Flight Attendants

Key Responsibilities

• Monitor passenger behavior to identify threats to the safety of the crew and other passengers.
• Prepare passengers and aircraft for landing, following procedures.
• Take inventory of headsets, alcoholic beverages, and money collected.
• Announce flight delays and descent preparations.
• Administer first aid to passengers in distress.
• Conduct periodic trips through the cabin to ensure passenger comfort and to distribute reading material, headphones, pillows, playing cards, and blankets.
• Collect money for meals and beverages.
• Announce and demonstrate safety and emergency procedures, such as the use of oxygen masks, seat belts, and life jackets.
• Walk aisles of planes to verify that passengers have complied with federal regulations prior to takeoffs and landings.
• Operate audio and video systems.
• Attend preflight briefings concerning weather, altitudes, routes, emergency procedures, crew coordination, lengths of flights, food and beverage services offered, and numbers of passengers.
• Determine special assistance needs of passengers, such as small children, the elderly, or persons with disabilities.
• Sell alcoholic beverages to passengers.
• Inspect and clean cabins, checking for any problems and making sure that cabins are in order.
• Prepare reports showing places of departure and destination, passenger ticket numbers, meal and beverage inventories, the conditions of cabin equipment, and any problems encountered by passengers.
• Inspect passenger tickets to verify information and to obtain destination information.
• Answer passengers' questions about flights, aircraft, weather, travel routes and services, arrival times, or schedules.
• Check to ensure that food, beverages, blankets, reading material, emergency equipment, and other supplies are aboard and are in adequate supply.
• Verify that first aid kits and other emergency equipment, including fire extinguishers and oxygen bottles, are in working order.
• Assist passengers entering or disembarking the aircraft.
• Greet passengers boarding aircraft and direct them to assigned seats.
• Direct and assist passengers in emergency procedures, such as evacuating a plane following an emergency landing.
• Reassure passengers when situations, such as turbulence, are encountered.
• Assist passengers in placing carry-on luggage in overhead, garment, or under-seat storage.
• Heat and serve prepared foods.