Work Reform

Not a FA, but FWIW:

It's still looked at as a "glamor job". What other gig lets you travel everywhere and have hotels paid for in metropolitan areas around the world? It can be pretty cool if you get a good crew, it doesn't feel much like work on the good days. See the sights, bring home a bunch of international goodies for the family and friends, it can be great!

The flip side is:

The glamor wears off quick after you realize that you're not staying over in London, NYC, Tokyo or any other attractive international destination after one flight there, a long layover, then one flight back. You're junior so you don't have a planned flight schedule for the month, on call for 4,5,6 days in a row, you've been assigned a couple day-trips necessitating trips to the airport early in the AM and not getting done until late at night, then get assigned a multi-day 12+ leg trip that has you overnighting in Pittsburgh, Midland Texas, and Raleigh NC. You're exhausted, got reassigned thanks to weather delays, now you've got a Fresno overnight instead of Pittsburgh, all the passengers have been a PITA because it's your fault the airline can't control the weather. No food because of the delays and you've been running from flight to flight and you have been subsisting on diet coke and pretzels, tired because the overnights have been whittled down to minimum rest, and when you finally get to your two days off you have to commute home, feed the cat, do laundry, sleep in your own bed for one night and then commute back to base to be ready for your next on-call stretch. (many crew don't "live" in base, you can't afford to live in a NYC airline base on $27k a year, they get a crashpad, usually shared with multiple roomates to defray the cost of a place you just need to hang out at for the night before a trip you can't fly in for same-day or wait for a on-call assignment).

So a LOT of flight attendants don't survive the first few years when they realize that you need to be at the airline for probably 25+ years before you might approach the "glamor" side, the pay sucks, being on-call (reserve) for years and years... You can actually make decent money if you tough it out, but it;s a long road. People like the image, but it's a really steep price to finally make it to good.