(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 writer, whose newest guide “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 toddler, 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 guide titled “Easy methods to turn out 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, effectively, which may work.”
When she graduated from school, in 1978, Hood began sending job purposes to airways. “I believe 1978 was a very fascinating 12 months, as a result of lots 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 sort 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 flights attendants have been nonetheless “stunning and horny ornaments,” as Hood places, it, though they have 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.
Weight limits
A number of the worst necessities to be employed as a flight attendant — comparable 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 preserve the burden that they had on the time of hiring.
“All airways despatched a chart together with your utility, you checked out your top and the utmost weight and in case you didn’t fall inside that, they would not even interview you,” says Hood. “However as soon as you bought employed, not less than at TWA, you could not 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 bought fired over this. The actually horrible factor about it, aside from what it did to girls, is that this restriction was not eliminated till the Nineteen Nineties.”
Hood was certainly 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 number of days of intense coaching in Kansas Metropolis, the place cadet flight attendants would be taught every thing 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 sort of terrifying, as a result of it was so large — and the steps, the spiral stairs that led to first-class that you just needed to go up and down not occasionally,” says Hood. “I’d preserve considering: do not journey. Finally I bought used to it.”
Carving chateaubriand
Hood’s favourite aircraft was a Lockheed L-1-11 TriStar.
Christopher Deahr/Second Editorial/Flickr Imaginative and prescient/Getty Photographs
She says her favourite aircraft to work on was the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. “Domestically, solely Jap Airways and TWA flew it. It was a really approachable, workable widebody aircraft with a stunning setup of two seats on both sides after which 4 seats within the center, so everyone may get out simply. No one was sad on that aircraft.”
Flying was nonetheless glamorous on the time, she says.
“Individuals dressed as much as fly and remembered the meals in a great way. It is actually completely different from right this moment. I can solely examine it to being in a high-quality 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 first-class passengers, who additionally had a alternative of Russian caviar and lobster bisque to go together 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 have been deemed non-smoking, however the entire aircraft was stuffed with smoke since you could not preserve 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 toilet and a minute later his seatmate be a part of him, or some model of that,” says Hood. “It did not 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 may see a pair put the armrests up, take a blanket and disappear beneath it. I can not say what they have been doing, but it surely appeared suspicious.”
As for passengers flirting or asking flight attendants out, it was additionally frequent. “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.”
An empowering job
Hood left the job in 1986 to concentrate on her writing profession.
Ann Hood
Hood has seen her fair proportion of weird issues on board. “The weirdest would undoubtedly be the lady in first-class who seemed to be breastfeeding her cat. I imply, I can not say that it was truly taking place, however she had her cat to her breast.
“After which the man who flew the entire manner in his tighty-whities and his costume shirt and tie, as a result of he did not wish to wrinkle his pants for a job interview. Or the man on a 747 in Frankfurt who was driving 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’d say the job was 80% enjoyable and 20% boring. In some flights, particularly people who weren’t very full, there was a number of time to fill. You may solely serve folks a lot meals and so many drinks, and play so many motion pictures. I made the job enjoyable. I beloved speaking to folks. I beloved the texture of it. I nonetheless love flying right this moment,” says Hood.
She says it was certainly doable to truly go to and expertise the cities she traveled to. “Typically your layover was actually brief otherwise you have 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 every thing from fares to routes, had come totally into impact, altering flying perpetually.
Planes turned stuffed with extra seats and coach stopped being as nice, however flying was additionally democratized and made obtainable to a far bigger share of society.
Hood says she is happy with her profession within the skies.
“Flight attendants are a pressure. They’re extremely unionized. They’re unbiased. Within the cabin, they make all the selections. They should troubleshoot. They’re there for the emergency stuff. They land in cities the place they do not know something or anybody and discover their manner.
“It is such an empowering job, but it is a sexist job. In itself, it’s as contradictory right this moment because the time through which I began it,” she says.
However, she recommends it as a profession possibility.
“I used to be 21 after I was employed, and it gave me confidence, it gave me poise, and the flexibility to suppose on my ft,” she provides. “To take cost on that airplane, and as soon as I bought off, to stroll right into a metropolis and really feel utterly at dwelling — or not less than determine easy methods to really feel at dwelling in it.
“I do not know if it must be somebody’s life’s work — if they need it to be that, nice. However I believe a number of years working as a flight attendant may change your life.”
