Flight attendant
Flight attendant (formerly also: steward or female stewardess ) is the job title for employees in a commercial aircraft who look after passengers on air travel and also ensure rapid fire-fighting in the event of an emergency in the air or an orderly evacuation on the ground. In the European legal provisions EU-OPS 1 Section O, the flight attendants are referred to as cabin crew , as opposed to the flight crew, by which the cockpit crew - i.e. pilots and flight engineers - is meant . They are part of the flying personnel of an airline or, less often, an air force unit . The military name is air transport companion .
history
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The world's first steward on board an aircraft was Heinrich Kubis in 1912 on the airship LZ 10 “Schwaben” for DELAG . On May 1, 1927, a steward of the British airline Imperial Airways , the forerunner of today's British Airways , started the world's first flight attendant service on board an aircraft on the London – Paris flight. The first German on-board steward started working for Deutsche Luft Hansa as a flight attendant on April 29, 1928 - initially on the Berlin – Paris route on board a Junkers G 31 .
The conceptual development of today's flight attendant job is based on a service idea from nurse Ellen Church (1904–1965) from the state of Iowa (USA) and Steve Stimpson, Operations Manager at Boeing Air Transport (BAT), the predecessor of today's United Airlines , in 1930 back. Stimpson wanted to introduce male flight attendants to look after passengers, following the example of other airlines. Ellen Church convinced him of the idea that female flight attendants, who were also trained nurses, would have a calming effect on passengers through their presence on board, and thus reduce the fear of flying about the airplane, which was still considered exotic and novel at the time. On May 15, 1930, Ellen Church was the first flight attendant to accompany the flight of a three-engine Boeing 80 A operated by Boeing Air Transport . This happened against the resistance of the stewards and pilots as well as against the will of the wives of the pilots. Nelly Diener became known in 1934 as the first female flight attendant for Swissair and Europe. The world's first mixed, d. H. The flight attendant group consisting of women and men was deployed by Boeing Air Transport from June 1938.
In March 1937 the four US airlines United Airlines , American Airlines , Trans World Airlines and Western Air Express employed a total of 270 hostesses , while Eastern Air Lines and Pan American Airlines employed stewards. At that time there was a special kind of personnel crisis when 17 hostesses at United Airlines left in just six weeks due to marriage. American Airlines married six flight attendants in one week in March 1937; Typically, airlines lost five to six wives to marriage throughout the year.
The longest-serving flight attendant in the world is the American Ron Akana , who worked for United Airlines for 63 years , covered an estimated 200 million air miles and was included in the Guinness Book of Records .
Tasks and functions
The main tasks of flight attendants include ensuring safety on board and looking after passengers (e.g. behavior in the event of a drop in cabin pressure, sliding and the use of life jackets). In an emergency , it is the flight attendant's responsibility to evacuate the aircraft as quickly as possible . You need to be able to fight fires and take the right action immediately in an emergency.
There are also on-board service tasks, e.g. B. serving food and drink ( airplane food ), or selling goods ( duty-free on some international flights ).
The highest-ranking flight attendant, who by law bears the responsibility towards the commander (captain) for the implementation and coordination of the safety and emergency procedures for the passenger cabin specified in the operating manual, is the purser 'AP' or 'PUR' [female form: purserette, too : Chief Steward (ess)]. In his role as cabin chief, he is the interface between the cabin crew and the crew of the cockpit . In the European legal provisions EU-OPS , the purser is referred to as the lead flight attendant, in the English version of the law as a senior cabin crew member .
Flight director or cabin services director are outdated terms and are only used in the English-speaking world on wide-body aircraft. There is also the designation Chef de Cabine (CDC).
The purser assistant is used by some airlines on wide-body aircraft as the person responsible for a separate cabin area or a class and is subordinate to the purser.
The number of flight attendants depends on the number of seats and the class of travel . No cabin worker is required for up to 19 passenger seats; A flight attendant is required from the 20th seat. Thereafter, an additional cabin employee must be deployed from every 50th passenger seat.
The flight attendant is a representative of the airline who meets the passenger most intensively and who is involved in shaping the public image of the airline through extensive customer contact. That is why most airlines attach great importance to the training and demeanor of the cabin crew. In a broader sense, flight attendants are also "ambassadors" of the country in which the airline is based. Therefore, the uniform clothing is often based on local traditions. At the German Lufthansa, for example, some cabin crews wear dirndls specially designed for Lufthansa during the Munich Oktoberfest . At the christening of the second Airbus A380 delivered to Lufthansa under the name "Munich", some of these dirndls were also represented.
In military passenger planes (e.g. in readiness for flight ), soldiers or, less often, their own employees take over the flight attendant.
education
In Germany, flight attendants are formally regarded as unskilled workers; their work is not recognized as a training occupation because of the state criteria
- Minimum duration of training
- economic benefit
- Future perspective
are not fulfilled in the in-house training of the respective airline. Flight attendants are trained theoretically and practically in a basic course lasting several weeks. The transfer of knowledge takes place according to criteria that are economically relevant for the aviation company. The training ends with an in-house examination without a state-recognized qualification.
Each airline trains its own cabin crew. Even when hiring an employee with years of flying experience with competitors, basic training is carried out from scratch.
In its judgment of March 3, 2010, the Cologne Finance Court found that flight attendant training constitutes vocational training within the meaning of Section 32 (4) sentence 1 no. 2 letter a of the Income Tax Act .
Professional advantages
- It is seen as an advantage of the job that you travel the world, deal with very different passengers and can use foreign language skills.
- Members of an airline usually enjoy greatly reduced flight tickets (around ten percent of the normal full- paying flight price); In general, it is also common for flight personnel - depending on the framework agreements - to receive discounts and rebates for services offered to tourists worldwide (e.g. hotel, rental car, etc.).
Workplace on the plane
The workplace on board
- has a humidity of about 5% to 10% in the cabin (40% to 50% on earth),
- has an air pressure in the cabin that is approximately an altitude of up to 2700 m above sea level. Corresponds to NN ,
- has an increased sound level of over 80 dB .
In addition, the aircraft cabin is exposed to increased radiation exposure from cosmic rays and higher levels of ozone . As early as 1990, the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) determined from estimates that flight personnel are exposed to doses from natural cosmic radiation that are comparable or even higher than those of people who deal with artificial radiation in medicine and technology. The recommendations of the ICRP on dose limit values were incorporated into European law and the German Radiation Protection Ordinance.
The German federal legislature has obliged all airlines subject to German law to record and archive the radiation doses that arise. Accordingly, every employee must have access to these statistics at all times. The flight-related effective dose must not exceed 20 mSv in the calendar year , while the limit for working life due to occupational radiation exposure, regardless of its origin, is 400 mSv. The regulations for the protection of flying personnel from exposure to cosmic radiation are laid down in Section 103 StrlSchV . The new version of the German regulation, which came into force on August 1, 2001, is based on EU Directive 96/29 / EURATOM.
General
The exercise of service is subject to operational and legal provisions. All crew members are subjected to a background check at regular intervals by various authorities. All safety-related procedures as well as the handling of evacuation equipment and knowledge of dangerous goods must be mastered by the crew member at all times. To this end, they complete regular refresher training courses.
For the relatives of the on-board personnel, the duties incumbent on each employee apply, in particular to the confidentiality of official matters. The members of the on-board personnel are particularly obliged to behave at all times on and off duty in such a way that the reputation of an airline is not damaged. In principle, crew members are prohibited from requesting, accepting or being promised benefits of any kind (tips, rewards, benefits in kind) from passengers in relation to their official duties.
In Germany, the Independent Flight Attendant Organization represents the interests of its members as a trade union .
Physical complaints
as such are common:
- Jet lag
- chronic sleep disorders
- Back pain
- Eating disorders caused by irregular eating and drinking.
- A crew rest area is sometimes available for work on intercontinental flights, but this does not allow deep relaxation.
- Absence of several days from the place of residence creates the risk of isolation from the social environment, including the family.
Working hours according to German law
The maximum flight duty times / rest times are regulated in Germany by legal provisions of the Luftfahrt-Bundesamt as well as by collective agreements. The maximum permissible working time of the crew members, including the standby time regulated in the ordinance, is 2000 hours per calendar year. The monthly number of flight hours is z. B. With a large German airline 70-87 hours in the mixed and intercontinental area and 69 to 89 hours in the continental area. Each company has its own regulation on the maximum monthly flight hour limit. Many employers also offer flight attendants the option of part-time employment. The number of flight hours is reduced within a month or individual months of the year can remain part-time without employment. Flight attendants are not entitled to free weekends or holidays. At a large German airline z. For example, flight attendants are entitled to at least ten days off per month or 35 days off per quarter if they are fully employed.
Legal (Germany)
Flight attendants may by order of the flight captain as pilot in command in the context of its powers of intervention according to § 12 Aviation Security Act ( board authority to exercise) and physical violence against persons on board. To protect against terrorists, flight safety attendants sometimes fly in Germany , i. H. Civilian-clad officers of the Federal Police who - unlike flight attendants - are also permitted to use firearms under Section 12 (3), sentence 3 of the Aviation Security Act under the command of the captain (commander).
synonym
Saftschubse is a colloquial, derogatory term for the professional group of flight attendants in Germany. The word was included in the 23rd edition of Dudens published on August 28, 2004 .
In Austria there is also the derogatory term “ air waiter” .
See also
- Purser / -ette
literature
- Maria Weckesser: Dream job flight attendant: the manual for your application as a stewardess / steward. With a chapter on the job of an employee at the check-in. 3. completely revised Edition. Verlag Böhme, Niedernhausen (Taunus) 2007, ISBN 978-3-9811229-2-3 .
- Federal Employment Agency (Ed.): Steward (ess) / Flugbegleiter (in). from the series " Leaflets on Vocational Studies "
- Ingo Matuschek (Ed.): Air layers: work, organization and technology in air traffic. Edition Sigma, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89404-563-0 .
- Heather Poole: We just forgot our cruising altitude. A stewardess tells . Ullstein Extra, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-86493-011-9 (American English: Cruising attitude: tales of crashpads, crew drama, and crazy passengers at 35,000 feet . Translated by Andrea Brandl, fictional representation of the training and work of a flight attendant a major US airline).
- Kathrin Leineweber: Close the door, it's drawing! From the life of a stewardess . Piper, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-492-30096-4 (fictional report about the work of a chief stewardess).
Web links
- The high-flyer. How to finance your studies as a stewardess. In: Unicum . May 2006. (Web archive) ( Memento from December 31, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- Only the most beautiful went to heaven. In: einestages.spiegel.de , September 2008 - Memories of a former Lufthansa stewardess (1964 to 1971)
- Radio colleague - pressure in cockpit and cabin. In: oe1.orf.at , Ö1-Radiocolg series of articles 10-13 January 2011
Individual evidence
- ↑ Time travel: flight attendant. Retrieved January 17, 2020 . In: Geo season. Issue 03/2012, p. 105.
- ↑ I'm Ellen, fly me: the birth of the stewardness. In: The Independent . May 21, 2005, accessed January 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Ellinor Krogmann: May 15, 1930: Finally snacks from women! Ellen Church, the world's first stewardess, takes off on her first flight. ( Memento from June 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) ( RTF ; 8 kB) on: SWR2 Zeitwort. May 15, 2008, audio file ( memento from June 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), 4:45 min.
- ↑ Air hostesses get maried at record rate. In: LIFE magazine. March 29, 1937. (English)
- ↑ Michelle Higgins: 63 Years Flying, From Glamor to Days of Gray. In: The New York Times . March 17, 2012, accessed March 5, 2014 .
- ↑ Flight attendant sets a record with 63 years of service. In: The world . August 29, 2012, accessed March 5, 2014 .
- ↑ FG Cologne, judgment of 03.03.2010 - 10 K 212/09 . openjur.de. Retrieved May 28, 2019.
- ↑ Georg Schmitt: Training to become a flight attendant is vocational training within the meaning of Section 32 Paragraph 4 No. 2 a EStG . haufe.de. Retrieved May 28, 2019.
- ↑ Germany: 2nd DVO LuftBO of November 12, 1974 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 3181) in the version of the announcements of March 10, 1982 (BAnz No. 62), last amended by the ordinance of November 12, 2003.
- ↑ Burkhard Straßmann: Saftschubse die. In: The time . 37/2004.
