Customer Reviews

Working the Skies: The Fast-Paced, Disorienting World of the Flight Attendant

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Whitelegg has written an accessible account of the fight attendant profession for those in the airline industry, travelers, and academics. As a flight attendant for nearly 22 years now, I know how airlines manage workers through fear and intimidation. The fact that Drew Whitelegg does not work in the industry and was still able to solicit candid responses from interviewees alone is a great feat. My labor contract states that a flight attendant can be terminated for talking disparagingly about the airline! It is understandable that some respondents had to size him up to determine his true intensions and for whom he actually works.

Most accurate in his portrayal of flight attendants is the cost-benefit decisions made daily, which often hold "lifestyle" over wages and benefits. I continue in this profession because I love my lifestyle--my job is my identity. This, however, doesn't mean that I accept continuing discriminatory practices, labor and management conflicts, abuse from passengers, and harm caused by extreme cuts to labor, but flight attendants are left with little choice when labor unions, in many ways, have a history of complicity in the commodification of labor.

Many books about or even by flight attendants are anecdotal at best, and a sociological perspective long overdue. I suspect that those who choose not to read this book do so because they wish to keep flight attendants firmly as a retro icon of servitude, rather than acknowledge us as safety professionals. No one should feel disposable in their job, yet soon after 9/11 a pilot told me just that: "Put your body between a hijacker and the flight deck door--you are disposable."

I hope those who read this book look differently at your cabin crew the next time you fly. We are human and have the right to make a living just like anyone else whether we are aging, overweight, married, or have children. This book is a must read and I also recommend "Femininity in Fight" by Kathleen M. Barry.

In Working the Skies, Drew Whitelegg takes the interviews and study of a multitude of flight attendants and creates a readable, enjoyable tale of the perils and possibilities flight attendants face. The book is part psychology, part history and part cultural study with plenty of personal tales from retired and active flight attendants. The majority of flight attendants are women, which places the job in a unique historical and social context.

Commercial flight became popular and accessible during the 1950s and 1960s. Originally, flight attendants were registered nurses to allay any health and safety concerns by fliers. It also became a respectable way for women to "escape" the house and have jobs.

As flight became safer in the 1960s, with pressurized cabins and other improvements, airlines began using the attraction and sex appeal of their flight attendants. The exotic destinations and glamour of air travel was celebrated. The author makes the case that there is currently nostalgia for this glamorous ideal of the flight attendant's world that is at odds with the demands and hazards of the job.

"Space-out" was an often-repeated phrase/concept used by the author. Flight attendants in the capacity of their job are able to create a separate world from their home world. This gives them a particular freedom of autonomy and self-expression not as available to other women, working or not. The excitement and freedom that the job allows flight attendants in the "space-out" is countered by the guilt that many flight attendants with children and those in a relationship. It's a complex issue combining cultural and social norms of what a woman should be for her children and partner with the affects of the job on the psyche along with the enjoyment of being able to "get away."

The airlines are painted as worried more about bottom-line then the lives and concerns of flight attendants: shorter layovers, less staff, a return to the "sexy" flight attendant imagery of the past that causes a "squeeze-in" where freedom becomes restricted. It's worth noting that most upper management staff are male, compared to the female-dominated flight attendant staff.

Working the Skies is an easy read, and I really enjoyed it. After reading this book, on my next flight I will be paying more attention and respect to the flight attendants I see.

If you're looking for anecdotes about the excitement of a flight attendant's day-to-day, this is not your book. If you're looking for a sociological study of the history of the position, that is what you will get.

It's rare that I have trouble finishing a book, but this book was the exception. I'm well familiar with academic literature, and this book reads like a dissertation... as I suspect it originally was. The author is trying to stretch his (obviously extensive) research into something interesting and readable, but the end result - the book - is as dray and colorless as the research. Too much is made of the concept of flight attendants as being "spaced out," a term the author coins (and then overuses) to describe their relative position vis-a-vis time and physical space. In other words, the job pays not only financially, but also by giving (predominantly) women a chance to carve out separate spheres of their lives.

Some of the historical background to the modern industry is fascinating, but it's bogged down by the unreadability of the reporting. Other facts are presented as novel, in what reads as almost an insult to the reader. (For instance, flight attendants have their own lingo! They talk of "picking up shifts" - whatever could that mean?) In an attempt to be thorough, the author has over-researched.

This book will be worthwhile for some readers, for certain, and definitely has a place in academia. However, the attempts to bill it as being of mass-market interest are perhaps too ambitious.

This book intrigued me because of my lifelong fascination with careers, career choice and career change. I am also a fan of Arlie Hochschild, the sociologist who drew our attention to emotional labor. And I used to travel extensively and talk to the flight attendants. (More than once I've been asked, "Are you sure you didn't fly? I can't believe you know this!")

So I was predisposed to like this book and mostly I did. I like the author's sociological approach, placing the attendants' work in a broader context of managing space and time. The book reads like a novel. If I were still teaching I can imagine assigning the book for a "sociology of work" or "work life balance" class.

However, after awhile I felt the author needs to introduce a healthy dose of economic reality. The book emphasizes the negativity of the job: low pay, long hours, health-threatening (and sometimes life-threatening working conditions) and more. But let's get real: ever since the jobs opened up to women, the airlines have gotten so many applicants they can afford to be demanding, selective and even unreasonable. When demand exceeds supply it's a buyer's market, i.e., the airlines are buyers and flight attendants (like all workers) sell their labor.

For some reason, most of us have no trouble understanding this idea in the real estate market but we resist applying the idea to the labor market. To be sure, as a society we want to protect workers against unsafe conditions. But whether we're talking about entry level editorial assistants, movie production assistants, adjunct professors of liberal arts or flight attendants, we need to recognize that people get paid more when their skills are scarce and/or in high demand. That's why janitors and house cleaners often earn a higher hourly wage than, say, preschool teachers and yoga instructors.

Second, many flight attendants loved (and continue to love) their jobs. Read Elliott Hester's book, Plane Insanity. I remember talking to one attendant: after complaining about her job, she said, "I have too many neat privileges to give up flying."

Back in the early days of the 40s, 50s and 60s, flight attendants did conform to stereotypes and fantasies. But you have to compare their careers to the available alternatives. Watch the video The Best of Everything to get a reality check down Memory Lane. Southwest began as the Love Airline. But the author fails to note that today's Southwest attendants wear khaki slacks or hiking-style shorts with sneakers and socks. They wear letter sweaters during football season. Not exactly seductive!

True, media often glamorize the flight attendant profession. True, the "Coffee Tea or Me" series seems bizarre, especially today. But the Gwyneth Paltrow movie actually is a very funny satire (anybody else notice the uncanny resemblance to the Cinderella story, dwarf and all)? The book and movie Catch Me If You Can depicts "stewardesses" very respectfully: many came from strict religious backgrounds and most resisted the pseudo-pilot's charms.

Finally, as in many studies of occupations, unions are presented as heroes and saviors. True, unions may have helped remove weight and other petty restrictions. However, one flight attendant told me, "They don't always help. Sometimes they make deals, where they'll help one person and not another." I have no idea if that's common or accurate perspective. But I have heard first-hand stories (mostly from management) in other fields, describing some pretty amazig deals with the unions.

In the end, the book comes across as an insightful glimpse into a profession that has fascinated outsiders since the early years of passenger flying. I would like to see a more balanced view but this book will be a welcome addition to the publications on the sociology of work.

The definitive work on this fascinating and often misunderstood profession and subculture.

WORKING THE SKIES: THE FAST-PACED, DISORIENTING WORLD OF THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT is a fine choice not only for any business library focused on careers or aviation choices, but for general-interest collections. It covers the life of the flight attendant, surveying the realities of the modern job, offering experiences of flight attendants past and present, and offering behind-the-scenes stories of their special challenges. It's an excellent, lively survey certain to reach a wide audience.

What an interesting combination of lore, reality, hyperbole and imagination. Whatever the job was called, it was never designed to be a high paid lifetime profession. Unfortunately, this position became idealized and fantasized to a point that many flight attendants expected what it wasn't what it was. The TWA strike proved that when TWA was able to replace a large percentage of TWA flight attendants in a few days. Safety is very important, but the possibility of a flight attendant performing an aircraft evacuation or similar exercise is minuscule.

Regarding sexism, it was part of the past and women were the willing participates of objectification. With the exception of Hooters (which I believe ceased operations) there is little that can be labeled as objectification today ... quite the contrary. As an example, Delta's flight attendants petitioned their company to increase their uniform size to 28. Would that be morbidly obese? What would I know? I just watched this evolve over 29 years with a major carrier.