Featured Image Credit: TikTok/katkamalani. James Lauritz/Getty Images
Topics: Travel
Stewart Perrie
A former flight attendant has opened up about the realities of the job.
Being a part of the cabin crew has been romaticized in the past.
While some people are strapped to their chair and desk for their office job, flight attendants get to travel as part of their work.
They get to experience some of the best parts of the world and get paid while doing it.
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However, Kat Kamalani says the job is far from glamorous.
In a TikTok video, the ex-flight attendant said she worked for a major airline for six years and 'hated every single second of it'.
She said the biggest issue is that you have to be with an airline for a long time before you get to reap any big benefits.
"Your whole life depends on seniority - and what I mean by that is, when you get hired, that's your seniority date and that dictates everything," she said.
"It dictates what aircraft you're flying, what holidays you're flying, if you have weekends off, if you can hold certain dates off.
"Another big thing of why it's so important is when you travel. For my airline you can book for standby - meaning if there are empty seats on the airplane, you can get on based on your seniority.
"And I would say new is considered at least five years or less."
Kat says it was also brutal just being qualified to get on a plane.
"The training is so intense," she explained.
"I had to do two months of training. It was six days a week. We did 15-hour days.
"You take a million different types of tests and if you don't pass tests within 80 per cent of above, they kick you out of the program."
To be honest, that sounds fairly hectic.
And then she rounded on what it was like to deal with some of the passengers.
Considering a lot of the job is dealing with people, you have to be able to handle a range of emotions.
"People think flight attendants are there just to serve you drinks - and truly, we're there for your safety first," she explained.
"People are traveling when they are in the hardest times of their life. They are sleep deprived, they are traveling for an emergency or a funeral."
"There's a lot of times people are at their lowest when traveling and who gets the brunt of it?"
She also said that while there are some lucky cabin crew who get trips like Paris or Barcelona, others will be forced to do three flights a day.
This can include red-eye flights, or journeys with very short layovers.