flight attendant may change your life.”