April has been a pretty crazy month.  A personal trip followed almost immediately by a quick work trip.  With all the travel, I noticed the flight attendants of different airline companies vary significantly.

On the personal trip, all the flight attendants except for maybe the head attendant were all young females… probably all less than 30 years in age.  They wore matching uniforms with matching hairstyles.  They also had a very similar look irrespective.  Most spoke at least 2 or 3 languages fluently enough at a conversational level.  Many smiled at the interaction with the customer before speaking.

In contrast, on the work trip, none of the flight attendants were young nor all female.  Their uniforms varied to signify the different “jobs” each uniform performed.  From what I can tell, one uniform interacted with the customers solely as a “busboy and kitchen microwave” role while the ones wearing the more traditional flight attendant uniform interacted with the customers handing them food and dealing with issues.  Regardless of their roles, not all the attendants smiled when they interacted with the customer.

I think the difference is ultimately the type of culture that’s trained by the airline company.