I like retro words, I also have never understood why the terms Steward and Stewardess were eliminated by most peoples lexicons over the last 30 years, to be replaced by "flight attendant" or "cabin crew". Yes I know its gender neutral, however we do not call waiters or waitreses, waitpersons, waitroids or restaurant crew.

Therefore over the last year or so I have been doing my own real word research by either calling Stewards or Stewardesses by these names or when speaking with them in the galley ask them what they think of the term.

Truth be told, I would estimate that over 80% of female flight crew like the word stewardess as either

1) They just like it better than other words
2) Older flight crew, will tell me things like "that's what I was when I was hired, and as the industry has become worse, we have been depersonalized with these new terms".
3) Some feel that it brings "class" and harkens back to a more elegant time for the industry.
4) The only people that still regularly use these terms are generally older passengers that have much more respect for them as they to come from another era.

10% are against the word and another 10% don't really care.

I tend to find that Stewards are more neutral on this matter than Stewardesses. In any case many tell me that they are often reffered to as "Purser' even though it is NOT there position (as on many carriers it doesn't exist) and in any case Purser is supposed to also be gender neutral, but much of the flying public only uses the term when speaking to males!

Now here is a really crazy idea, both as an experiment, but also to gauge the influence of FT on the broader flying world. Imagine if a large proportion of FT members were to start using these expressions regularly on every flight? Would it catch on in wider society? I wonder, I really do. If anything it would be an interesting experiment.

What does everyone think??