World Civil Aviation Flight Attendant Day (12/07)

Every year on July 12, representatives of one of the most romantic specialties in the world, better known to us as stewards and flight attendants, celebrate their professional holiday — World Civil Aviation Flight Attendant Day —.

It may seem surprising, but this profession has almost a century of history. It is believed that it arose in Germany in 1928, when a special person whose duties included providing service during the flight, — stewards, began to be taken on board the plane. Previously, this was done by the co-pilot of the aircraft, which was risky from a flight safety point of view.

At first, the functions of flight attendants were performed by men — most often they were former waiters of expensive restaurants. However, already in 1930, the idea arose in the United States to attract attractive girls to work — this was supposed to become an additional advertisement for passenger air transportation. There was another argument in favor of the fair sex: they weighed less, which was of great importance for aircraft of that time.

The first flight attendant in aviation history is Ellen Church (1904—1965) from Iowa. She set off on her first flight in this capacity on May 15, 1930, the plane was flying San Francisco Flight — Cheyenne.

Ellen graduated from nursing courses, and also took private lessons in flying a — aircraft, which served as a decisive argument in her favor: the girl herself offered her services to the airline. Moreover, it was Miss Church who was tasked with recruiting the first group to train future flight attendants; they were seven nurses under the age of 25 and weighing no more than 52 kilograms.

These days, the weight of a flight attendant is not so important. But when selecting personnel, the principle of «three O» is often used: this is an external image (speech, facial expressions, makeup, external attractiveness); internal image (presence of necessary character traits); professional image (professional knowledge and skills).

The main responsibility of a modern flight attendant — is to ensure the safety of passengers during the flight. In addition, stewards and flight attendants do everything to make passengers feel comfortable.

Although today's date is not an officially approved holiday, many companies maintain traditions of honoring their flight attendants.



Infographics – poster «July 12 — World Civil Aviation Flight Attendant Day (Stewardess Day)»

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