skylady

A purser is actually defined as one who carries the documents or valuables.

B747-437B

To take this a little further off topic but as an interesting historical note, at Air India the term "Purser" developed as those were the crewmembers who were issued keys to access the bonded bar stores on board the aircraft and had responsibility for ensuring all of these were accounted for appropriately.

FlyerGoldII

Thanks, to all the responders.

Going back to the original question, are there any other countries, outside of UK or India, where the term "air hostess" is used officially and/or commonly?

Christopher

The term "air hostesss" or (in context) simply "hostess" is used in Australia, not officially but commonly and in ordinary speech. I should guess that most people using it would be aware that a lot of "hostesses" these days are men (who are never called "hosts", of course), but it is used nonetheless. It is often abbreviated to "hostie".

The official terms, in both the UK and Australia, would be "flight attendant" or (in the collective sense) "cabin crew", I imagine.

The word "purser" would not be used — in ordinary speech — of the senior member of the cabin crew on a plane. (It would be used by members of the general public of the senior passenger-facing crew member of a cruise ship.) It might be used officially by airlines, although they now seem to refer to these people as "in-flight supervisors" or "senior flight attendants".

jackal

You Aussies love to abbreviate anything and everything and always manage to end it in "ie"...

I've only ever heard it at UA and never at any other U.S. carrier.

The word "flight attendant" is both official and common usage over here (except for Pa Kettle, who probably still calls them "stewardesses") as evidenced by the captain's announcement, "Flight attendants please prepare for arrival," whereas on BA, they say, "Cabin crew, please prepare the aircraft for landing." What do they say in Oz? (I flew QF a few years ago but don't recall.)

CyBeR

Dunno about the UK, but being European like we are I suspect they stuck with stewardess (or their own air hostess) just like we did over here. None of that American crap. If you say flight attendant here you will get weird looks and people will have to think about what you're referring to, where stewardess causes no such confusion.

Purser is used here by crew to passengers. ('Hello, My name is blah and I will be your purser for this flight.') Again, none of this American crap for us.

Helsinki Flyer

In Finnish we would say "lentoemäntä", which is a flight hostess. Male FAs are pursers.

1apreferably

It would seem, given the above, that English is not your first language. The term flight attendant will, as 'American crap' is absorbed around the world, become the common expression.
The misogynistic 'we will call them what we've always called them' approach to female workers will eventually disappear.

Mr H

And this, in a nutshell, demonstrates why sometimes your compatriots receive a less than enthusiastic welcome in other countries.

ajax

All empires fade. It won't be pretty, but it will happen to the US, too.

Personally, I hope it doesn't. There is nothing misogynistic about the term "air hostess" provided that the equivalent referring to men, "air host", is in use. I have heard this used colloquially as well.

Newsflash: it may seem strange, but not every culture in the world wholeheartedly embraces anodyne, politically-correct-for-the-sake-of-it language just because some do.

The OP refers to a story about an Indian air hostess made by a British telelvision company (paid for by my taxes, incidentally). Neither of these is American. I have a suggestion: if you don't like it, don't watch it. But don't expect everyone to conform to your ideas of what is sexist and what is not: has it ever occurred to you that you are wrong?

CyBeR

It's obvious you're American.

We call female stewardesses that, and the male version is a steward. Notice that 'stewardess' is simply a female version of 'steward', just as 'princess' is the female version of 'prince'. (Though now that I think of it, you don't have those either.) In fact, this page, for me, presents an ad that does exactly that: http://www.cyberhq.nl/~marco/tio.png

The british apparently call their stewardesses 'air hostesses', with the male version presumably being an 'air host'. It's exactly the same concept. This will not change any time soon.

Why every term must be unisex is not something we non-Americans understand. How would we call our queens? Our princesses? Our wives? Or to keep it job-related, our midwives? Our nurses (in my native language, this translates directly to 'sister')? Our preschool teachers (again a term that has been unisexed in English but not in my native language, where it translates somewhat to 'madam').

Only in English is everything unisexed. In Dutch most words that describe a person have male and female versions. (There are some exceptions, notably person itself.) The French overhaul most of their sentences to account for genger changes. Italian, spanish, german: they all have gender-specific versions of words describing people.

Please, don't equate American to what the rest of the world does. Worse, please don't assume American ways and expressions will be 'absorbed around the world'. True, it happens in some cases but it is absolutely not the norm. Assuming it is, to us, is like taking a big fat dump our our individual identities, traditions and languages. Obviously we ask you to refrain from that.

FlyerGoldII

There was a reason I brought up the issue.

I am of Indian origin, but brought up in Canada. So "flight attendant" is the term I use, just as it is used in USA.

However, I am a top tier flier with Air Canada, and fly to many places in the world. Terms in the English language may be quite different from country to country, including those related to travel. Obviously, this applies to the term "flight attendant". One should accept it, even if the term may be considered politically incorrect in North America.

In Indian newspapers and tv/radio, the term used is "air hostess".

Of note, ny sister-in-law, immigrated from India to Canada about 5 yrs ago. She still uses "Indian" English terms in every day conversation. She did so in this thread some time ago (post #3), and the same type of responses (see #26 and #29) were discussed there, as in this thread.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...ewr-del-2.html

ajax

Amen.

FlyerGoldII

See Times of India (the largest circulation English language daily newspaper of India) for this article - using the term "air hostess".

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/C...ow/4589096.cms

soitgoes

"Air hostess" seems to be a term that Air India uses:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%...&aq=f&oq=&aqi=