The Flight Attendant vs Air Stewardess

“These girls should be more beautiful than the normal girls due to their special occupation.” Quote from my friend that a Stewardess should be more beautiful than a usual girl when they take up their job, and their beauty is the first impression that they can give to the passengers instead of their personality, if they posses both traits, it will be perfect.

I am going to put out my thoughts about Flight Attendant and Air Stewardess.
I still remember the first flight that I travel in life is back on August 7, 1996, Singapore Airline, from Subang Airport to San Francisco, at that time, KLIA does not exist yet. I heard from a friend that traveled more than me, he discussed with another friend of mine which flight's air stewardess is prettier than the others. Well, at least I thought that Singapore Airline's air stewardess is not bad. While I met this friend in LA, I also remember he said that the US domestic flight's air stewardess is old and ugly. Well, I experienced it during my first flight from San Francisco to LA and then from LA to Salt Lake City, I forgot which plane that I took, but I am sure that I travel with Southwest, Delta Airlines, Continental before, I can say that I hardly remember any beautiful air stewardess during my flight, but one thing I never forgot, in most cases, they greeted me with smiles and also I can tell some air stewardesses are very cheerful in personality, despite they might be a bit old( in their forties or fifties )or might not be the one you seen in the Hollywood movie.

Once in a long while I do wonder why the “quality” of the air stewardess in Asia is different than those in US. I finally understand why when I took my Employment Law class. I do enjoy the class because we did a lot of case study about affirmative action, sexual harassment, discrimination against national origin, sex, race, etc. I think the main reason that we have the good looking and the not-so-good looking in both domestic and international western airline is due to they cannot discriminate a person on his or her look as long as he or she can perform the task as a flight attendant. Note that I am using the word “flight attendant” now; this is because people does not use the word like “Policeman” and “Stewardess” for more than ten years, and this is due to sexual discrimination, that’s why they are changing the pronunciation to “Police Officer” and “Flight Attendant”.
Since then, I really have no objection if the Asia International Airline is having a not-so-good-looking flight attendant in the sky, and I also feel great if the attendants are beautiful, as a guy, who will resist that? I think the most important thing for a flight attendant is the friendliness and personality. If a fifty years old auntie who is physically fit on lifting a 8kg luggage, can balance herself while walking on the narrow aisle, off course, provided she also possess a wonderful smile to all the passengers, I really can't see that she is not capable for the job given the same pay with the younger staff. I think the only thing that concern the airline company is the health benefits for the elder cost more than the younger one. Believe me, they tried to avoid this but they can’t, if all the flight attendant are young, they might get sued for Age discrimination.
Is it necessary to hire a young and beautiful flight attendant? I think the Asian airline is a bit shallow on this, if you really need to hire a young and beautiful candidates for your company, then you better run a whore-house, when you need your staff to be pretty, friendly and can provide good service to the customer, because this is necessary to run such business, it became a job requirement, this is the point where great service won't sell if my employees are as ugly as hell. As for modeling company, they can shelter under the discrimination law, in my humble opinion is due to one of their requirement is able to perform a catwalk which is very subjective, and the fashion which target on the specific audience. For example, if you are selling your fashion to obese people, then the model that you select in usual case shall be obese candidate; nobody will question you why you are not using the skinny model and question the agency by yelling at them, “Are you discriminating me just because I am skinny?”

Everybody knows that flight attendant command good pay in Asia, a lot of girls wanted to be the flight attendant because of high pay, 20 days work in a month, and also you get to travel around the world, who knows if you get lucky, you get to know the rich bachelor sitting in the first class cabin. Unfortunately, their job did not bring them much respect that they suppose to get. One thing that came up from a Asian mind about flight attendant in Asian airline is they won't be too ugly, almost quality assured. Secondly, the flight attendant is treated as the “Attendant from the sky”, or “Air Waitress”, after 4-5 years flying around, people don’t view that as a proper job experience. Thus, they faced some problem on getting another job if they want to get away from airline service field. Off course, unless she married to a rich guy that she get to know on the plane which rarely happens nowadays. Why? Air ticket has become cheaper, it is more affordable than before, it is not like many years ago, only rich people gets to fly.
Lastly, I think that being a flight attendant is not an easy job, no matter the flight attendant is old or young, pretty or ugly, it is just another occupation that I saw from my point of view. However, the job function is more on service oriented; thus, I think as a professional flight attendant, they should treat all the passengers with smile and politeness, after all, when we reached our destination after a long journey, all we want is “have a pleasant flight with xxx airline”.