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Tips and Guide to Flight Attendant Careers:

About this book

Five-star hotels, hob-nobbing with celebrities, working eight days per month and jetting around the world. Is it the life you've always dreamed of? Did we mention two-hours' notice to get to the airport, 5 a.m. departures and constant fatigue? Welcome to the world of flight attendant careers. This new Vault guide provides the inside scoop on everything from training programs and unions to crew schedules and perks for this exciting career.

Read an excerpt from the Vault Guide to Flight Attendant Careers:

Being a flight attendant certainly sounds glamorous. Plush hotels, exposure to celebrities, working eight days per month, not to mention jetting across the continent and around the world in the time it takes the sun to rise. But there are some unequivocal downsides. - like two hours' notice to get to the airport, 5 a.m. departures, constant fatigue and regular, invasive security screening. When it's good, it's great; when it's bad, it can be rough.

Being a flight attendant can also be a lonely life. While your friends may be envious of your weekend trip to London or your lunch in Seattle, they'll come to expect that you're out of town and out of touch, and will cease to include you in their plans. When they do try, they'll probably find you're exhausted from working 10 different flights in the last three days. On the rare occasions you are at home, your friends tend to be at work, or gone on trips themselves. Even when you have some great plans for your layover, a delay can quickly reduce your hot date to a cold shower.

But along with the sacrifices comes a great deal of flexibility. It's easy to start a home business, spend time with family or take classes on your days off. On your layovers, you can explore a new city, go shopping without all the kids in tow, or start that best -selling novel you've always wanted to read (or write). But being a flight attendant isn't just a job, it's a lifestyle - and an adventurous one. But be warned - being a flight attendant isn't for dilettantes. After a three month application process, six to eight weeks of training and-in many cases - relocation to an unfamiliar city as your new home base, you'll find that you still haven't flown your first trip. Your first year will zoom by after a few months of reserve and a few months trying to figure out what time zone you're in, how to get a better schedule and when you'll have time to eat. If you crave that kind of excitement or are just looking for a drastic change, being a flight attendant may just be a good fit for you.

And certain moments make it all worthwhile. Seeing the panoramic vistas at a lofty altitude, bringing home bottles of wine from Paris, seeing the whales swim off the San Diego coast or dancing the Samba during Carneval in Rio de Janeiro can't be beat. And although the relationships only last a few hours, chatting with a small business owner from Peoria, reassuring a grandma from Chattanooga or chatting with Arnold Schwarzenegger on a flight to LA are all potentially rewarding parts of the job.

• To Vault.com
Vault is the ONLY career information source with our own staff of more than a dozen industry-focused editors and researchers. Our staff stays on top of the latest developments in their industries through research of all the vital industry trade publications and research tools, as well as our own network of insider contacts, surveys, ensuring that our readers have the best and most updated information possible.

Vault guides have been published since 1997 and are the premier source of insider information on careers. Vault surveys and interviews thousands of employees each year to give readers the inside scoop on industries and specific employers to help them get the jobs they want.

See also:
• Tips on Recovering From a Career Crisis