Incidentally, can anyone else believe that the American airlines let these unions happen to them? They can't even promote employees for good performance anymore; there is only one criteria that employees are evaluated on, and that's time in that job at that airline. Change jobs and you're back at the bottom. Change airlines, and you're at the bottom.
The end result is that the flight attendants that choose the "best" routes (longhaul international) are the ones that care least about their job: they're at the top and they don't need to do a good job to stay there. Ironically, that's where the money is spent, and the people spending that money therefore get worse service. It's no surprise that anyone who pays for their own flights chooses the Asian or European airlines.
(My experience flying international first class on AA is that it's barely worth the taxes on the free flight. OTOH, when my company paid $10,000 for a flight to Singapore on Cathay Pacific, it was worth every penny.)
My understanding is that the "best routes" are not necessarily international routes; they are routes that offer the most paid hours per hour spent at work.
Cabin crew only get paid from the cabin door closing to the cabin door opening. Therefore longer routes tend to be better because messing around on the ground is roughly constant no matter how long the flight, so the longer the flight the more paid hours there are per 'free' ground hour.
However there are several factors fighting this:
- Layover time in a foreign city. Some destinations have bad flight schedules so you might end up with a long unpaid layover.
- After a few years of layovers in Paris it probably doesn't seem as exciting anymore so you aren't as willing to satisfy time at home for it.
- Domestic flights (especially on smaller planes) take less time to fill up, so crew can arrive closer to 'cabin door closed' time.
- Not all cabin crew live near an international departure airport, and they don't get paid to commute. Also they don't get put in first class when flying as a NONREV anymore thanks to free elite upgrades.
Therefore it varies by airline but some domestic or short routes may get very senior staff because they happen to match up with personal schedules, and some international cities will get junior staff because the schedule or paid-vs-free hours ratio is bad.
I think you're conflating "poor service" with "declining hotness".
In fact, I think the original article is pretty sad. Does anyone really care if their stewardess is hot? I don't. I just want them to hand me a can of diet coke, a napkin, a cup and some ice.
>$10,000 for a flight to Singapore on Cathay Pacific, it was worth every penny.
Also, $10,000 ÷ 17 hours (SF to Singapore) = $533/hr. For that kind of money, the hostesses better be hot, naked, and willing to give a happy ending.
No, it's a proxy indicator. A 50-year-old can be hot if she takes care of herself (TV is full of people like this these days, hell the streets are too). Just as they have stopped caring about their appearances, they have stopped caring about customer service. If you doubt this, just try flying United long-haul.
I'm saying is "hotness" doesn't have a bearing on customer service.
I don't care if my cab driver, dry cleaner, and barrista are good looking. It's about as relevant as promoting programmers based on what kind of funny t-shirts they wear.
The amount of jobs listed on HN that are geared toward Mac users is quite sad. Not that anyone is saying "Mac Only!" but, there have been quite a few posts that simply ignore that there are skilled developers using other platforms. When I've brought it up in the past it seemed that my opinion was quite unpopular though.
Ironically, I am the only developer at my job not on a Mac. Sure I get some jokes at times, but I am just as efficient as anyone else, and if I had made a switch to a Mac just to fit in, I wouldn't have been able to hit the ground running.
I'm puzzled as you seem to be. I've had to work on many platforms. Mac tools are immature, buggy and frustrating. The frustration may be due to my unfamiliarity, but the rest is not.
If so many use these tools, they should be more mature. I conclude that only a vocal minority actually develop on the Mac.
"Hotness", is created, not given, and a committed customer service employee will perform at least the minimum self-maintenance to make them selves not unattractive.
I have never worked a customer service job where a neat appearance (or cool, if at a certain kind of place) was not necessary.
I don't want to fall in to a Reddit like trap of [citation needed] as a reply, but what in this article leads you to believe that airlines can no longer promote employees for good performance?
I don't know if you're saying it's a bad thing that airlines can no longer fire the recently un-hot, I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume no. Do you think that the service being better on the airlines you mention has any real link with hotness, or just incidental correlation?
There is simply no way such thing as a promotion at an airline. All privileges (pay, schedule selection) that are given to the pilots and flight attendants are based on hours-worked at that airline. There are no other rewards.
I'm not talking about hotness at all. Some employees, attractive or otherwise, are simply bad at their job. Some other employees, are really good at their job. The airlines would get better employees if they fired the bad ones and gave the good ones more money or a better schedule. That's all I'm saying.
> (...) are the ones that care least about their job: they're at the top and they don't need to do a good job to stay there.
I don't know exactly how Japanese airlines work, but the system you describe (seniority) is pretty much standard in Japanese big corps, even without unions.
While that leads to extremely sad things inside the corporations (shudder), customer service doesn't usually suffer due to it. The high school kids working at my local convenience store displays a higher and more consistent level of service than the average stewardess in a North American airline.
While the current "un-hotness" of flight attendants might be union driven, I'm fairly certain there's another dynamic that would kick in if unions go away: It's simply bad business to fire/not hire good employees because they don't live up to a certain aesthetic. As the first analysis notes, people probably aren't willing to pay much, if anything at all, for hotness, while competence might be valuable.
Throw in greying American demographics, the majority of college graduates being women, an understanding of the costs associated with hiring and training personnel, and the work environment changing from Pacific Clippers to Cattle Cars and the change is unsurprising.
"...as much as male customers might have enjoyed the eye candy..."
Statements like this, in the article, annoy me. Men aren't the only sex that prefers looking at attractive women to unattractive women. Men and women may have different motivations for our preferences of whom to look at, but we all have the preference.
But keep in mind, the article is clearly outlining what was the mentality in the 70's - and mentions that one of the forces included outrage from feminist groups. The average business traveler in those days, and thus the most important clientele of an airline, were men - and catering to the "needs" of those men is what made them money.
I don't understand. As a man, would I prefer to be served by a hot man or an ugly man. Honestly, I don't really care. I can't say the same thing for women, however.
From talking to senior flight attendants about how things used to be in the old days, I think the blogger is correct that strong unions are the reason for this change in the composition of the flight attendant work force.
As to why you see younger attendants on short flights, that's because long flights are more desirable for senior flight attendants. The way the flight bidding system works, a senior fa can fulfill their monthly flying hours quota by working 8 days of trans-Pacific flights at the start or end of a month, leaving the rest of the month free.
Southwest Airlines is employee owned and operated, and service is a lot better (and friendlier) as a result. They love their jobs, and they care about the experience. That is much more important than physical appearance.
Branson is just the type of owner that could use employee attractiveness to differentiate his product from the others. As I see it now, the airline industry is in a sad shape, expensive, homogenous, and bland, not to mention treating their customers like criminals. It needs something to make me want to get back on a plane. Attractive attendants might do it.
> It needs something to make me want to get back on a plane.
For me it's getting to my desired destination quickly and without too much discomfort. If I want to have hot women serve me drinks, I'll go to a burlesque club.
On my first Virgin America flight (very soon after they started) the flight attendants were unusually attractive young women, one of them especially so. A lot of heads would literally turn when she went by. I overhead someone asking her how she got the job and she said "I was recruited." So that's one data point...
When Virgin Atlantic started their FAs were young and very pleasing to the eye. However they are also unionised, and as such will suffer the same fate as the rest of the airlines.
Two thoughts came to mind: (1) WTF is this doing on Hacker News? (2) If people are so uncomfortable with unions and labor laws, are they willing to go the Soylent Green factory when they hit 30, fail to ship or have medical issues?
I would be interested to see what makes the Asian airlines different... it seems as though flight attendants there are usually younger and quite attractive.
I used to teach English in a stewardess school in Tokyo. It is a VERY sought after position for young ladies just out of high school or short-term language school. Competition is so fierce, they even teach them how to do their make-up, part their hair, tie their scarf and ENTER THE ROOM and BOW depending on which airline they are applying for.
I'd guess it's: competition due to being seen as a glamorous job leading to a stream of young, attractive new recruits + it not meeting such expectations + (at least in Japan) girls wanting to get married by 25 and, having English under their belt and a "desirable" job, achieving this goal and stepping down to be a salaryman's wife rather than staying on until they're "less hot".
It's not only a glamorous job, it's a very well-paid job in comparison to the average OL ("office lady"). In fact, the average stewardess annual salary is higher than the average (male) salaryman's.
So I doubt that the average stewardess is the type that is desperate to get married by 25 (which would likely imply marrying a guy who makes less than her!), though you have a point in that when they do get married they'll most likely retire.
I've always wondered about this, because I've been very surprised that people that can speak so many languages are serving me coffee on an airplane. But if the pay is better than sitting in an office and translating instruction manuals or whatever, then it makes perfect sense to me.
(FWIW, I've never been on an AA flight where all the flight attendants seemed to be able to speak a language other than English, but every flight attendant I've seen on Cathay or Dragonair has been able to speak English and probably Cantonese, Mandarin, and Japanese as well. I always found it very interesting that people even bother flying US-based airlines.)
I think you underestimate the relative skills/responsibilities of flight attendants vs. female Japanese office workers. They former are trained in airplane security and first aid. The latter are just administrative assistants -- even the few ones that can speak English aren't trained to be translators, for instance.
For what is worth, I use US or Canada airlines because their Tokyo-N.America-Sao Paulo flights are way cheaper than the good Asian ones (as in U$1500 instead of $2000).
The absence of labor and discrimination laws for one. A close second is customer service.
1. Flight attendants is a way for women to travel before assuming traditional domestic roles. Few of them plan to make a career of it and many see it as a way to meet well connected men. The last flight I took (BA) had a thai and japanese flight attendant. Both spoke many languages fluently and both worked for their national carriers at one point, Thai Airways and JAL. When they started getting too old (>40) they were both unceremoniously booted from the airline. They really enjoyed the time they worked there but were now starting from the bottom at another airline.
2. Customer service. US airlines have gotten much worse at it Asian airlines are doing an outstanding job. Take 200+ passengers that have had a relatively shitty experience of purchasing tickets, airport security, and delays. Now it's the job of 5-10 cabin crew to try and pacify them for the next 2-6 hours. It's a recipe for disaster for everyone involved.
I still find flight attendants young and attractive (a present fact, not some dream or whatsoever). The thing is, it's just not so happening in US airlines, but in Asian airlines. Policies on age requirement have let the state as is, even there are also unions in those airline companies.
The end result is that the flight attendants that choose the "best" routes (longhaul international) are the ones that care least about their job: they're at the top and they don't need to do a good job to stay there. Ironically, that's where the money is spent, and the people spending that money therefore get worse service. It's no surprise that anyone who pays for their own flights chooses the Asian or European airlines.
(My experience flying international first class on AA is that it's barely worth the taxes on the free flight. OTOH, when my company paid $10,000 for a flight to Singapore on Cathay Pacific, it was worth every penny.)