Flight Attendant Hours
 

Is this CareerBuilder.com article about flight attendants true?

Work Less, Make More Money?
The average employee works 40 hours per week, 2,080 per year, and earns $9.69 per hour ($26,036 annually)*. There are other options, however. Flight attendants, for example, work an average of 996 hours each year and earn $33,957. That's 1,084 extra hours to spend freely!

LMAO, $35K. Maybe an international Purser nowadays, but I believe starting salary is somewhere around $16Kish, and it only goes up slowly from there. I'm sure a resident FA will chime in and correct me if I'm wrong.

Block time is one thing, actual work time is much greater....not counting any of the time away from home. Most people who work spending many nights in other cities away from the fam get paid well for their travels...most likely much higher than the $9/hr that the "average" guy gets.

"Cushiest Job" on AOL, too...
 

This article is the lead on aol.com and AOL's email access page, today. :mad:

But, of course, it's AOL.....

I question their "average employee" numbers. The average employee works on holidays and takes no vacation? Not to mention that 2,080 hours @ $9.69/hour = $20,155.20, not $26.036. And since that number is right at the federal poverty level for a family of four ($20,650 in 2007), so I doubt their "average" $9.69 is even accurate.

Depends on seniority, whether class A or B and trips they took. A new hire will spend most of their time in an airport on reserve if they are out of a large hub, and that can be several days of waiting for a trip. Average pay for starting is around $17k for United based on a friend who interviewed with UA. Not a lot of free time when you spend hours waiting for a trip...

Moving this to TravelBuzz!

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

You're right about that. Median personal income in the US is $39K. Even using the 2080 hours -which is suspect - that works to $18.75 an hour.

More realistically it is 1920 hours (40 hrs a week, 2 weeks vacation and 10 paid holidays for the "typical" worker).That works to $20.32 an hour.

Nothing new here though. The incompetence level in media reporting with regards to financial issues is mind boggling.

yeah, but they get paid to rub their behinds on your legs, every time they walk by.....i have talked to many flight attendants, and they say that the pay is not great at first but is worth it if you plan on staying a while.

I have heard different major airlines have a lot of variation in pay, level of hotels, etc. This seems strange for a union based job. Is this true?

While you are very correct that many people get paid much more for being away (I certainly am not complaining about my pay and believe FA should be paid more) but there are even mis-perceptions about us "lucky" travellers.

I found a website that lists pay scales for various occupations. Flight attendants had various scales listed by years experience, city, employer, etc. The website is www.payscale.com.
Some numbers for flight attendant: ($ per hour)
Median by employer - AA $35.52, UA $27.17
Median by city - Chicago $23.18, NY $25.59
Median by years - 1-4 $19.84, 5-9 $29.94, 10-19 $40.62

I don't know how close to real these are but the site has the pay for my job (software trainer) right at my current level.

What they don't tell you is that those figures are per FLIGHT hour so you only get paid around 900 to 1000 hours per year instead of the typical 2080.

That's just it. FA are not paid for a fair part of the time that they are on duty. When they like you are waiting at the gate for a late arriving a/c, they are not being paid. It would be like you not going on the clock in the morning while you make coffee, wait for the printer to warm up, or for your computer to boot up.

FAs are paid from the time the door closes till it reopens, and pilots are paid from the time the brakes release. Hence why urgency to close the door. Just as FA are required specific time between flights for layovers at the end of shift, from the time the door opened till the next days flight closes. Pilots are given amount of time from check-in time to hotel to ensure adequate rest.