5 Tips to Make Your Flight Attendant Feel Appreciated | Travel Goddess International

Hey community! It's Natasha here, your travel guidance, and I am super pumped today to bring to you top five tips to make your flight attendant feel appreciated. Featuring Miss Kristen Valente. So Kristen, just take a few moments and let the people know who you are. Hi guys, I'm Kristen. I am based out of New York City and I work for a major airline as a flight attendant. And I came about through being in the hospitality industry and then going and running headfirst in my love for travel and that's how I got to be a flight attendant. So Kristen, my first question to you is why the airline industry? Travel is the biggest thing. It's why we're all here, right? I get so much out of traveling. I learn so much and that's just my way of life. So a couple years ago, just being in the hotel business, I loved it. I love the hospitality but I wanted to narrow what I'm super passionate about. So I just went with, you know, let's research what can give me the travel experience, what can give me culture, what can give me a new perspective and new ways of life that's so important to living out your life. And I came across two things. One, cruise ships and two, being a flight attendant. And flight attendant just fit everything that I wanted, fit my want of quality of life, fit my passion and everlasting want of learning new things, going different places. So it's very exciting and it's ever fulfilling. It's so interesting to hear you mention cruise lines because I feel like those are often forgotten. I mean, for myself growing up, I was obsessed with aviation. So you could not tell me that I wasn't going to be a flight attendant. Like it was essentially my dream. And as I learned more and as my interests changed, I adapted a different way to still be within that realm. But one thing that never came to me was cruise. And so to hear you say that, I'm like, that's so true. You're still seeing the world and you're doing it on the sea. So it's like inside of the skies. But I'm like, I never really even thought about cruises. But yeah, you know, people who are on cruise ships, they never really around to talk about it or to self promote themselves like I work on a cruise ship. So yeah, that was one of the things that I was like, you know, I'm happy to be gone. I'm happy to be on the road. But once in a while, you have to send yourself back, bring it home, do your laundry. Right. And you make a very good point, which is I'm like, I don't even think I've met very many cruise ship attendants or just folks that are working on cruises. Just like you said, they're nine times out of 10 and not around. Good point. Cool. So I'm gonna switch over to my next question for you, which is, what is it exactly like being a flight attendant? You know, there's so many myths and there's so much chatter, but I feel like a lot of the chatter comes from people that aren't actually flight attendants. So share with our audience, you know, what that experience is like for you? Well, it's first and foremost, I always like to brand it as a lifestyle because it's it took me a long time to transition, you know, from a nine to five or just, you know, a scheduled type environment to, you know, being on call or being I'm based out of New York City. So driving all the way there and then, you know, seeing where you end up. So it's very fast paced. It's very long hours. It's a lot of interaction. And, you know, equally as much as all of that business, it's equally a lot of rest. And that's the balance that you have to find between that too. And then also the biggest and best thing is experiencing so much that the world has to offer experience different types of people and what stories they share and what they bring to you and to your day. Whereas, you know, some people, they learn something new every day. I learned like 25 things that are new every day. It's just it's an incredible experience. It's there's something always different. It's a different day, you never know what you're going to expect that you know, trying, but for the most part, it's very rewarding because you're just it's something new. Like I said, something new every day. And it's amazing. I think you touched on a really good point, which is we like to learn new things every day and not and in most cases, people always say, you know, you learn something new every day. But to your point, you learn an abundance of new things every day. And there's so much education by way of travel. And that's one of the things that I love most. I feel like I have a robust amount of knowledge because of all the destinations that I've visited. And that's also kind of why I'm like, oh, gosh, right now with everything that's happening. You're stuck. And I feel like you and I are very much the same. We want to be going we want to be exploring on and exploring and immersed in a bunch of new ways of life and, you know, different types of people and stuff. So, yeah. Well, that's actually a perfect segue to my next question for you is, you know, let's address the elephant in the room, we shall. COVID-19, obviously, there is a lot that has changed in regards to travel surrounding this pandemic. So for you and your perspective and in your industry, what do you think? Or how do you think I should say travel will be impacted going forward? Going forward, I think right now we're on a forward motion, which is it's hopeful. It's uplifting. I think what's going to be important next is the more focus and encouragement on staying healthy and staying safe. So we're definitely going to be seeing masks continuously and our philosophy within my specific company is we wear our masks to protect you. Please wear it to protect us. So you just have that, you know, humanistic analogy part of it, like we care about you care about us and we'll make this world a better place. So, yeah, I think it's just going to be more so heavily focused now because we've learned so much. We've learned how something can be spread just like that. And travel is the underbelly of that, that, you know, it's a way to make one thing that's harmful get quickly overheard by the widespread of people. So they're going to be looking at a lot of prevention, a lot more in depth of cleaning and encouragement, you know, wash your hands, walk around on the plane with your shoes on. Please. So, yeah, it's just going to be heavily in tune with more so safety, you know, prevention. And I think that, like you said, if it's a two way street and no one's blaming one or blaming the other, we will, you'll be surprised at how much more productive we are in that unity rather than expecting certain things and looking at other people or in this case, a specific airline to just essentially make magic happen. It's like, you know, it's a two way street. We're working with it together. I mean, for myself, I'm a traveler and I'm trying to do everything that I can to honor the requirements that the airlines are adding now and to just be self aware and do my part. That's the biggest thing is just do your part. And like you said, I wear my mask to protect you and you wear it to protect me. So I love that statement because it really does speak to the we're all in this together and this community now is one. Anybody who's traveling, we are all in this together. We are one unit, flight attendants, pilots, travelers, and everyone else in between. So thank you for that tidbit. Yeah. So now on a lighter note, I'm sprinkling my fairy dust because that's what I do as a goddess. So I want us to jump into our topic for today, which is your five tips on how we as your travelers can make our flight attendants feel appreciated. I think it's so important. I think it's so important to anyone who provides service to make them feel appreciated because going back to one step, it's we're all in this together. And I think the silver lining to what has happened has brought a lot of humbleness and a lot of understanding that we are all human. So I first and foremost decided to ask this question to a bunch of my flight attendant friends. I think it's important to have a universal top five answers that everyone can pretty much agree on so that who's ever listening can feel very confident and can be more, I guess, like I said, confident to implement this on whichever airline you'd like to fly. So first and foremost, I think the biggest thing that we all could agree on was courteous, being courteous. And what does that look like? It looks like acknowledging us, saying good morning back or good evening. You know, when we're going down the aisle, being cute. Would you like anything to drink? And even if it's no, you know, we'd like you to take your headphones out. Thank you or anything if we're talking to you and stuff. We just we see so many people a day. We understand you come on the plane, you're tired or you don't know you want to watch a movie and stuff. So we really like when people talk to us like we want to talk to you. We want to make your flight enjoyable. If you enjoy the acknowledgement. We love the manners. We love the please and thank you. We love you using your call light and you know, touching the flight attendants, please. You know, courteous is, I guess, everything your mom and your dad taught you is just remembering humanity first and that, you know, we're here for your safety. And just recognizing that I think that was like the biggest thing. The second thing I would say would be to pack your patience and pack your understanding because unfortunately, we don't we don't control the weather. We don't control a lot of different things. And we have such an orchestra that plays to get that one flight out. And sometimes things happen. But first and foremost, understand that we want you to have a great experience and we will try our best to make you comfortable, to give you information that you might not know where your next flight is going, how to get there, which airport, how does it look. So packing your patience and understanding really important. And it we definitely feel appreciated when you come from that place of light and understanding. I think the third one would be to follow all safety instructions. We are there first and foremost for your safety. And every single I guess you could say rule or guideline has a reason as to why it is implemented, why it is there. If you don't understand, that's perfectly fine. You can always ask us and we're more than happy to explain that because with understanding you might be more inclined to tell your neighbor, you know, hey, definitely need to push that bag underneath the seat, God forbid anything, you know. So that's really important. And I guess the fourth thing would be, help us help you. If you are feeling sick, you can tell me, I will get you that bag, I will make sure, you know, if you were to get sick, you are taken care of, you have everything to sanitize, you have everything to make yourself feel at least a little bit comfortable, could you not make it to the bathroom. Tell us if you're scared of turbulence. I'm more than happy to sit with you if I can, if there's an open seat, or just give you some great words of relaxation or just understanding how a plane works, how it flies, and how we're most safe even in turbulence. It's so, it's a very scary thing sometimes, but just think of it as like a pothole in the road for anybody that's listening and anybody that's watching and they're like, oh yeah, I don't like turbulence, I never thought to talk to my flight attendant, but if you hear that and you're like that makes you feel a little bit more at ease, just imagine if you were to open up to your flight attendant and just tell them anything that you're uneasy about. And yeah, also if you haven't eaten, let us know, we have extra snacks. It doesn't come out of my paycheck, so I'll make it rain. Don't worry, don't worry, you need extra snacks, I got you. We know everybody's going from one end to the end, you know, or one end to another, running through the airports, not everybody has time to stop, so we fully understand that too. And then like last but not least, chocolates, goodie bags, are always a plus. It's always a plus, you know, bringing coffee, people went as far as to bring us like, you know, five dollar Starbucks gift cards, Dunkin Donuts gift cards, and that is like, wow, you know what our day-to-day is like, or you know that we're here, we're all here for a 4 a.m. boarding, you know, like you're tired, I'm tired, but the difference, I have to put on a happy face, it's my job, you recognizing that, it means so much, and honestly, we're more, we're very receptive to that, you know, you bring us something, okay, what seat are you in, you know, it's just, it's just something extra, it's something that shows saying, hey, I recognize what you're doing, I appreciate you, I love that you're keeping us safe and doing your job, so yeah, so those are the five biggest things. I, first of all, I love those tips, and as I was listening to them, I kept hearing a common theme, which to me was, your flight attendants are people, acknowledge them as such, from just being courteous, to the taking a moment to actually pay attention to the security briefing, to hey, just, I feel uncomfortable with turbulence, do you mind being my friend for 10 minutes here, or two and a half hours, if that's my flight time, showing appreciation and gratitude and understanding that I've been here since 4am, and I'm welcoming you aboard, it's a common theme of just, hey, I'm a person too. Yes, yes, and you know, sometimes people get complacent, and it's not even just flight attendants, it's everybody in the service industry, but I think, like I said, this whole experience, even before, I'm currently on a leave right now, going back in October, but right before I stopped flying, I had amazing people on my flights, I had maybe 10 at the most, so appreciative, it just kind of changed the dynamic, like everybody slowed down, everybody saw who was essential and how they were doing their part to make you get to where you need to be, so, or, you know, giving you what you need in order to survive or, you know, have a better lifestyle and stuff, so yeah, I think this is a silver lining, and I think it's only going to be upwards from here, but if you can remember anything, just remember that, flight attendants are human too, and we really do appreciate acknowledgement, and we want to have you have a good time. Yeah, I mean, every time I fly, I'm always just like, hey y'all, like, oh my gosh, I'm like, hey, you have a great outfit on, or, oh my god, you have such a nice smile, like, I mean, that's me, that's my philosophy, that's my flight, you're on a flight with me, that's what you get. Exactly, and like you said, and like we said earlier, it's that two-way street, it's that communication, and that breaking of the barrier, or the invisible barrier that we've created, when it's just like, that's your girlfriend, hey girl, hey, and you keep it moving, and it sets the tone so much differently than if you're just bypassing and in your zone, so I definitely, definitely encourage, if anything, just to say hello upon crossing the threshold onto that aircraft, it makes a difference. Yeah, so my last question. No, go ahead, no, go ahead, sorry. I was just gonna say, it makes a difference, like you mentioned, so don't worry, no, go ahead, next question. My last question, because I'm sure every flight attendant has one, what's the craziest work story that you can share, but you have to make it interesting. You know, when you asked me this, I pondered it and pondered it, and I've seen everything from crazy passengers, you know, sickness in the air, I can talk about one crazy thing, but I hope everybody has a strong stomach for this, I won't go too much into detail, but I've seen medical emergencies, you just, like I mentioned earlier, you never know what you're gonna get, and sometimes the crazy is in magnitude, or sometimes it's, you know, one situation or one person, it's a widespread of things, but I think it was recently, it was on Halloween, and it was the worst turbulence I have ever been in in my life so far, and we had to be strapped in our jump seats, because otherwise, if we were not strapped in our jump seats, we would have hit the ceiling for sure, or hit the sides of the plane, it was that violent, the pilot couldn't land just yet, because the plane wasn't able to be stable enough, so he had to come up, go around and around, and during this time, and you can imagine how violently shaking the plane was, the last 10 rows, it was a domino effect of getting sick, it was just one thing after another, and one person after another, after another, couldn't make it to the bathroom, didn't even have bags, because we didn't know how bad it was going to be, unfortunately, sometimes the pilots can see that, they can see how bad it is going to be, but there's sometimes, they don't know how violent or non-violent, sometimes they're wrong, sometimes they're right, it just happens, it's the air, and oh, that smell, really bad, I'm pretty sure everybody knows what I'm talking about, and we land, and the passengers are all running to me, handing me their blankets full of their sickness, and I'm, oh no, please, no, no, I don't, bathroom thrown in the, put it in your, put it in your seat back pocket at this point, the whole plane had to be put out of service, because it was really bad, and what the worst part was, when we go to the gate, the captain turned off of the air circulation, so in the back, you can only imagine the smell, and only to which I was in the corner couldn't actually withstand not getting sick myself, my, this is my Halloween, this was my Halloween, I spent it in the corner, strapped in my jump seat, and then landed in the corner, trying not to pee, because I was in the back of the plane, and we know how long sometimes it takes to deplane when you're fully in the back, so yeah, that was treacherous, I hope I spared the nasty details, but like I said, I have so many stories for days, I can have this Zoom meeting be like four hours, to be honest, so yeah, you never know what you're gonna get me, and now we put these sickness bags, every sickness bag goes in the seat back pocket, so if and when like it just springs on you, reach in there, there you go, yeah, we're trying to prepare you, but that was recently one of the craziest things that I had to deal with, and that was not fun, because after that I was just, I felt like it was on in my hair, I jumped in that shot, I was like, oh god, god, god, that's definitely a crazy story, and an entertaining one, and an unfortunate one, all in one shot, okay, it's okay, just on behalf of everyone, I apologize, because that just sounds traumatizing, yeah, I think the most traumatizing part was when everybody thought to bring it to me, you can already imagine, yeah, yeah, like it's, why me, why me, just bathroom, bathroom, not me, what do you want me to do, oh lord, that was so nasty, oh my goodness, Kristen, well I just thank you so much for your time today, and obviously landing, or ending on that note, what's entertaining, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to laugh at your pain, I really am, but that, that's a good story, I can only imagine, you poor, you poor girl, so I just, again, thank you so much for your time today, thank you for sharing, thank you for being a part of the travel industry, being a travel enthusiast, and just loving what you do, and it shows, your face literally light up every time you talk about your job, so I can only imagine that it doesn't necessarily feel like work, it's your passion, and you're doing it, and it's a beautiful thing, and I can definitely relate to that, so I will, if you have anything else that you'd like to say to our viewers, please take a moment to do so now, if you have any projects that you're working on, if you have any, I don't know, websites, or anything you want to share, that I can support you, and we can support you, please let us know, yeah, I just want to say thank you for listening, thank you, if you've gone through the entirety, you really care about what a flight attendant has to say in the travel industry, I really do much appreciate that, and if you ever fly with me, I cannot wait to get you a drink, just mention Natasha, and the drinks on me, don't worry, awesome, thanks Kristen.