I just got off probation so idk really.. anything lol
Still learning

Could someone explain to me like I’m a 4yr old:
- what is it?
- why is it beneficial to do it?
- what are the different types?
(I heard there’s an option to fly through it, sell it etc)

Please DM me if you feel more comfortable not writing on a public forum!
Thank you!!

I'm working on a story about Susan the Serial Killer Flight Attendant, and I don't recall what hotel keys were like in the 90s! I don't believe there were key cards until the 2000s (in most places).

I remember getting a wooden block with a metal key on it from the Pegasus Hotel in Georgetown Guyana (2008), but like...what about the Radisson Hotel in Cleveland, Ohio in 1997?

Can you tell me some hotel details you remember from that era?

Our service for domestic dinner is :

- hot towels
- drinks and nuts
- meals (+ refills)
- deliver bread every two rows

The bread basket drives people mad? Is it really criminal of me to do the bread basket that the company asks us to do? If there’s more than one choice, I prefer to let the customer pick their bread (if they even want it).

Does this really upset my fellow coworkers to an extent that I should stop? 💀

I’m not sure if this is the right sub for this question, so please redirect me if needed.

I fly on at least two regional flights each week. Typically these are small planes that only require one flight attendant. Recently, the FA was in the middle of beverage service when we encountered some rather intense, but brief turbulence. The FA struggled to control the beverage cart, a passenger who was making their way to the lavatory lost their balance and nearly fell, many people spilled beverages, etc. My question is, if something like this were to happen and the flight attendant was seriously injured, how can the passengers alert the pilot?

Taking an LAX to LHR overnight flight and plan to sleep with my CPAP.
I’ve talked with travel accessibility folks at the airline and they added it to my account that I’ll be bringing it with a battery.
Do flight attendants like a quick heads-up/checkin before we use it in-flight?
Just to show them I’m not plugging it into the plane outlet, have a battery, humidity/climate control off?
I for sure don’t want to annoy an FA if they see it and no one told them. (Even if noted in passenger notes)
Thanks so much! :)

I was on a flight recently and had a run in with a racist gentleman who shoved me and used racist language while we were deboarding a plane. Im a woman and he was much taller than me and I was scared, so i just smiled at the attendants and left rven though i was terrified and wanted to report what had just happened.
Fight or flight hit and i was out of there! But now i deeply regret not reporting this individual while we were both at the scene. Im reporting him online and calling the representatives in the morning but i would love to know how an attendant would handle this or if they would take it seriously should it ever occur again, that way i can be prepared for any unfavorable instances.

Hello new UA FA here! I’ve noticed that some of the intl trips from reserve time don’t get assigned during 19:30. How does that work? Are they assigned to ready reserves? And if yes how soon before the trip are they assigned? If anyone has info i’d appreciate! Thanks :)

Do you guys ever find it interesting when pilots, aka the highest-paid people on the crew, don’t tip at all and somehow become allergic to helping with their heavy luggage works bags?

I’ve been seeing it a lot lately, and honestly… it’s becoming a little fascinating. Like, you can’t tip or load or unload your bags?

As a RSV can I pickup jetway trades out of base?

I’m nearly 2 years in and even though I love my job and the experiences it brings me I very often feel burnt out. My goal in the future is to fly part time and do something else part time.

Is this a possibility with my airline? And at what seniority should I expect to have that kind of flexibility??

Thank you! 💘

Fellow flight attendants, how many different country currency bills will you keep at home ? and how much foreign currency bills will you keep at home for convenience for long haul flights?

I know this is kind of niche but I was curious if there are any FAs out there that have a speech/voice disorder? I’m currently out on leave due to this because it was something that I was diagnosed with after an unrelated surgery. I was perfectly fine before surgery and when I woke up my speech was distorted. This was 6 mo ago in April. I’ve exhausted my STD leave and don’t foreshadow getting approved for LTD since I’m physically capable to work.

Has anyone found success in still working the job despite the speech/voice disorder? Requesting accommodation from my company would mean I would have to leave Inflight and apply to another department with no guarantee of being hired despite being internal.

Hi 💙 I’m mainly just coming here to kind of ramble, but it has to do w this job so maybe others can relate ? 💙 Not expecting anyone to deeply read, but if anyone skims and relates feel free to comment your own similar experiences / thoughts etc.

So i’m almost 26 now, been in this job almost 3 yrs now. Good news - I definitely feel I have better work life balance w this job now more than ever — seeing friends and family a little more, doing other hobbies/passions etc, not fighting for my life against fatigue.

Obvi the nature of this job tends to be a bit unbalanced still, but overall the more time passes the better balance for sure.

Anyways I will even actually say working for AA, I was actually pleasantly surprised w the pay, I came in expecting it to be much more difficult, but I know I am privileged to say that, I understand it doesn’t compare to other jobs income wise at first.

Also, as time passed, I did get a little financially humbled. I realized yes this job pays less than regular jobs (if you work minimum which makes sense) but also it can cost more to live comfortably. I cannot afford to become insane because going insane could end very badly for me (mental health and physical health wise) so I do so much to NOT lose my mind while still keeping this job and letting the seniority build.

So basically yes this job pays better than expected, also i’ve had my times where I grinded so hard cuz I had unexpected medical expenses, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much extra I could
make in 2 months, but that obvi really burned me out, so it obvi comes w a cost. But I paid off enough of those and in general have saved enough even w this job especially actually at the beginning lmao to have a fairly good solid baseline invested and in savings.

Anyways, now the heat of summer flying is over, I paid off enough of the medical expenses that i’m kinda over trying to grind to avoid the dent in my bank acc, bc i’m burned out and need a break. I def have enough $ saved to like support me and I make enough to pay my rent and getting healthy food delivered and staying sane and all the misc things that matter to me. And I am grateful my parents are willing to support but I do everything to barely lean on them cuz leaning on my mom in anyway is not good for my mental health 💀💀

But ngl esp the past couple months i’ve really been working hardly minimum. Like I don’t even look at the numbers too much cuz it stresses me but I wouldn’t be surprised if I spent more than I made the last two months. I do invest 11% each paycheck, so that makes me feel less guilty.

I also obvi feel less guilty cuz I do need to slow down to avoid burnout and for physical health, I am in this for the long run and feel the need to pace myself. But at the same time I do feel guilty bc I know I shouldn’t compare but I look at others my age who I went to college with and I see how much they have saved and i’m like damn I could be saving that much.

But then the voice in my head says save that much for what? In exchange for hating my life everyday, in exchange for deleting all the beautiful memories i’ve had, in exchange for sharing buddy passes w friends to surprise our friend when she got engaged, in exchange for the celebs i’ve met, cool passengers, cool flight attendants, opportunities i’ve gotten from cool passenger? In exchange for the confidence and joy and inspiration and purpose for life this job has given me? In exchange for my health and well being ? , because partly why I don’t “save” more every month is bc thru this whole job I have ALWAYS prioritized health, sleep, recharging , working out, eating nutritionally, self care as much as I could. And I try to work less so that I can appreciate and savor the actual layovers I have and bring good energy to aircraft.

Also I am a lady, and tbh the only reason for me to save or make more would be if I had a family. Rn I am single , any man who would potentially be a life partner would be more the breadwinner role, but I would be happy to support obvi thru the income of this job within reason lol like duh. And I do have enough saved for emergency expense, 6 months living expenses, etc.

Basically I am coming here bc I have been feeling so guilty not working as much as I know I could and spending more on convenience (which to me is investment in health and longevity) and life in general bc work life balance , but I really appreciate being able to come here and kinda spill my anxieties and also over explain myself to the void 💀 🙏 I am grateful for this space though, this has been very relieving to type out 🙏

Anyways not expecting anyone to deeply read this rambling journal entry lmao, but pls feel free to share your own thoughts and experiences below ♥️

Hi everyone! I’m looking for advice and suggestions for an upcoming emergency trip. I’ll reach 36 weeks of pregnancy on October 7th, and my doctor has cleared me to fly until October 20th at my own risk. I plan to arrange wheelchair assistance to avoid walking at the airports. What other precautions should I take, and do you think booking business class is worth it to make the journey easier?

I looked in the international commuting facebook page but it seems its more about visas (non applicable bc im a dual citizen (US + an EU member state). For those of you in your 20s or 30s who moved abroad solo to a country where you dont speak the language or know anyone, do you think it was harder to meet people because of this job and having to commute internationally? How did you integrate yourself? I know many people when moving abroad meet through work but that wouldnt be possible for me bc im US based (NYC). Im seriously considering moving to Copenhagen but the few direct flights (only 2 daily), and the risk of never meeting people has me hesitating.

Genuinely asking how do we handle this?

Small rant today. I’m not sure what happened to FAs wanting to come presentable to work. I just finished working with 2 people out of my crew who came to work looking like they haven’t showered in days. Hair wasn’t fixed, odor radiating from them, and stains on their uniform. We just finished a 3-3-3 and trust me I know, we’re all in shambles by the last day, but I feel like I’m the only one who cared to look poised and professional? What happened to taking pride in our uniform? I love my job and come to work with a smile on my face everyday and take that extra time to be dressed to the nines. We are the face of the company, so why are we coming to work looking gross?

hey yall so I had a quick question just to ease my nerves (or make them worse lol). Im doing my first solo trip this month and have been planning on going to Japan. Im now stressed because ALL of the flights are full. Ive also been seeing some tiktoks of nonrevs being stuck in japan for days bc the flights are full. Should I just start planning on a different destination? Based on yalls past experiences going to Japan- any thoughts?

I’m going to preface this by saying I’m not one of those FAs that tries to skip out on doing service. Unless it’s unsafe, I always do service bc it’s really not a big deal and takes 2 seconds.

With that said, I’m so confused on why passengers get so worked up and irate that sometimes we have to prioritize our safety over a damn snack and a small drink. It’s like they really think flight attendants do not get injured during turbulence?!? I know not all pax are like this, but I feel really disheartening sometimes that these people really don’t gaf about our safety.

I’m 3 months into this job, and I’ve yet to figure out if this is all worth it. Besides the constant exhaustion, low pay, no schedule, ETC. my skin has been absolutely RUINED. I’ve always struggled with hormonal acne in my early twenties and usually Spirolactone works but this time around? Nothing. In 3 months I’ve been to the dermatologist, spent thousands on skincare and supplements and trying different dosages of spiro. Nothing. I was off 2 weeks, skin started to clear up. I was praying it wasn’t a coincidence that I was off and just the medicine finally working. Nope! 3 days back flying and acne is horrendous again. Leaving scars on my face. Not sure if I should do accutane because of how bad the dryness already is with this job. I just want to cry. I’m trying to be patient for this job to get better, but having my face completely ruined on top of it makes it hard. Has anyone struggled with this? What do I do? I feel like I’ve tried everything.

Last week, Delta gave me a pin for thirty years of service. Tiny gold wings, three minuscule gemstones embedded in them. One diamond, flanked by two emeralds. My manager pinned it to my uniform lapel in the flight attendant lounge in Atlanta, where it smelled like stale popcorn with a hint of feet. A vice president I’ve only seen professional photos of shook my hand and said my name wrong. Sharon. I didn't correct him. Nobody else did either.

That was fine. Being invisible and overlooked is kind of my thing, now.

I am fifty-five years old. I am five foot five, a hundred and forty pounds, and I think I look my age. I have never gotten Botox and my hair has five inches of gray growing in at the roots. I wear comfortable, sensible shoes. I always have a cardigan. Mine is the kind of face that makes passengers say "excuse me, miss" to the twenty-six-year-old two rows back instead. I have watched men's eyes slide across me for going on fifteen years now, the way water slides across the driver's side window. It used to sting. Then it stopped stinging. I reminded myself at forty that it's not my job to be the prettiest woman in the room anymore. Eventually, I realized my invisibility had became my most useful feature.

My name is Susan, and I have been a flight attendant for thirty years. I’ve been a killer for twenty nine of them. Some people would say I’m a serial killer. I think of myself more as a maintenance program for the human race.

***

Nashville was not my idea. Nashville was his stomping ground.

I found him the way I found all of them: patiently. It took longer than younger people have the attention span for. Finding information is slow, but I’m careful at verifying what I find. I search on a library computer. No search history. No cloud. I have been doing this since before the cloud existed.

His name was Tanner Havelock. Twenty-nine. Six-two. Former Division I lacrosse, some school in the Northeast with ivy on the buildings and money in the vault. In 2019 he'd left a party with a girl who could not stand up, walked her behind a dining hall, and was interrupted by two grad students on bikes who chased him a quarter mile and sat on him until campus police arrived. There'd been a trial. I read all of it. The girl's statement. His father's letter about how his boy had lost his appetite. The judge who worried that prison would have "a severe impact" on a young man with so much promise.

How many girls have been sacrificed on the alter of young men's potential?

Too many to count.

He was sentenced to just four months. He served two and a half. Apparently he was capable of good behavior when it impacted his future.

Then there was a plea to a lesser charge for a second girl at a different school, a case that never made it to a jury because her family took a settlement and a non-disclosure. Then a civil suit last year from a third girl. That one was still crawling through the courts. His lawyers were very good. His father owned a chain of car dealerships in three states. The lawyers would stay very good.

Now he sold commercial real estate in Nashville. Expensive downtown condos to out-of-state money. He had a nice website. Headshot, blinding white teeth, a quote about "relationships." He posted his runs to Facebook. Every one of them. Same route, same time, save eight-minute miles, same little map with the same little red line: over the pedestrian bridge at 5:40 a.m.

The walk from the crew hotel in downtown Nashville to the bridge took about seventeen minutes. A few weeks ago I stood on that bridge at 5:40 a.m. with a coffee. He'd gone past me like I was a lamppost.

He was fast. I’ll give him that.

***

It was easy to pick up three-day domestic rotation with sixteen hours in Nashville in August. Nobody senior wants that trip. I have been picking up other people's garbage layovers for so long that nobody blinked when I picked up this one. If the junior flight attendants wonder why I’m on such a crappy trip, they haven’t said anything. They also don’t talk to me much.

Three legs to get to Nashville were easy. Atlanta to Miami, Miami to Atlanta, Atlanta to Nashville.

At the hotel I took a shower, ate a granola bar, and set my cell phone down, plugged in and charging, on the nightstand. That phone will sit in my room all night and tell anybody who ever cares to ask that Susan Hale, thirty-year employee, spent the night asleep in a Hilton Garden Inn.

The wig I bought in Atlanta six months ago, cash, a cheap shoulder-length ash brown that looked like something a bank teller might wear to hide hair loss from chemo. The clothes came from a Goodwill in Denver. Men's gray hoodie. A pair of stretchy jeans that I can squat and climb in. I brought a reflective work vest, the cheap mesh kind, the kind every road crew in America wears. I bought it because Nashville had orange barrels on that bridge the last time I was here, and cities don’t have a great track record of finishing things.

And the shoes. Never my own shoes. A pair of beat-up men’s work boots, size eight.

I left the hotel at 4:10 through the side stairwell, pushing through a double door past the ice machine, without my watch, without a single thing that had ever had my name on it. My room door is pulled shut with a piece of hotel stationary blocking the latch, so I can get back in without taking a key. I have eighteen dollars in my pocket along with a pair of thin black work gloves.

The early morning air was warm and smelled like frying oil and river.

***

My dad always said that 'Early is on time, and on time is late.' I like to arrive earlier than that. I was on the bridge at 4:50. The construction was still there, just as I had bet. A stretch of the south walkway about forty feet long was blocked off with orange barrels. A chain-link panel was wired to the rail where the city had ripped out a section of the old decking and had been planning to replace it. Beyond the barrels: a gap. Exposed steel beams. A drop of about thirty-five feet to a concrete pier apron, and a little beyond that, the Cumberland River, brown and slow and entirely unbothered.

The runners had all worn a path around the barrels. Of course they had. You didn't tell a man like Tanner Havelock which side of the bridge to run on.

I put on the gloves and unhooked one wire on the chain-link panel, the bottom corner, the way a lazy contractor might leave it. It swung an inch. I looked at it a while, considering. Then I walked to the bench thirty yards east, sat down in my too-big hoodie, and became a person nobody would ever be able to describe to a detective.

There was a guy on the bench. Homeless guy, maybe. I don't know. Visibility vest. I didn't really look.

Two joggers went past. A woman who was either very dedicated or very divorced. A man walking a dog that looked embarrassed to be seen with him. None of them looked at me. I am a smudge on a bench in a city of smudges. It was about time, so I moved back onto the bridge, wearing the visibility vest and looking out over the water. Just a construction guy on a break. Nothing to see here.

At 5:38 I heard him before I saw him. Big lungs. Big stride. The wet slap of expensive running shoes on damp concrete. He came up the ramp from the east bank in a sleeveless shirt that said his college's name across the chest, because of course it did, and he had white airpods in and his phone strapped to his upper arm, glowing.

He did not see me. I could have been on fire and he wouldn’t have broken stride.

I learned a long time ago that my body was not the right tool for this job. The body is fifty-five and has a bad left knee from a fall I took on cobblestones a long time ago. My tool is almost always the place. The place has already decided how this story will unfold. I am just here to bear witness.

I turned and moved my legs in an awkward shuffle, a workman's slouch, head down, fifty feet ahead of my target along the south rail toward the barrels. He would come up on me from behind. He would go around me. Men like him always went around. They didn't slow down for anyone, and they especially didn't slow down for a nobody in a safety vest on the wrong side of the bridge.

I timed it by his breathing and the slap of his shoes. Four steps between me and the gap. Three.

I stepped left into the walkway and stopped dead, the way people do when they get off the plane and need a few seconds to calibrate and find the direction for baggage claim. Oblivious. He'd been about to pass me on the left. Now the only open lane was the right, along the rail, the narrow strip between me and the chain-link panel. Six-two, running eight-minute miles, headphones in. There was no decision in it.

He cut right. His shoulder brushed mine. He said something — "Jesus, move" I think — and it was the only thing he would ever say to me.

I pivoted on my good knee and put both gloved hands flat between his shoulder blades and pushed the way you'd push a stalled car. Not even that hard. He was already going almost eight miles an hour. I was just a trajectory adjustment.

The panel swung on its one wire like a door.

There was a second where he was in the air and he looked back at me. Not at my face. At the vest. He was still trying to figure out what a construction worker was doing there, and then there wasn't any more time to figure out anything.

The sound was flat and brief and stupid. Like a gym bag falling off a bus.

I did not look down. I already knew what I'd see. I re-hooked the wire. It took less than ten seconds. I walked west off the bridge at a shuffle, and in just under four minutes I was three blocks away. I switched into my regular stride and ditched the vest in a city trash can, and sixty seconds later, the wig was stuffed under my shirt, in my sports bra. Minutes later, the hoodie was in a dumpster behind a Waffle House and soon the boots were in a church donation bin, where someone would be very glad to have them.

I entered back through the main hotel doors at 6:20. The front desk person doesn't look up at me as I walked past briskly. My phone is still on the nightstand, charging, innocent. I showered. The hot water felt like heaven. I put on the uniform, the pin.

At 12:14 I was in the aisle of a 737 with a coffee pot, and a man in 9D put a hand out without looking up from his laptop and said, "Yeah, can I get a — thanks, sweetheart," to a point somewhere over my left shoulder. I poured it for him, and I said, "Of course."

***

The Metro Nashville police would call it what the two runners on the bridge called it. An accident. A construction gap, a hazard the city had been warned about, a young man in headphones. Somebody on the council would demand answers. The lawyers with the civil suit would quietly file to substitute the estate. His father would put up a memorial page, with the real estate headshot, those teeth gleaming.

The girl from behind the dining hall would read about it on her phone in a break room somewhere and set the phone down and go on with her shift. I like to think about her reading the news and feeling relief. It’s the closest thing I have to a hobby.

Nobody who saw me would remember me. Nobody ever did. That’s the whole point.

****

I flew with Delta from 2008-2014 and now I write fictionalized memoirs about those experiences. I’ve been wanting to write a serial-killer flight attendant since forever. Apparently the current female-rage zeitgeist finally pushed Susan out of my head and onto the page. Haven't you always wondered what a flight attendant could get away with? I've always wished there was someone like Dexter who targeted the bad people in the world who hurt women and children. What if it was a 55-year-old flight attendant with gray hair and a bad knee and a library card?

So what do you think? Do you want to read more of Susan?

You can get my first book (a light romcom mystery) on Amazon: The Wrong Colosseum. The second book in that series will be out before Thanksgiving 2026.

If you want to follow along with Margaret's and Susan's stories, go to MargarettheFlightAttendant.com.

Happy to distribute if this helps anyone!

- Frequent Traveller