Difficulties of Being an Air Hostess

Air Hosts or Air Hostesses (commonly called as Flight attendants) are the members of an air crew whose primary job is to ensure the safety and comfort of passengers traveling in the flight. Their work includes helping passengers reach their seats, helping them with panel lights or oxygen masks in terms of need, as well as providing them with food and water when necessary. Being an Air Hostess has a lot of difficulties, especially in India, due to the mindset of the people in the society as well as the hiring procedures.

• Mindset of the Society –

The job of an Air Hostess is generally looked down upon in India as it not only includes wearing short dresses (for girls) as well as traveling all throughout the day. Even though not all airlines have short skirts as uniforms, the term Air Hostess has imprinted such an image in the minds of the society, that it is directly considered to be a bad job.

Anyone who has traveled in flights has definitely felt the necessity of an Air Hostess to help them when in need, and yet the job is not treated as a respectful one. Because of this reason, many people choose something else over being an Air Hostess.

• Hiring Procedures –

There are various requirements in order to be an Air Hostess, one of which is height. An Air Hostess needs to be at least 150cm in height, so that they can easily reach for the safety equipment in case of need. Another requirement is being multilingual. One who knows multiple languages, especially the ones like English, French, Spanish, etc. are considered for the position of being an Air Hostess.

Moreover, anyone who has been selected needs to go through a training period where in they will be taught about safety methods such as evacuation management, first aid, emergency landing procedures and so on. Only when they complete this training period, will the candidates be considered as Air Hostess.

Even though Air Hostesses are more than necessary to ensure a smooth flight, this job is looked down in India from the point of view of Society. To add to this discouragement, many candidates are rejected during the hiring process because of their body structure or color. Due to these reasons, it is very difficult to become an Air Hostess in India.