johnirvine

I have flown around 200 times on Aegean (exclusively from TXL, LCA, LHR, IST and ATH) and have never yet seen a single male flight attendant. Personally, I do not miss them and find the service on A3 flights to be well above average. Does anyone know if there is a deliberate policy in place to hire female staff and, if so, is this really legal in Greece?

KLouis

I recently (~two weeks ago) posted a piece of info on that matter, but I simply can't find the thread! At any rate, I had a chat with the purser of my flight and she said that they had originally hired several male FAs at the time when they started flying about 15 years ago (I remember that well). Since then, in several rounds of hiring they never had any male candidates for reasons that nobody could explain. Finally, at the last round of hiring a few weeks ago they hired about 20 males to be based in ATH and another 20 to be based at LCA (they're in training now). She told me that everybody at A3, i.e. both management and colleagues, were very happy with that development and everybody hopes that the percentage of males will increase in the near future.

Let's wait and see.

LukasVIE

I had a male FA on my flight from ATH to SKG two days ago ...

DELLAS

There are Male FA's but very few. As stated above the latest round of recruitment included successful Male applicants. When you look at the amount of people that actually apply for the positions it is overwhelmingly 90% females. With the current climate in Greece at the moment females are very much attracted to this role as it gives them the chance to travel ( staff perks ) which make up for the lower wages. Also you will find a lot of these crew still live at home with parents.

A lot of Males who have finished their education and more important their military service obligations tend to go onto better jobs and indeed have sought opportunities abroad. So it is not a case of A3 not wanting Male FA's it is more about the trends and employment situation on the ground.

Indeed we did have a discussion on this before also.

irishguy28

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/aegea...-employer.html

headingwest

Let's have more please!

lsed

Had a guy serve me once in C on ATH - IST. He looked like he was in his late 40s.
I remember him being quite spontaneous and friendly, but some parts of the service could have been more polished.

GUWonder

Indeed, demographic trends and cultural angles -- whether at the national level or industry level of culture -- come into play in who goes where for employment opportunities.

Way more women than men seem to apply for FA positions, across the Americas and Europe.

KLouis

Amazingly, at the times of the old OA, about half of its FAs were male. Another interesting fact in Greece (only?) is that there are few female commercial pilots (IIRC I only once flew with a female pilot on A3) while there are many more women attending, and graduating from the Merchant Marine Academies.

PS Let's not start with opinions on why that is, based on the so-called different biology of the two sexes.

DELLAS

Indeed take a LHR-ATH for instance it was more often than not that two Male FA's were rostered. Of course there is an easy explanation for this as they were given jobs by the Greek government usually because they knew someone or were related to someone with a link to power. Dimitri just finished national service and needs a job so we will ''create'' a role in OA ( Insert job title/position ) here.

Dan72

Unemployment rates among Greek males is still unacceptably high. It's difficult to fathom why there were no male applicants until now, particularly given that male flight attendants were not a foreign concept in Greece, as noted above in the point alluding to corrupt recruitment practices at OA

And now it goes from zero to 40 It's not credible to say that this was solely down to self-screening by applicants. It's difficult not to conclude that there has been some form of discrimination at play at A3.

DELLAS

Except that is not the case in reality as we discussed in the other thread. I guess you have also read about the ''brain drain'' in Greece where thousands and thousands of educated Greek males have left the country to work in Germany UK etc...Many to support family back home. Another thing to take into account is the wages were a lot higher in OA thus attracting more. When OA was in operation the perks gave Western European carriers a run for their money. A FA job today is great for those not having to support themselves and living at home etc but not for someone who wants to better their life and stand on their own feet and even support a family. I think you need to also understand the difference between wages for an FA in Western Europe and one in Greece today. You might get a shock !

As for going from zero to 40 that is not the case there are Male FA's and have been for years.

Dan72

So the brain drain only applies to men, because women don't have... The arguments above for the paucity of male flight attendants really stretch credibility. Even if true, none explain why all of sudden there is an uptick in male recruitment, other than the more likely realisation by A3 that there were vulnerable to criticism, if not much more.

DELLAS

There have been Male FA's for years. The fact they have recruited 40 more Men is not a major swing to change anything. You quoted ''zero'' to 40 where did you get that figure from ? Do you know how many are actually currently employed? Up take in male recruitment ? What % is the shift ?

Dan72

You're deflecting from the ridiculous arguments expressed above. Paucity = "the presence of something in only small or insufficient quantities or amounts". Male FA A3 flight attendants have been all but invisible on A3 since it was established.

To recap, the arguments advanced to explain this are: brain drain is a phenomenon that only affects males; and the salaries are too low for males (but not females).