Come fly with me
Jan 30 2010 by Karen Wilson, The Journal
AS Jet2.com announces its taking on new cabin crew in Newcastle, KAREN WILSON spent the day with staff to discover the reality behind the glamorous image.
IF you’ve seen Leonardo di Caprio surrounded by gorgeous air hostess in the film Catch me if you can or perhaps the tongue-in-cheek TV ads for Virgin Airlines, you might be under the impression that cabin crew lead a glamorous life. But is it really all pina coladas with the captain in far flung destinations?
To find out I tagged along on a flight to Cork (reality check number one) with Jet2.com which has just announced a recruitment drive for its Summer 2010 season. The budget airline is seeking 100 new cabin crew, 25 of which will be based in Newcastle where it’s launching seven new routes.
My day shadowing cabin crew Kate Lancaster, 27, Claire Burns, 37, and Nicola Lee, 38, starts a couple of hours before the afternoon flight with a pre-flight briefing in the crew room. Mostly this is spent testing each other on emergency procedures and first aid.
Kate moved from Serviceair’s check-in desk to her current role in 2007, seeing it as "the next step up" while former make-up consultant Nicola and former secretary Claire have been with the airline for four years.
"I got bored sitting in an office every day," says Claire. "Even though it’s a different shift pattern I tend to see more of my family than I would doing nine to five. I get quite a lot of days off through the week so I can drop the kids off at school."
"Every day is different," says Kate. "That’s what I like about it. If you’ve had a bad day you can go home and forget about it and the next day is a brand new day. You’re not having to sit and do paperwork from the previous day."
"You could never call it a boring job," adds Nicola.
And the downsides? All agree that it’s the early mornings and weekend working.
It’s certainly not a nine-to-five job. And finding out how many hours the crew work per week proves difficult due to complicated Civil Aviation Authority rules. However as Claire says: "The money’s good for the hours that we do."
"Especially in winter," adds Kate. "You might have only worked four days in a month."
The starting salary for cabin crew at Jet2.com is £15k but you can expect to earn in the region of £20-£25k after three to five years. This is fairly typical for the industry, with the exception of BA cabin crew who earn closer to £30k. Holidays are pretty good too (36 days a year) although you can only take nine days between May and September.
