Air Hostess

Cabin crews, also called Air Hostess (if a crew member is a woman) or Flight Attendant (if a crew member is a man), provide a range of in-flight services to the passengers on board of airplanes as well as carry out important duties to ensure a safe flight for the passengers.

Before the flight takes off, the cabin crew will make sure the plane is clean, and all the onflight accessories for passengers are placed at their seats. When passengers start arriving, you will greet them, direct them to their seats and help them store their cabin luggage in the overhead compartment if need be.

Cabin crew members offer services ranging from making sure passengers are comfortable in their seats, announcing safety instructions and demonstrating safety procedures. You will also provide food and beverages and hand out pillows and blankets if any passenger needsto help any passenger if he or she feels unwell. Once the flight lands, you will also help passengers to deboard on reaching the destination, and help them alight out of the plane in case of emergencies.

As a cabin crew member, you will be flying on domestic and international flights, and you will be dealing with a lot of people with different demands during flight duty. You must make sure to handle every situation calmly and ensure the passengers have a pleasant experience.

Important Tasks & Duties

The cabin crew members have responsibilities before, during and after a flight. As a member, following are your roles and responsibilities:

• Undergoing proper training depending on which aircraft you will be working in.
• Attending a pre-flight briefing where the crew members will be assigned their working positions and for the upcoming flight. They will also be informed about the flight schedule, the number of infants onboard and passengers with any special requirements such as wheelchair requirements.
• Performing pre-flight duties such as security checks, checking the safety equipment, ensuring the aircraft is clean and tidy, and the food and beverages are stocked.
• Greeting the passengers on arrival and directing them to their seats.
• Conveying the safety instructions to the passengers and making sure all the cabin luggage is stored properly.
• Making announcements before take-off and landing, for informing of any delays, and if any other updates need to be given on the pilot’s behalf.
• Catering to the flyers and serving them drinks and meals.
• Guiding the passengers with safety instructions in case of an emergency and giving first aid if needed.
• Ensuring all the passengers leave the flight safely and that none of their belongings or any suspicious items are left behind.
• Completing necessary paperwork such as a flight report.

Specialization

• Assisting and caring for people: Assisting people in availing of services; taking care of people in different situations; offering help and services to others.
• Communicating with co-workers and others: Communicating with people in writing, verbally or otherwise inside your workplace and various other people who have professional relationships with your place of work including vendors, government officials, etc. or with people at large.
• Communicating with customers: Communicating with potential and existing customers of your organisation in writing, verbally or otherwise.
• Developing and maintaining inter-personal relationships: Developing professional relationships with co-workers and others outside organisations and maintaining good relationships.
• Getting Information and learning: Observing, hearing, reading, using computers, or otherwise obtaining information and learning from it.
• Organising, planning and prioritising tasks: Planning and organising tasks in order to achieve work goals; prioritising tasks to achieve goals and making the best use of the time available.
• Performing physical activities: Performing physical activities that require use of your arms and legs and moving your whole body, such as climbing, lifting, balancing, walking, stooping, and handling of materials.
• Scheduling tasks: Scheduling project timelines, tasks and activities.
• Updating and using relevant knowledge: Keeping updated with the latest knowledge relevant to your fields of work and use of the relevant knowledge in getting things done.
• Working directly with people: Working directly with people to offer them products and services, providing assistance, etc.
• Working in a team: Working in a team of people; developing team; maintaining professional relationships among team members.

Career Track By Pathway

Class 10 with any subjects - Class 11-12 in any stream - Apply for a job as a Cabin Crew with an airline.

Once you finish your secondary and higher secondary education in any stream, you can apply for a job as a Cabin Crew with an Indian or an International Airline. Once you send your application and they select you, you will then start your training with them.

Class 10 with any subjects - Class 11-12 in any stream - Do a training program in Cabin Crew - Find an opportunity with an Airline.

Once you finish your secondary and higher secondary education in any stream, you can do a training program in Cabin Crew. Once you complete your course, you can find an opportunity to work with an Airline.

Class 10 with any subjects - Class 11-12 in any stream - Bachelor degree/Diploma in Hotel Management/Travel and Tourism/Aviation Management/Hospitality Management/in a related field - Find an opportunity with an airline.

After you finish your secondary and higher secondary education in any stream, you can pursue a Bachelor’s degree/Diploma in Hotel Management/Travel and Tourism/Aviation Management/ Hospitality Management/in a related field. Once you complete your degree, you can look for a work opportunity with any Airline.

Mandatory Qualification

To become a Cabin Crew, you don’t really need any specific qualification. After your senior/higher secondary examination, you can apply to an airline when the publish a recruitment advertisement. If you are selected, then the airline trains you.

But in any case, you may do a Bachelor degree in any one of the following field and then apply for a job with an airline:

• Airline Management
• Airlines and Airport Services Management
• Aviation Management
• Food & Beverage Services Management
• Guest Services Management
• Hospitality Management & Services
• Hotel & Restaurant Management
• Hotel Administration and Management
• Hotel and Catering Administration & Management
• Hotel Operations Management & Services
• Hospitality & Tourism Management
• Hospitality and Hotel Management
• Hotel & Tourism Management
• Tourism Administration & Management
• Travel and Tourism Administration and Management

Open Positions

Cabin Crews find work opportunities with domestic and international airlines such as Air India, Vistara, Indigo, Spicejet, Emirate, Etihad, British Airways, Quantas, Cathay Pacific, etc. They may also work with various companies which offer in-flight services to owners of private jets.

Working Climate

The role of a cabin crew is physically and emotionally demanding, and there is a high degree of responsibility involved. Even though you will feel the effects of travelling through different time zones, you are always expected to look presentable in your uniform and deal with passengers in a friendly and diplomatic manner. Working hours can involve long shifts, and you may even have to work during public holidays. Though, your working hours may be slightly more regular if you work on short-haul flights than if you work on long-haul flights. However, you will enjoy the chance to travel and interact with people from all over the world which also makes this job exciting and satisfying.

Essential Skills

Interests

Social: You should have interests for Social Occupations. Social occupations involve helping or assisting others; these involve working with and communicating with people to provide various services; these may involve educating and advising others.

Conventional: You should have interests for Conventional Occupations. Conventional occupations involve repetitive and routine tasks as well as fixed processes or procedures for getting things done. These occupations involve working more with data, systems, and procedures and less with ideas or creativity.

Enterprising: You should have interests for Enterprising Occupations. Enterprising occupations involve taking initiatives, initiating actions, and planning to achieve goals, often business goals. These involve gathering resources and leading people to get things done. These require decision making, risk-taking, and action orientation.

Abilities

Emotional Intelligence: The ability to understand your own and others' emotions and feelings; empathy for others; adjusting your behavior or self-control and self-regulation according to others' emotions and situations.

Inter-Personal: The ability to build and maintain good relationships with others at workplaces and elsewhere.

Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.

Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.

Physical Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.

Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a long period of time without being distracted.

Verbal Reasoning: The ability to think and reason with words; the ability to reason out ideas expressed in words.

Written Comprehension: The  to read and understand information and ideas presentedin writing.

Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.

Knowledge

Customer Service: Knowledge about how to provide customer services. This includes understanding customer needs, helping customers to use products and services, answering customer queries, handling customer complaints and grievances, and evaluating customer satisfaction.

Personal Care Service: Knowledge of how to provide various assistance and services to others. This includes looking after the needs of individuals, understanding what they need and provide all assistance at home or elsewhere.

Skills

Active Listening: Giving full attention to what other people are saying, understanding the points being made by others, asking questions, etc. Communication in English: Skills in communicating effectively in writing as well as verbally with others in English language and / or Communication in Foreign Languages:Skills in communicating effectively in writing as well as verbally with others in a foreign language such as French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, etc. and / or Communication in Vernacular Languages: Skills in communicating effectively in writing as well as verbally with others in a local or indigenous language such as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Bengali, Assamese, etc.

Coordination: Skills in working together with other people to get things done. Judgment and Decision Making: Skills in considering pros and cons of various decision alternatives; considering costs and benefits; taking appropriate and suitable decisions.

Problem Solving: Skills in analysis and understanding of problems, evaluating various options to solve the problems and using the best option to solve the problems.

Service Orientation: Skills in or keen interest to help and assist people.

Personality

• You are always or mostly organised in your day-to-day life and activities.
• You are always or mostly a soft-hearted person.
• You always or mostly trust others.
• You are always or mostly helpful to others.
• You are somewhat disciplined in your action and behaviour.
• You prefer to experience new things and have new experiences sometimes.
• You are friendly and outgoing sometimes, but not always. You prefer company of people
• sometimes but not always.
• You are caring, supportive, sympathetic and kind to others sometimes.

Industrial Payout

If you work for a domestic airline, the starting salary might be as much as R. 25,000 – 40,000 a month.

An air-hostess/flight attendant in an international airline can earn a starting salary of minimum Rs.60,000 to 100,000 per month.

Starting salaries of these Indian airlines per month are Rs. 35,500 for Spicejet, Rs. 42,750 for Air India, Rs. 30,000 for Vistara Airlines, Rs. 33,750 for Air Indigo, Rs. 36,455 for Jet Airways, and 31,000 for GoAir.

Taking Emirates as an example for an International Airline, following is the expected salary (AED is United Arab Emirates Dirham, 1 AED = Rs. 19 approximately)

• Economy class crew can make anywhere from 8000–11,000 AED per month
  
• Business crew 9000–13,000 AED
• First Class 11,000–14,000 AED
• Cabin Seniors 12,000–15,000 AED
• Pursers 14,000–18,000 AED or more

The second way you make money is ‘Flying Hours’. You can expect to fly anywhere from 80–120 block hours a month. Flying hours are calculated from the  moment the ‘chocks’ are removed from behind the wheels in order to taxi onto the runway for taking off, to the moment the aircraft parks in its destination airport and the ‘chocks’ (aka blocks) are put backinto place. This is a rate that also increases as you climb the ranks.

Your pay will fluctuate from month to month based on flying hours and layover allowance.

Career Graph

• When you start working with an airline, you will be on probation for the first 6 months. After that, you will be working as a cabin crew member.
• After a few years, a cabin crew will become a senior cabin crew as far as domestic airplanes are concerned. In an international flight, there is a Chief Flight Attendant/ Senior Purser who oversees the crew members of all the different classes of the plane.
• After a few years of services in a passenger airline, some crew members findopportunities with companies which serve privately owned aircraft by industrialists, companies and wealthy persons. Such companies depute the crew to a private aircraft (generally called private jets).
• Some of them leave airlines and become trainers or groomers with cabin crew training institutes or even join various institutes as soft skill trainers.
• Some open up their own grooming and soft skill training centres.
• Not so frequently, but in larger airlines, the cabin crew role opens doors to many other roles. Cabin crew members can progress to working in marketing, sales, HR and safety training.
• Post their retirement from in-flight services (mostly after reaching 30-35 years of age in private airlines), very few crew members get ground office duties.Some may get posted in the head offices as Flight Services Managers and get promoted to Director-Cabin Services or Director-In-flight Services, which is the head or senior most position.

Future Prospects

Directorate General of Civil Aviation is the regulatory body governing the safety aspects of civil aviation in India. According to reports, Air Passenger Traffic in India, both domestic and international witnessed a positive growth in the year 2017-18 compared to the previous year. The domestic passenger traffic registered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.76% during the period 2007-08 to 2017-18 while the international passenger traffic grew at 8.32% (CAGR) during the same period. The high growth of 18.86 % in the total domestic passengers during 2017-18 is mainly due to the high growth in passengers carried by Air India, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Vistara, Air Asia and Go Air.
In spite of the growth in passenger numbers, due to various reasons, India's civil aviation industry is going through many problems such as rising cost and dwindling profits, etc. Therefore the prospect of this career doesn't look bright over the next 3-5 years.

Course for Air Hostess Profession