My First Flight As A Professional Flight Attendant
June 17,1994, a day I shall never forget. It’s as though it happened yesterday. The nations eyes were glued to their TVs, watching and wondering what would happen. The excitement was building, the news media was on top of it, and people were even standing on bridges in full support of one man. And that man…….wasn’t me. It was OJ Simpson. But this event also happened to coincide with my very first flight as a professional flight attendant. My dream had become a truth.
Growing up in an airline family, I was on airplanes throughout my young life. In the Spring of 1981, my dad, who worked for the Original Frontier Airlines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontier_Airlines_(1950%E2%80%931986), took my two brothers and myself on a trip to Denver, CO. The flight was just 1:20, but to an 11 year old, that’s a long time. I remember watching the flight attendants come down the aisle with the beverage and food carts, yes, the meal was breakfast and it was served in a timely manner on this short flight. I was in amazement and saw how they interacted with passengers. I wondered how they got to be so lucky flying around on airplanes and having fun.
Everyday we were in Denver, dad would ask us three boys what we’d like to do. Our response was always, “Go watch airplanes at the airport.” Dad was a real trooper and would bring a book while we watched the planes taxi, takeoff and land. It was on one of these days that I saw a male flight attendant. The uniform fascinated me and filled me with excitement. He looked so sharp with his crisp uniform and perfect hair. His luggage being pulled behind him on a leash. How cool I thought it was to pull a suitcase behind you. That’s what differentiated passengers and flight attendants, at least in my mind. I knew right then and there that I was going to be a professional flight attendant no matter what I had to do.
Fast forward 13 years and I was that same male flight attendant I had seen when I was a kid. I had sat earlier that day in my “Crashpad”, a term you will become familiar with, and my fellow classmates started calling saying they had been assigned trips. I was excited for them but also envious. I wanted so bad to be on a flight going somewhere, anywhere, I just wanted to be in the sky. Not too long after they had called me, my phone rang and it was “TWA Scheduling calling for flight attendant Hobbs.” I felt my heart skip a beat, could this possibly be the moment I had been waiting for? “This is flight attendant Hobbs speaking”, I answered excitedly. “Flight Attendant Hobbs, you have been assigned a red-eye turn for this evening going from St. Louis to Portland, OR. In Portland you will sit for 2:30 and then return to St. Louis.” She gave me the trip number (Also known as a sequence) and informed me of my report time for the trip. I wrote everything down and hung up the phone. I jumped to my feet and started shouting with excitement. This is the moment I had waited for.
I got to the airport rather early, overflowing with excitement. I printed my trip off from a computer, did my last image check and headed towards the gate. Walking through the airport, pulling my “roller-board” suitcase behind me, my mind drifted back to 13 years prior when I imagined myself in this very position. I wanted to project the same image to the people who would see me in the airport as that flight attendant had done for me. Pride was in each step I took, excitement was in each breath I breathed.
It all happened so fast and before I knew it, both flights were completed. During the 2:30 sit while the “senior” flight attendants slept, I sat by the window looking out and just took it all in. With the OJ debacle settled, my wings broken in, and my dream a reality, I knew I had chosen the best career I could have ever imagined.
