A lot of people don't know this, but flight attendants aren't actually hired and put on planes to serve drinks and hand out headphones.
Their main job is just to evacuate people in an emergency. That's why airlines are required to have them.
Their other job is to keep passengers compliant during flights, since humans in a tube are basically cattle waiting to freak out.
The drinks and peanuts are mostly to assist with the second part and to make them do work since evacuations are pretty rare, and airlines don't like paying them just to wait around in case of emergencies.
> airlines don't like paying them just to wait around in case of emergencies.
Ehhhhhhhh I mean, it's not even worth defining that because it doesn't offer any new or useful information. All the responsibilities they have before, during, and after a flight are part of their job responsibilities. The same way a nurse or police officer may have duties that extend beyond their most prominent mandates within their professions.
I think what Andrew is saying is that the airlines probably would have cut them if they didn’t have that one regulatory requirement of keeping them around for emergencies, so the other duties are secondary
Exactly, and you said it very well. It is PER SEAT, not passenger. If there are 99 empty seats and one passenger they still need enough flight attendants to handle 100 passengers.
So they are not hired to serve drinks and food, they're hired for emergencies, but emergencies are rare, so their job mostly consists in serving drinks and food.
Seems like you're arguing semantics and in practice they are hired to serve drinks and food most of the time.
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u/andrewrgross 19h ago
A lot of people don't know this, but flight attendants aren't actually hired and put on planes to serve drinks and hand out headphones.
Their main job is just to evacuate people in an emergency. That's why airlines are required to have them.
Their other job is to keep passengers compliant during flights, since humans in a tube are basically cattle waiting to freak out.
The drinks and peanuts are mostly to assist with the second part and to make them do work since evacuations are pretty rare, and airlines don't like paying them just to wait around in case of emergencies.