The life of a flight attendant is filled with journeys to exotic destinations, important safety checks and busy meal times serving passengers.
For morning flights there’s also waking up at 4.30am and having to get glammed up to wear the uniform.
Most holidaymakers know about what cabin crew do during service – but there are other parts to the job you likely don’t know about.
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An American flight attendant recently gave social media users a look behind the curtain.
Air hostess Noelle, @noellecors, based in Chicago, explained how she gets to choose where she flies for work each week.
Noelle has 68,800 followers who were keen to know more about the process.
In a viral video, that’s racked up over 41,500 likes, Noelle explained that she’s a "reserve" flight attendant – and gets to "bid" on where she wants to fly.
Noelle said: "The thing about me is I’m really picky when it comes to the flight attendant trips that I fly. So when I’m on reserve I prefer to bid the trips instead of just getting assigned something random.
"That’s the really nice thing about our reserve system is that I can see the day before what trips are in ‘open time’ AKA the trips that are not covered yet."
The air hostess added: "I can bid for different trips and based on my seniority I can potentially get assigned one of them. I do not like getting called for something that I’m going to hate so this is why I do it this way. “
Noelle then opened up her computer to look at the glam flight destinations available to work on.
She commented: "There are a tonne of trips open tomorrow so the likelihood of me getting called is very high.
"I look for the amount of legs that are in the trip – I don’t like to fly a lot of legs so if I can avoid it I definitely will.
"So right now in open time I see two London trips and a Barcelona trip, I’m going to bid for all of them, but the Barcelona trip is for a Spanish qualification and I don’t have a Spanish qualification so I potentially could get it, but also they’re going to give it to a speaker over me."
This means that a flight attendant who speaks Spanish will be chosen over Noelle if they bid.
She continued: "So I’m going to bid for the two Londons, but international trips often go senior so it’s pretty low likelihood that I’m going to get it, but I’m going to bid it anyway."
Noelle also said that she would bid for an ODAN flight – an "on duty all nighter" where she gets to stay in a hotel during her shift.
She noted: "I’m also going to bid for a two day trip with an LA layover because there’s a friend I can potentially hang out with there.
"There’s also a four day trip that has a 24-hour Miami layover so I’m going to bid for that."
She also opted for a few quick "turns" which is a flight that returns to your home airport the same day.
Noelle arranged her bids in order of her preference with the Barcelona flight at the top followed by the two London journeys.
In her update, Noelle revealed she was given one of her lower choices and would fly to Portland.
Now you know how flight attendants on call choose their destinations!
Previously, another flight attendant explained that she gets to spend hours, days and even weeks of down time in gorgeous destinations like Hawaii when she lands there with work.
Would you prefer to fly international for work or stay close to home? Tell us in the comments section…
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