Confessions of a Conservative Flight Attendant

Notice the date on the video - Nov. 26, 2012

Interesting.

Dennis Miller Show
Nov. 26,2012

The future has arrived.

Most flight attendants are liberals??

Could be the lack of oxygen!

That's an interesting dichotomy the lady describes. The young female attendants are mostly Democrats and the older male flight crews (many but by no means all ex-military) are mostly Republicans. My hypothesis is that the flight attendants are recent school graduates, chronologically closer to their liberal indoctrination "educations", as opposed to more mature adults who have learned some life-lessons.

My fault entirely wrt the date! I meant for it to be Oct. 26th!!!

Couldn't help but notice that the video was missing photos of Air Canada hags!

Not sure about the fight attendants, but it's not surprising most pilots/copilots are Republican. A number of them are either ex-military officers and/or in the Reserves/National Guard.

It's likely brain damage. The cabin isn't shielded like the cockpit. The much higher radiation flux is just taking its toll.

I thought it was interesting, the comment about how the other flight attendants just assume everyone is a Democrat.....this is so common. In Canada, translate that to be, people talk like we all hate Harper (don't think so, some of us voted for him!)

Flight attendants for the most part get by on appearance and their ability to follow orders, pilots are forced to succeed on merit.
So this is not surprising in the least.

Pilots deal with facts, like gravity or math.
Flight Attendants wish they could control the flawed (human) behavior of passengers.

I'm not saying the GOP is great, or even good, but I will point out that the progressive Dem's are the party of behavior control. It's natural that FA's lean left.

Yes, Most FAs are liberal. Their views of the world are often limited to interactions with us (cattle) where one face is pretty much like another and the only real people are the ones they see frequently.

Most often it takes a mortgage to create a Conservative. The monthly nut is paid with net-aftertax payroll... FAs don't make vrey much. They are often young and advettureous. They enjoy seeing the world and meeting people. They enjoy the work even with long days... However, the work does not increase in value with seniority. Pay raises are seldom and hard won, often after a strike.

Pilots too often, in my experience, take a union work mentality as well. IOW, seniority and training are everything. Yes, the skills and muscle-memory training kicks in as the hours accumulate. However, they do not see themselves as similar to Teamster bus and truck drivers... They do a flight then turn around and go home. Safely, boring and dull is what we all want. I've heard tales of cockpit conversations, but what I'm told mostly stays well away from politics.

It's an artificial world where hours are prescribed in finite detail. There is much free time away from the work. The happiest are those who find other work such as real estate, farming, investment management, etc. Work that takes attention but not full-time attention. They make the transition to retirement/private life easier than those who are suddenly out of work.

The military pilots are still not in the majority of pilots. Many flying came along through the private lessons, midnight freight-dog, commutter route. It takes a long time to train pilots for both military and civilian roles.

FAs are the "Face" of the airline. I have quit flying certain airlines when the management and FAs get into a dispute... Pilots simply do a "Work-to-rule" and/or waste fuel on the ground when they are disgruntled...

Many pilots are presently flying for less than the retirement income of the generation before them... IS that fair-? Someone more wise than I can decide.

I have flown so much I am accustomed to my role as cattle. I know where to sit, what is allowed and what rythms to expect. Yes, I notice the engine burn rate prior to take-off...I notice the work-to-rule among the cabin attendants... I choose my carriers based on the face that the company presents to me. If they are nickle-and-diming me for baggage, seat seperation, food, snacks, movies, music, etc. That adds to the passenger disgruntlement. Add a tense FA or two and the cabin is unpleasant place to be. The "Guys-with-ties" NEVER-EVER ride in coach or cocoach-plus when they ride either in positive or non-rev status... Yes, I have spent over 40 years flying for business... I have accumulated hundreds of thousands of miles...and only once used the miles for a ticket, since my retirement. I have lost, timed-out over a million miles earned among the various carriers. I am not impressed with the current state of the industry.

Pilots and FAs are, unfortunately, the face of the airline the passengers see and remember... some are excellent and have a positive spirit... most are disgruntled and serving their time until retirement...

The political divide is steep-sharp and jagged. We have reached a point where one side cannot accept the existence of the other as human beings. The otherside simply sees the agressors as naive, short-shighted, and well-intentioned but uninformed... Can the two side be reconciled-? Probably not. The post 9/11 era showed that the chosts of Vietnam Era Protests are still viewed romatically and with a desire to emulate... "Occupy" equals "Be-Ins" and free dope, free love, free money will always be attractive to some... Unfortunately, the adults must come along and pay bills, pick-up garbage, keep lights, water, sewage working... Romney seems very much "The Adult" in these college-dorm type discussions... Everything makes sense after a dozen beers and midnight philosophy...

Keep up the good fight

Flight attendants are unionized. Why would they skew Democrat?

Is it hard to believe that females without much education who are in an entry-level position are mostly democrat? Is it hard to believe that gay male flight attendants are democrat?

Isn't being a democrat just a way to rationalize some of your own shortcomings?

A while back, Glen Beck was incensed about his terrible experience on an American Airlines flight:

http://blogs.star-telegram.com/sky_talk/2012/09/glenn-beck-says-american-flight-attendant-made-him-feel-subhuman.html

Let's put it this way: Pilots have many more grownup responsibilities than flight attendants.

Pilots get a multi-ton, mega-airborne vehicle to its destination come hell, high water, or hurricane, whereas flight attendants ask you what kind of booze and mix you want or how many lumps of sugar in your coffee, dear: one or two?

I love Dennis Miller!

Yeah well there is a completely different mindset between flight crew versus cabin crew much like the difference between drivers and dispatchers.

How come drivers brains go for $1/lb and dispatchers go for $75/lb?

Answer: How many dispatchers do ya have to kill to get a pounda brains?

Flight Attendants (Trolley Dolly’s) have to go through quite a bit more training than most people realize, and they have to prequalify each year. The training is not based on serving cookies, but on safety and emergencies – to get you out of the aircraft, if something goes wrong –which is their primary job.

Their Syllabus can be found here:

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/publications/tp12296-syllabus-1400.htm

Wife is a FA and conservative (sometime repub.) She'd beg to differ with some of the negative generalizations above about FA's but, most of remaining observations are insightful and a bit accurate.

re Jazz: "Flight attendants are unionized. Why would they skew Democrat"

pretty much splains it all especially when you receive their monthly, glossy trade rag. funny stuff to read for kicks.

As for unionized pilots being repubs? Inconsistency is due to these pilots being "republicans." That ain't conservative necessarily. Specifically, they're repub when it's tax time but, hang on the union's hind tit come contract time.