September 27, 2023 • 48 mins
Ally Case has an entrepreneurial spirit and wears two hats: a flight attendant and a business innovator. She details the incredible perks that come with her unique job, the daily challenges she faces balancing her entrepreneurial endeavors and the demands of the skies, all while expressing an unwavering love for the adventure and discovery that traveling offers. Sit tight and gain insights into a life where the boundless joy of exploration meets the disciplined reality of running a business, making for an inspiring and enlightening journey through the skies and the world of entrepreneurship.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:14):
Welcome back to the Globe Trotter's podcast, the show that brings you diverse storytelling,
thoughtful discussions on ethical issues, andinvestigations into how you can make the
most of an adventure without breaking thebank. I'm your host, Johnathan o'deo.
If you tuned in. Last week, we held another edition of the
Layover series, our bi monthly travelshow in which we investigate all things travel,
(00:35):
update you on the latest travel news, and occasionally we'll look into a
questionable travel ten so you don't haveto. On today's episode, we'll speak
to Ali Case, the founder andCEO of upper Case Media, a marketing
agency that focuses on social media management, in the health and wellness space,
and food and beverage. Ali isalso a part time flight attendant. On
(00:57):
this podcast, we rarely get theopportun who needed to talk to someone who
serves travelers in addition to being oneherself. This episode focuses on learning more
about the lifestyle of a flight attendant, the unique perks that make this a
desirable job for travel junkies, andthe evolution of air travel as we navigate
it through a pandemic. Ali,thank you for being on the show.
(01:19):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Our
pleasure. Ali. Before we getinto it, we got a little bit
of a playful but burning question ourlisteners want to ask you the most as
a crew member. Does the middleseat passenger get priority over one or both
of the arm rests? I lovethis question because you might have seen that
(01:40):
video that went PRIRA recently from apilot talking over the PA and he's like,
the person in the middle gets botharm rests. So that's definitely sparked
a lot of conversation recently. Youknow what, the middle seat, it's
kind of like the worst seat.So I'd say give them, give them
both, give them both arm rests. Yeah, definitely the worst of the
two options. And I don't knowabout you. Are you more aisle or
(02:04):
window? I was just talking aboutthis with a friend coming back from our
trip yesterday. If it's a shortflight, I like the window because I
like to just be like undisturbed.But if it's a longer flight, I
like the aisle so I have easyaccess to like get up, go to
the bathroom and not have to disturbanyone. We are two in the same
same thing. Let's talk a littlebit more about travel etiquette. What are
(02:25):
some of the dews and don'ts thatyou would advise travelers to consider before boarding
their next plane. That's a greatquestion. I would say for DUS,
definitely preparation I think is key,like having everything that you need handy and
like your personal items so that you'renot having to like get up a million
(02:46):
times during the flight to grab yourlabs up to grab your water, to
grab this. So like kind ofhaving the things you know you'll need in
flight with you close by, underthe seat in front of you, over
in the seat pocket, and thenswing your larger bag up away because you
know you won't have to access that, And then I feel like that kind
of falls under a du and don't. I'll leave you off the hook for
(03:08):
this one. Okay, Well,I'll count that as both ado and the
don'ts. Ali, I'm a bigfan of stats, so here are a
few relating to the demographics of flightattendants that you may already be aware of
or maybe not. According to SIPIA, there are over ninety thousand flight attendants
currently employed in the United States,seventy nine percent of which are women.
(03:31):
Despite this large difference in gender ratio. Women earned ninety five cents for every
one dollar earned by men before anyonegets up in arms, which you know,
this is actually better than the nationalaverage across all industries, in which
women earned eighty two cents for everydollar a man makes. That was one
stat that jumped out of me,and we could talk all day about the
(03:52):
gender wage gap. But the secondstan stat that jumped out at me was
the average career length of airline crewmembers. Roughly seventy four percent of all
flight attendants last less than five years. And so my question is this,
Alley, you've been working as aflight attendant for four approaching that five year
mark, which means you're in theminority of people who have stuck it out
(04:14):
for this long. We're about towhy do you think people last long or
short in this industry? Wow,I'm actually I'm surprised to hear at that
statuo. I thought it would bethe opposite, that more people would stay,
and I think a pro of stayingwould be that your seniority accrues.
So it's definitely like the longer you'rewith the company, the betterer schedule gets,
the higher your pay is, themore the better time you can schedule
(04:40):
your days off, you can chooseto just work trips to Rome instead of
Toledo and things like that. Andthen I would say, maybe, yeah,
that's I would assume that I wouldhave assumed that most people would stay
longer. But I could also seea lot of people as well just wanting
to try it for a few years, because it is one of those industries
that you can kind of pop intofor a few years in between careers or
(05:04):
after school, or really just anytimeand try something new, travel the world
for free for a few years.Get in, get out, I'll do
your thing. So definitely I couldsee I could see both sides playing having
their pros and cons of like stayinglonger or just doing it for the experience.
Yeah, And you know, Iwas equally surprised to things that I
(05:24):
want to say about that one.I think it was eight percent of the
workforce falls between the ages of twentyto thirty years, so flight attendants are
tend to be on the older side. I think the percentage is about seventy
four percent of them are forty yearsor older. Has that been your experience
in what you see in every dayworking in this industry? I would say,
(05:47):
it's definitely a mix, and Ithink a lot over the last few
years, especially after COVID when therewas a little bit of a hiring freeze
for all airlines, that hirings pickedup again. So we're seeing a lot
of junior flight attendants coming to allthese different bases, which is great because
it's bumping up my seniority. Myschedules and trips are getting better, so
I'm like, keep them coming.But so I'm seeing definitely at a mix
(06:11):
of new hires, but the newhires do vary in age. I see
some new hires that are twenty,some new hires that are forty and they're
just looking for something different, ormaybe they were flight attendant in their twenties
they quit. Now they're back.But you do start at the bottom again,
whatever your age is. Yeah,I think the average age was actually
forty one for flight attendance, whichwas again another eye popping stat considering everything
(06:34):
we talked about. But interesting,right, Yes, let's talk a little
bit more about you though. Whydid you get into this line of work
and what has kept you going?So I have an aunt that has been
a flight attendant for I want tosay it's been thirty seven years or something
(06:55):
really really long like that. AndI always grew up with stories of her
telling me about her just day inthe life as a flight attendant, which
oftentimes involved a quick trip to Beijingfor a few days, and she'd be
like it so casual, and she'dbe like, do you guys want anything,
I'm gonna be in Beijing. ThenI'm gonna be in London next week.
And I was like, what inthe world. You're going to all
(07:16):
these cool places You're getting paid togo. This is your life. So
I always just from a really youngage, I was really interested in that
work side, and I always thoughtI was like, no matter what I
do, maybe I'll just like tryto I'll apply, maybe I'll be a
flight attendant for a year, travelthe world, experience it. And I
thought I was going to be aget in, get out type of person.
(07:38):
And so it originally started. Iwas working in marketing for a startup
in Los Angeles. I started workingthere when I was nineteen, and then
I was there for two and ahalf years. But towards the end of
staying there, I really just likeI just wanted to travel and I was
having as a startup it's a littletough to be, like, can I
vacation every week all the time?Un though you're like working through yourself or
(08:01):
you are in the travel industry orsomething like that. So I started.
Eventually, I transitioned out of themarketing role I was in. It was
in marketing wholesale, social media PR. Small team, so everyone was doing
a lot of everything. And Istarted freelancing and was like, this is
the perfect time that I can gobecome a flight attendant. I'll apply,
(08:22):
I'll go through the process, andI'll do both of them and I can
do the freelance and the go kindof be my own boss, but also
be able to travel the world forfree. And I was like, and
then I'll figure it out from there. But I fully intended to just do
it for one year. So Imean, maybe that's where that statistic comes
from, right, that a lotof people drop before the five years because
they might go into it with thatmindset and something allow something makes them,
(08:46):
something keeps them going. But youbrought up something that I wanted to talk
about. You said, your loveof travel kind of influence your decision and
become a flight attendant. I knowit's not a prerequisite for the job person.
But would you say that most ofyour colleagues are travel enthusiasts. Absolutely,
And I think what I see fromthe friends that I have that have
(09:11):
quit or they've moved on to differentroles in different industries or just move away
from the airline industry and from flyingso much, is when they lose their
kind of like passion for travel.Because a lot of friends that the friends
that I have that have what theyhave kind of like gotten to the point
where they're like, oh, Ihaven't really used my travel benefits in like
six months. I visited my brother, but other than that, and then
(09:35):
it's like those people that tend tojust like drift off. And I think
it's because a lot of the timesyou joined the travel industry, specifically in
a role like a flight attendant forthe flight benefits, Like you're not necessarily
doing it for the money. You'redoing it because you want to travel for
free, you want the flexibility,and you like being on the go.
So once that starts stops being excitingand lighting that spark, I think that's
(09:58):
when people tend to time to dropoff, losing their travel spark. Not
something I can empathize with yet hopefullyit doesn't hit me, it doesn't sound
like it's hit you yet. Butone last thing I want to talk about
this topic is burnout. Do youever experience it? I mean, it
is a very demanding job, andwe will talk about the perks later on,
(10:20):
but in respect to burnout, isthat common along for flight attendance?
Absolutely? And I think that alsogoes hand in hand with kind of the
spark thing as well, is thatif you're traveling so much for work and
your day to day is like inyour like you're spending all day on an
airplane and you're doing the drinks andyou're doing the quick layovers and all the
(10:43):
things. It makes it tough whenyou're getting back home to want to go
take a trip because you're like,oh, I'm home for three days.
Do I go to Europe or doI stay home? And in a lot
of cases, you're like, Ijust want to relax for three days.
So it starts to become a littlemore work than vacations. So I think
to kind of get that perfect balanceis to each their own, for sure,
(11:05):
But definitely the burnout I think comesfrom when you're working so much you
kind of want to stay home onthe days that you have off versus go
travel some other places. So Iwould say burnout is definitely common. I'm
in a position which I'm very thankfulfor that I'm very what I do.
Am a part time flight attendant,So I fly basically the least amount of
(11:26):
hours that I can fly to stillkeep my benefits and all the things.
And then I also have my marketingagency over Case Media as well, so
I kind of can take that onthe go. So I work my work
trips, and then I come home, spend some days at home, and
then I still feel energized enough togo work abroad somewhere else, which is
really cool. And you know,a good analogy for that is like the
(11:48):
chef who's cooking all day at arestaurant and prepping, and then if you
have to come home and then cookfor yourself or your family, gets a
little bit daunting or exhausting. Butsince you brought up the minimum hour is
required, let's talk about a littlebit more about the technical aspects of your
job. What is the minimum requiredfor a quote unquote part time flight attendant
(12:09):
and what would deem you full time? And what are some of the perks
and cons of either. So Ithink it varies airline to airline because I
think some maybe don't have a specificminimum, or maybe the minimum just varies.
But with my airline, it isforty hours the minimum, so forty
hours per month, So I tendto sit around like forty five to fifty
(12:33):
five hours, and I would saya general like an average line would be
about eighty hours, So I'm workingabout half of what a typical flight attendant
schedule would look like. But thereare also opportunities to work high high time
is what we call it. Wecall it high time, and you could
work one hundred and thirty hours beinglike top top, which is like a
lot, but it's it's funny becauseit's not like a traditional like forty hour
(12:56):
work week because you're really you're onlygetting paid while the boarding doors close.
So it's like you could be atthe airport all day for like twelve hours
one day, but it's only fivehours that you're getting paid for, So
it's those like paying hours that itcounts as if that makes sense, So
one hundred and thirty hours, Sosomeone would be like, that's like kind
of normal, but like that's likeactually working every single day, no weekends,
(13:16):
it's a lot of that's a hightime, and I think an important
distinction to make is that it's notyour traditional forty hour job week where you're
getting assigned your schedule ahead of time, depending what your role is. I
think there's something that you discuss withme last time. It's you can technically
bid to sign up for a shift. How does that work? Yeah,
(13:37):
so it depends on It's kind oflike split into two sectors. There's a
reserve flight attendant and a line holderflight attendant, and the reserves are typically
the newer hires. So like whenyou join, you're typically on reserve for
a year straight, and depending onthe airline, you might be on reserve
for a few years. And inthat case, you're given before the month
(13:58):
starts, you're giving your days off, so you know, like I'll be
home these twelve days, everything elseis awash. You could be anywhere at
any time on any of those otherdays other days, similar to like being
a nurse on call or something likethat. Accept instead of like going to
the hospital, you're like being whiskedaway overseas or to like the neighboring state
for who knows how long, andat what time in the middle of the
(14:20):
night you're called for it. Andthen as a lineholder, you can kind
of bid specific trips. So youcan say, like, oh, my
brother lives in Austin and I wantto be there on his birthday on September
fifth, I'm gonna did for anAustin lay over, and you can kind
of bid that way, and thenhow it's awarded to you. It's really
really cool, and how it's awardedto you is based off of seniority.
(14:41):
So if there's a lot of peoplebidding for that specific layover, it's going
to kind of go in seniority.Base are in seniority order. So like
if I tried to start bidding forRome every week this system, it would
never get to me because I've onlybeen flying for four years and I think
you would be flying for like thirtyyears to have that trip. So it's
a really cool way. Like onreserve, you can bid your days off,
(15:03):
but it's a little more up inthe air about where you're going.
What would be the advantages so ofbidding for like, let's say you a
shorter flight, Like if you're biddingto you know you're currently based in Florida.
Right, So if you were goingMiami to Orlando and vice versa multiple
times a day versus going Miami toLos Angeles, not just in terms of
(15:24):
the job, but also like thewear and tear on your body. I
don't know how invested you have tobe on those shorter flights versus multiple shorter
flights versus one long flight. That'sa great question, and I think it
depends on the type of person,because for myself, I would prefer to
work three short flights and go tolike Orlando and then do like a Havannah
(15:46):
turn or something like where they're likeless than an hour flights Like twould do
like three quick flights, then doMiami to LA. And there's so many
other flight A sendants Out'll be likehi hat doing three flights to day.
I'd rather just do the one anddone. And it just totally pends.
I just wait, prefer like thequick like it kind of keeps it like
exciting when you're on like Miami LasI mean it could be almost six hours
(16:07):
to kind of on you know,the wind and all the things, and
you know that can get a littleboring sometimes. I mean you could read
and flight, but I kind oflike it to be a little quicker pace.
It's like we're up and now we'redown. So it definitely depends on
the person. Yeah, I meanI didn't. I didn't think about that,
right, like it, I'm surethe shift goes by a lot faster
when you're constantly on your feet forthat one one and a half hour flight
(16:29):
doing that multiple times versus the amountof downtime that you would have. Miami
to LA or Miami to Europe veryinteresting. If it's a European trip,
I'll take it. If I'm like, by the time I get from like
Miami to LA, I could belike Miami to Europe, I'm like,
I'll take the I'll take the Europeantrips any day over the three short flights.
(16:52):
And you know, I think anotherthing that's unlike other jobs is that
there's a mandatory rest period in betweentaking these flights. Can you talk a
little bit more about that and educateour listeners because it's still not clear to
me how it works. Yeah.So the FAA, I think it's the
FA requirement is that we need aminimum of ten hours of rest, which
(17:14):
also was just updated as like thelast I want to say the last year,
it used to be eight hours,which is so wild to think that
you could like potentially work like afifteen hour day and then have eight hours
to like rest, hour change andbe at the airport like all in that
eight hour and then be on thenext flight. So it's kind of nice
that it's ten now. But mostlayovers sit around like twelve hours just in
(17:36):
case there's delays, lots of thingsthat could happen, so it's usually like
built in like a little bit ofa buffer. So you usually see minimum
layovers to be around twelve hours.But the further you go, like if
you're laying over in Europe, basedon kind of like the schedule the airline
is running, maybe there's only likeone flight per day going to Rome for
Miami or something like that, thatyour layover time is one you have to
(18:00):
have a longer rest, but alsobecause there's only one flight operating per day,
so you kind of get like thatfull twenty four hours before the next
flight has to go back. Soit kind of depends on the sequence of
how the flights schedule is, justlike as a company wide thing. And
but then the rest, I wouldsay most labors around or They all vary,
(18:21):
but definitely doesn't really go under twelvethese days, Allie, you keep
bringing up Rome. Are you goingthere soon? Or did you just get
back from Rome? Is it yourfavorite city? What's going on here?
I don't know why I keep bringingup Rome other than you know what it
probably is. It's because it wasmy first trip that I worked on Reserve
that was an international trip and I'mlike still jazzed over it because it was
(18:42):
so like it was so shocking,Like I was like sitting at home and
then I was like, Oh,maybe I'll go like to this North shromrac,
go shopping, go here. I'mlike walking around and I'm like on
the phone with my mom and Iget a text. It's like, oh,
there's been a trip added to youradded to your line. You're going
to you know x y Z login to see your where you're going.
(19:03):
And I was like, oh,Mom, I just got a trip.
Let me see what it is.And I stopped in the middle of the
North sharmac and I was like,I am going to Rome. And it's
like still something that I think of, Like that's like kind of a fun
thing on Reserve is you never knowwhere you're gonna go and you get those
cool tricks when you're like just kindof there anyway. So that's probably why
I just keep cleaning up ron rightnow. No, let's talk more about
(19:25):
that experience, because you know,the way that you're describing it, you're
already thinking about kind of the destination, the layover, and the fun time
you get to yourself, the freetime you get to yourself in that city.
When you tell me that story fromthe outside looking in, I'm thinking
about how long you're going to haveto work and you know, serve people
on that flight, But it soundslike you don't really remember the service part.
(19:48):
You do remember getting the touchdown inRome and exploring. Can you talk
about that a little bit more?Definitely. So, well, first,
when you get an assignment on reservetoically have like in a base. I
was based in Chicago at the time, we had a two hour call out,
So when you get that notice,you have two hours to get to
the airport. So I was like, I gotta leave, I gotta go
pack up and go, and soit's kind of like really really fast,
(20:11):
and then all of a sudden you'relike in the flight, you're working,
and it's kind of like it itjust goes by really fast because I think
you're so excited to go there,especially as someone that's like a new hire,
which I still considered a new higheras well, but like just going
to Rome for the first time andlike being really excited to be with your
crew and all those things. Ithink it's just like like everything becomes a
(20:33):
blur until you land and you're like, Okay, we've twenty four hours,
what can we do? And youjust like do everything and you try not
to sleep because you're like, Ijust want to see everything. And it's
not like you like won't ever goback, but you're just kind of like
so jazzed about being there that you'relike, how much can we do with
twenty four hours on thirty minutes ofsleep? And Ali, are you given
as far as I'm as far asI'm aware, you are given accommodations for
(20:56):
them I paid for the airline oragency that you work for. Do you
also get a per diem for foodor anything like that? Yes, so
per diem is with every trip,So I think it's I don't know what
the exact numbers, it's like maybea dollar and sixty cents or something,
like that per out or per houryou're away from base. So if you're
(21:17):
on a four day trip and that'stwenty four forty eight, you know,
like every hour you're getting your crewingthat perdem and then hotel is always paid
for, and then our transportation toand from the airport, so you just
have to like show up and thenfigure figure out what you want to do
when you're later. So you reallydo get paid paid to travel in a
(21:38):
lot of ways. Talking about yourcrew, and you know, you just
mentioned how you go out, howhow often do you work with the same
crew, And would you say youhave friends now that are other crew members
that you enjoy working with. Absolutely, So it's very rare to work with
the same crew. I don't thinkI've ever in my life worked with the
(22:00):
same exactit, like the same fourof us or anything. Every now and
then you'll be like, oh,like I remember you from two years ago.
We worked together that one trip toTulsa. We like went out here,
and it's like, oh, Iremember that. That was a great
trip, and you kind of likehave that moment. It's like all right,
onto the next and then you likework your trip together. But I
would say for the most part,your trips are kind of like completely new
(22:22):
people every single time, So you'remeeting each other for the first time every
trip, and if it's like athree day trip, you work together for
the full three days, but you'remeeting at that like first leg. And
then as far as friends, absolutely, yeah, I've made so many flight
a tenant friends. We're kind ofall spread out across New York, Charlotte,
Chicago, Phoenix, LA. Everyone'skind of all over, but my
(22:45):
friends here in Miami. I'm newishor newer to Miami by about nine months,
but I've made a lot of friendshere since I've been here, and
so we kind of want to afew of our friends. We want to
buddy vid, which is essentially justlike opting in when we're bidding for our
schedules or saying we want to flyevery trip together. And then you can
work with a friend, which isgreat. You could work even your whole
crew. You can do the fourof you. If it's most crews are
(23:07):
like four people, you could bidthe four of yous every lay over you
have, it's all together. It'sfair to say that when you sign on
to be a flight attendant, youcould have never predicted that COVID was about
to take over. Can you talka little bit about the challenges going into
COVID and how they affected you personallyas a you know, as a new
(23:30):
flight attendant. Yeah, it wasreally wild. So COVID hit around nine
months into being a flight attendant,so I was still on reserve. I
was freshly off probation, and thenthere was all this talk about COVID happening,
and everyone stopped traveling and stay home, and I was like, oh
my gosh, Like my job isliterally the opposite of that, and like
(23:52):
I have to travel and go home, Like I wonder what's going to happen.
So it was really wild to seehow things started to unfold, because
as it started, it was oneday everything was normal, and then the
next day the airports were ghost towns, like everything just completely shut down.
And I was still flying and wewere still working trips. I would definitely
say as far as like the flightswent, all the flights were cut in
(24:15):
half. So if I was usedto flying X amount of hours, I
worked a higher time then I wouldwork like eighty hours on reserve. I
all of a sudden started working fortyor it was barely meeting the minimum because
all the flights were cut in half, and so that was like a really
weird, weird time to be in. And then when I was in the
airports, it was just completely empty. It was like lights were off in
(24:36):
different areas. It felt like wewere in like an apocalypse, like the
Walking Dead sort of vibes. Itwas really really weird. And then there
was a furlough as well across theindustry, so most flight attendants were furloughed
for about You could opt to takea leave, but most flight attendants were
furloughed for about nine months. Iwould say yourself yes, So it started
(25:02):
so COVID that started like chaos,like the everything really shutting down, was
like that March fifteenth sort of time. And in April is when they companies
were offering leaves. So they wereoffering leaves for up to six months.
And I talked to my family andthey were like, take a leave.
You don't want to be flying duringthis time, whether other people are traveling
(25:23):
or not. Take the leave.So I started taking leaves one by one,
so I would opt in to takea leave for April. Then I
opted to take a leave for May. Then for June, so I started
to just kind of like take personalleaves, and most flight astendants did because
there wasn't a need for flight destendants. There weren't enough flights going out,
so and it was kind of encouragedto take a leave if you could,
(25:45):
because if you did, there wouldn'thave to be a furlough if we could
just keep it to the bare minimum. And eventually a furlough did happen,
and it was around October of twentytwenty and then we were all brought back
on the line in March of twentytwenty one, so roughly a full year
later. I can't imagine, atleast in your case, it doesn't sound
(26:07):
like, you know, the intentionfor being a flight attendant was attendant was
financially motivated. But I'm sure fora lot of people they do depend on,
you know, the paycheck to tolive day to day. So I
can't imagine how stressful it was duringthat time. And something else that's caught
my mind is since then, there'sbeen a rise in the amount of yearly
(26:30):
accidents that have been shown towards flightattendants. There was another stat from Politico
that I read that from twenty twentyto twenty twenty one, the number of
yearly accidents jump from one thousand tosix thousand in the United States alone.
Can you talk to us a bitmore from your perspective, how if that's
(26:51):
affected you in any way or ifyou know anyone that was affected and their
experience of dealing with customers obviously withall the mandates a mask and that sort
of thing. Yeah, like asan accidents, you mean, like like
incidents in flight where someone's on wantingto put their mask on, like things
like that. Yeah, or youknow, I mean they've been as extreme
(27:12):
as people. You know, you'veseen the videos people getting tied with duct
tape. I'm not you know,I don't think that you were on one
of those planes, but you know, just the I would say the animosity
has grown towards flight attendants for somethingthat they have no control over. You
didn't make the mass mandate, rightthat. That was definitely a tough thing
(27:34):
to come back to because we hadthe majority of US had about a year
off and then went back and themandate was still in place. The mass
mandate for I don't I can't evenremember, but like it must have been
like a year was it twenty twentytwo, but it couldn't even remember.
I would say at least two yearsthat I can remember it being in place
(27:56):
roughly, yeah, must have beenabout a year then with masks on in
flight required in flight, and thatwas definitely tough because a bunch of like
states and islands in different places areall very different with like what they wanted
to do, and not even froma political sense, although it did get
a little political and in some waysa lot of people didn't want to wear
(28:19):
them and we were told, youknow, like they have to. If
they don't, they can't fly.It made other people uncomfortable around them if
they weren't wearing a mask. Soit was chaos having to one just focus
on our daily operations of like gettingthe job done, making sure everything is
safe and secure, and focus onthose priorities of the day to day,
(28:41):
and then also have to go aroundand like babysit make sure everyone had a
mask on. They're like, whatdid our job? We kind of just
like doubled and work. What happenedthere? I want to talk about empathy,
you know there's because I think itreally boils down to a lack of
education and mostly empathy. When Isay lack of education, I just mean
(29:02):
the anger is redirected at the wrongpersonnel. Like I said, you did
not implement the mass mandate, butit's part of your job to enforce those
rules. What would you say somethings? What would you say are some
things that passengers need to keep inmind when realizing that things aren't in your
control delays, mandates, And howcan we help foster a more empathetic attitude
(29:26):
towards flight attendants? I think exactlylike as you said, I think just
like being empathetic and like just rememberingthat when you hear like there is a
delay or something, it's no one'sspecific, but it could be the weather,
it could be maintenance, and maybethat is something that like, and
like maintenance is even necessarily like oneparticular person's fault. Things get wear and
(29:48):
tear, things need to be fixed. It's better to fly on a safe
plane that was fixed than a brokenplate and maybe not get where you're going
to go. So I think likethinking of it in that mindset of you
know, like hopefully we're gonna getwhere we need to go and it's going
to be tonight, if not goingto be smart, but we're there safe.
Like that's I think a positive wayto think of it. But I
think just like having compassion towards otherpeople, whether it's like your fellow passengers
(30:12):
that are also maybe delayed getting intotheir best friend's wedding or their work conference
or something like that, that everybodyhas their own story. Everybody's trying to
get somewhere and or they're going homefrom somewhere, and everyone has different things
going on that you never know.So we stray people with respects the kinds,
whether it's a flight attendance or fellowpassengers, the maintenance team, the
(30:33):
pilots, and I think that thatdefinitely makes flying a way more fun and
enjoyable and nice environment. Yeah,definitely to those tough times. Definitely.
And in that same political article,you know, I read that legislation was
trying was being introduced to help trainflight attendance to be equipped with more skills
(30:56):
in case you get rowdy passengers.Have you seen any changes being implemented in
how you deal with customers in thelast let's say two years so as far.
It's so funny that you mentioned tooabout like the like self defense sort
of side of things, because that'ssomething that we do do in training and
our initial qualification, but then alsowe go back and we train every year
(31:18):
and we go back to our huband we are requalified, and so the
self defense is always a part ofit. But it was funny kind of
going back during that COVID time andyou know, we're kind of like,
Okay, now this stuff might actuallyneed to be used, like on a
data bright like the self defense thing, like just joking around it. But
(31:40):
but I forget the what was it? Did I stray away from that?
No? No, no, youdid that? So no, no,
no, because I guess I wasthinking that you lack that training. But
it sounds like you already go throughthat training. The only difference is that
now you might actually have to usethat, where before it might have seen
like some being kind of silly togo through. Right Exactly, there's like
(32:04):
a little like dummy in training andbe like practice. There's a whole thing
exactly, there's a whole training sectionon it, which is fun and you
do it every year. That's hilarious. Again, this good insider knowledge.
I would have never guessed. Butnow that we've talked about some of the
more difficult parts about being a flightattendant, I want to tell all or
(32:25):
I don't. My goal is notto dissuade anyone to do this. It's
not in all doom and gloom scenario. There are clearly some amazing perks you
get to take advantage of. Canyou tell us about some of them aside
from the free travel, yes,definitely. So there is the free travel
for yourself, but then there's alsofree travel for any person of your choice.
(32:49):
So that could be a significant other, a brother, a best friend,
I know, anyone that you choose. You get that same sort of
employee benefit to one other person ofyour choice, your parents sliper really discounted
rated essentially comes out to being justlike the taxes, and then you get
some buddy passes, so it's like, yeah, there's some really good travel
benefits there. And then kind ofon that same tune of travel, as
(33:13):
well, as a flight attendant pilot, you also get to take extra jump
seats. So if there's a flightthat's super full, like let's say I'm
trying to get from here to LAbut the flight's oversold by twenty but there's
extra jump seats on the plane,I could be like, and I'm thirty
on the list for getting getting aseat, I can say like, oh,
I'll take the jump seat. I'lllike volunteer and you can take the
extra jump seat, which is onlythe cabin ones are only for the flight
(33:36):
attendants and the flight deck ones areonly for the pilots. So that's a
really big bonus of being like thatkind of differentiates airline employee and then like
flight crew, because that's a bigone. It's kind of like the fallback
on, like whenever you're somewhere,you're like, at least I know I
could take the jump seat. Ican get home and not be stranded for
five days. Two quick follow upsto that one out of the first one.
Do people fight to be your buddyas in family versus this partner?
(34:00):
Absolutely. My brother and sister wentright at it right when it rag.
When I was like, guys,I think I'm gonna apply to be a
flight attend. They were like me, choose me as your person because they
knew how it works because our aunt'sis in the industry, and so I
kind of described I told them.I was like, my sister, you
can have it the first year.My brother, Tyler, you can have
it the second year, and Iwas like, if I have a boyfriend
(34:22):
at that point, guys, like, I hope you enjoyed your years,
because I'm I'm gonna switch it overto him. And so my sister had
it the first year, my brotherthe second year. I was kind of
a watch because it was during COVID. So he had it for like a
year and nine months. I waslike, I feel too guilty taking it
from you couldn't use it at all. So he had it for almost two
years. And then now my boyfriendhas it. We'll congrats him winning the
(34:44):
lottery with the flights? Does itwork in the way that they have to
be traveling with you to take advantageof that benefit? For example, let's
say your brother, Oh okay,So if your brother's let's say in Austin,
then you're in Miami and you wantto get to beliefs. You can
utilize that buddy pass. Absolutely,he can use it in any way that
(35:06):
he wants to. So he canlike come here and visit me. We
could meet in Montana, we couldmeet in Rome. We can meet in
Rome. Very cool, very verycool. I had no idea. So
what's been your favorite travel experience thatarose from you being a flight attendant outside
of Rome. Outside of Rome,I would say another great experience. It's
(35:31):
a similar, similar, like theRome one, but actually a little even
crazier. It was actually a tripto Athens. When I was Chicago based.
I was sitting on airport stand by, which is something that it's a
very like you do it for yourfirst few years as a new hire,
but when you're on reserve, youhave to sit stand by twice per month,
which essentially is just sitting in theairport for six hour periods and you
(35:53):
just wait to get called. Solike you sit there and like you watch
your movies, you talk with yourfriend, lunch, whatever you want to
do. But when you get acall, it's like instead of being home
and like get to the airport intwo hours, it's a hey, go
to gate Kate twelve and be therein three and a half minutes, like
that sort of thing. So you'relike on standby, and that's for if
(36:13):
any cruise go illegal, someone's wearinglate, something happened with someone didn't bring
their passport, which you do havestaff that's ready on standby in case.
I didn't know that. I alwaysthought they had to call someone from home
to rush over, but okay,get to know, yeah, like sitting
in the airport, so we havecare rooms where pretty much at all times,
(36:35):
unless it's like after midnight. That'slike usually when the last one goes
home is just cruise ready to go. You've got your bags packed for anything
and anywhere you could be going forhowever long. And so in this instance,
that's a really memorable one was Iwas sitting on standby based in Chicago,
was talking with a friend. We'resitting there, I think we were
eating lunch, and then I getit. There was actually like a sound
(36:59):
speaker that off and it was likeflight attended case, please call crew scheduling,
Flight attenda case, please call CrewScheduling. And I was like,
well that's where they didn't call myphone, but okay, let me call
and I'm like, hi, Ijust heard the message whatever, Like did
I get a to rep? Andthey're like, oh, yeah, you're
going to Athens And I was likeAthens, Georgia, which is important distinction.
(37:22):
Yeah. I was like which whichAthens? Like because this could really
affect my reaction right now, andthey were like, oh yeah, no,
you're going to Athens, Greeze you'regoing to be the number six flight
attendant and the flights of parts inthirty five minutes, So go to the
gate right now. And I waslike, wait, oh my gosh,
(37:42):
this is so wild, And itturned out it was actually it was related
to like a COVID situation, whichit was during around that time where you
needed to be tested to go in, but it was kind of like ambiguous
on whether as flight attendants you neededto either one you had to be vaccinated
or you needed to just have beentested the day before, and like within
that twenty four hour period, andthen I guess there was like a crew
(38:05):
that went illegal and something something,someone's time ran out in some way.
So there were two positions that opened. So then two flight attendants, leaving
one of them from stand by,we were called onto the trip. And
it was funny because we actually wentto the gate and then we were told
like, oh no, actually everything'sfine, go back to stand by.
You're okay. And I was likewe were both like that I know,
(38:27):
and we were like, oh mygosh. And I was texting my family
like I can't make dinner tonight,guys. I'm going to grease, Like
this has happening and they're like,oh my god. So then I like
go back to standby and everyone thatwas sitting there they're like, oh my
gosh, you're not going because Iwas like, oh going, guy.
It was like adorable. It waslike like when I don't know, it
could have been like a movie sceneand exactly. And then I like came
(38:47):
back and they're like, no,what happened when they saw me walk back?
I spoth walked back in and I'mlike, oh, I guess it
like fixed out whatever. And thentwenty minutes later we get another call and
it's like, okay, never mind, you actually are going. I go
back to the gate whatever. Wejust need to verify your vaccination car in
YadA, YadA, YadA. AndI was like, don't play with me,
am I actually going? Yeah,have my heartbroken for a second time.
(39:09):
And lo and behold, we endedup going and I had a really
great time. It was really fun. Good. I'm glad it worked out
for you. And yeah, Imean you even you just saying that story
like I was deflated for you.I actually thought the story was going to
end and you didn't actually get togo. But I love Grease. I
love Athens. I love the food, so hopefully you enjoyed some of that
(39:30):
over there. It was super funand the first thing I thought was like,
I hope I have things that arelike packed for grease, because I
was like, I don't remember whatI packed, so I just had active
or in my back, like itwas never expecting to go to Greece when
I woke up that day, soI was like, it's just like,
oh my god, I don't rememberwhat I packed, but I guess it
could buy something I need. Ingeneral, is it fair to say you
have to pack for summer and winterweather all in once, And definitely you
(39:55):
kind of have to have. Youhave to be packed for any sort of
terrain, and sometimes it's one day, sometimes it's four days, so you
kind of just have to. Andsometimes if it's a standby situation, sometimes
you just go home at the endof the day and you're like, well,
I didn't even open my suitcase andI'm packed for four days in summer
and winter. So you just gottahave to be prepared for anything and everything
at all times. The funniest thingabout this conversation has been the spontaneity of
(40:17):
the job, right You really justhave no idea how long you're gone and
where you're going to. That's that'svery cool. For anyone that wants to
get into this line of work,what would you caution them to consider both
the good and the bad. Ithink something that comes up a lot a
question that someone asked me is abouttime at home and spending time with family,
(40:39):
having kids, having a puppy,things like that. So something I
would caution against is it's it's toughyour first year, because especially your first
year, it can be tough buildinga routine, you know, forever because
your schedule is always changing. Itgets easier with time, but I would
say especially your first few years,it's tough to make plans. So that's
(41:00):
a really tough one. You're gonnamiss holidays. You're not really gonna be
able to send Christmas at home,Thanksgiving, that's just like a given,
like you you will be working onehundred percent on those holidays, and then
just because you're like on the reserveperiod, you're giving your twelve days off
and everything else is kind of awash. It's hard to make plans in
(41:20):
the sense of like, yes,I can make this birthday dinner or you
know, if you have a newpuppy, having someone to watch your puppy
when you're like, sorry, Ihave to be at the important two hours.
Can you help me, like rightnow or something like that. That's
that's a tough part for sure.That does sound tough. Never mind about
what I said about this job beingtotally awesome. I can't leave my dog
(41:43):
that long. I know I don'thave a suppy, but I really want
one, and it's gonna be It'sgonna be tough. So I can't do
it right now because I wouldn't beable to, like correct, feel like
I'm fully in it right. You'rebeing responsible about it, is what you're
saying. Absolutely, But hopefully inthe next year, two years, three
years, we're going to put youinto the family. Good Ali, This
(42:07):
conversation has been so insightful and interesting. But before we let you go,
I want to talk a little bitmore about Upper Case Media and it's mission.
What services do you provide your clients. Yeah, so we are a
full service social media marketing agency,a specializing in brands and health and wellness
and food in BEV and we doanything and everything you can think of with
(42:28):
social media. So content creation,influencer marketing, paid social community building,
the full nine yards, anything youcould think of. We do it,
and we love it, and wehave a small, buttonimble team, and
I love it so much. Ireally enjoy doing both things because both are
just insanely passionate and sanely passionate.Insanely passionate interests are both major interests.
(42:52):
I'm very passionate about both, andso I'm really lucky to be able to
do both every day. And youknow, before we wrap up, I
do you have a few rapid firequestions related to travel? We'd like to
ask you? Are you ready?I'm ready. Let's do it. Out
of all the countries you've been to, what has been your favorite so far?
My number one is Israel. Ilove Israel. That's my favorite,
(43:17):
and I think it was it wasone of my first trips that I ever
took, like really really far,so that one always sits really close to
home for me. And a littleBertie told me you got really sick on
that trip too, I did.We might have to save that one for
another podcast episode. Fair enough,your favorite dish or cuisine from a country
(43:38):
you visited. Oh, the firstone that comes to mind is this twelve
course meal that a few friends andI did in Buenos Aires. It was
insane. It was have you hadin the same experience. My favorite experience
culinary experience has also been in BuenosAires. It was I want to say,
(43:59):
ten courses. Wow. Do youremember the restaurant Chila Oh okay mine.
It was called El Baciano and wedid a wine pairing with it.
We had a glass of wine withevery like our table was full of wine
glasses. They never took them away. I think it was for the vibe.
So we have like pictures of uslike sitting there with like we put
all the wine glasses around one person. It looked like someone drink like thirty
(44:22):
glasses of wine and we're like itwas so funny, amazing. Experience of
food was amazing. Good. Well, we share that same experience. The
most underrated country you've been to?Most underrated country I so off the top
of my head, I would sayEcuador. I don't know if it's underrated,
but I think before I went,I didn't know too much about Ecuador.
(44:45):
But I did a ten day backpackingtrip with some girlfriends and flight attendants
a few years ago and had themost amazing time. I think my top
two countries are Israel and Ecuador.I think they'll sit like side by side.
There's so much fun. But II think there was just so much
to see and between the water andthe mountains, and man, I loved
it. There so much. Veryoriginal answers. Favorite beverage you've had abroad,
(45:08):
alcoholic or otherwise, Oh my gosh, this one. Okay, I've
got a really good one for this. So it was in Tokyo and it
was it was actually before I wasa flight attendant. I was there for
my twenty second birthday and we foundthis cool like bar kind of lounge restaurant
and it was called Sip and Guzzle. It had a kind of bar.
(45:29):
It was a two story thing.The top when you walk in was a
bar, and it's kind of likewhere you go and just kind of have
that bar experience, and then youget this like secret invite. We found
out if they're like, oh,we like you whatever whatever to get invited
to go down this like speakeasy sortof staircase to this lounge area where it's
like more like romantic vibes, likeit's a little like more dim. You
(45:52):
kind of open this gate and you'rewalked in and then it's like like actual
like table seating and it was soso pulled down at the bottom. When
we we were taking shots with thebartender. It was my birthday, just
like just hit mid midnight. They'relike, oh, we want to invite
you down to this like experience downstairsand this this drink called the Tomato Tree.
It was I don't even remember whatit was. It was like some
(46:14):
sort of like tomato water, tomatojuice with maybe like gin or something.
I don't even remember, but itwas delicious. And when I got back
to La where I was living atthe time, I sent an email to
the restaurant and I was like,can you please send me this recipe?
And they were like, no,sorry, you have to come back that
no shots to anyone that's ever answeredthat question before. That was a great
(46:37):
story, very cool experience. Andlast one the country you are most eager
to visit. I really want togo to Portugal. I hear the best
things about Portugal. It's like oneof those spots that I feel like if
you ask anyone like where's your favoriteplay see that you've ever been, they
always say somewhere in Portugal, SoI'm like, I'm missing something. I
(46:59):
gotta get a very sad. Yeah, I mean it's, you know,
along the lines of what you said. It's it's such a popular destination that
we actually did an episode of whyis everyone going to Portugal? And so
we answer that question. You gottatune back to listen to that one.
But Ali, I want to saythank you so much for being a guest
on the Globetrotters. Can you tellour listeners where they can find you if
(47:20):
they want to learn a little bitmore about you and Uppercase Media, Yeah,
absolutely, my personal Instagram, TikTok, any social media. I'm Ali
case one al y b As andthen the number one Uppercase Media. We
just have an Instagram It's Uppercase dotMedia on Instagram, and then Uppercase dashmedia
dot com for our website. Incredibleand if you want to learn a little
(47:45):
bit more about us, you canvisit us on our website at www dot
GTS podcast dot com. You canalso find us on any streaming platform,
Facebook or Instagram at Globetrotters Podcasts,Twitter at globetrot Pod. And we'll be
back next week with another thrilling episodeuntil next time. M
Welcome back to the Globe Trotter's podcast, the show that brings you diverse storytelling,
thoughtful discussions on ethical issues, andinvestigations into how you can make the
most of an adventure without breaking thebank. I'm your host, Johnathan o'deo.
If you tuned in. Last week, we held another edition of the
Layover series, our bi monthly travelshow in which we investigate all things travel,
(00:35):
update you on the latest travel news, and occasionally we'll look into a
questionable travel ten so you don't haveto. On today's episode, we'll speak
to Ali Case, the founder andCEO of upper Case Media, a marketing
agency that focuses on social media management, in the health and wellness space,
and food and beverage. Ali isalso a part time flight attendant. On
(00:57):
this podcast, we rarely get theopportun who needed to talk to someone who
serves travelers in addition to being oneherself. This episode focuses on learning more
about the lifestyle of a flight attendant, the unique perks that make this a
desirable job for travel junkies, andthe evolution of air travel as we navigate
it through a pandemic. Ali,thank you for being on the show.
(01:19):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Our
pleasure. Ali. Before we getinto it, we got a little bit
of a playful but burning question ourlisteners want to ask you the most as
a crew member. Does the middleseat passenger get priority over one or both
of the arm rests? I lovethis question because you might have seen that
(01:40):
video that went PRIRA recently from apilot talking over the PA and he's like,
the person in the middle gets botharm rests. So that's definitely sparked
a lot of conversation recently. Youknow what, the middle seat, it's
kind of like the worst seat.So I'd say give them, give them
both, give them both arm rests. Yeah, definitely the worst of the
two options. And I don't knowabout you. Are you more aisle or
(02:04):
window? I was just talking aboutthis with a friend coming back from our
trip yesterday. If it's a shortflight, I like the window because I
like to just be like undisturbed.But if it's a longer flight, I
like the aisle so I have easyaccess to like get up, go to
the bathroom and not have to disturbanyone. We are two in the same
same thing. Let's talk a littlebit more about travel etiquette. What are
(02:25):
some of the dews and don'ts thatyou would advise travelers to consider before boarding
their next plane. That's a greatquestion. I would say for DUS,
definitely preparation I think is key,like having everything that you need handy and
like your personal items so that you'renot having to like get up a million
(02:46):
times during the flight to grab yourlabs up to grab your water, to
grab this. So like kind ofhaving the things you know you'll need in
flight with you close by, underthe seat in front of you, over
in the seat pocket, and thenswing your larger bag up away because you
know you won't have to access that, And then I feel like that kind
of falls under a du and don't. I'll leave you off the hook for
(03:08):
this one. Okay, Well,I'll count that as both ado and the
don'ts. Ali, I'm a bigfan of stats, so here are a
few relating to the demographics of flightattendants that you may already be aware of
or maybe not. According to SIPIA, there are over ninety thousand flight attendants
currently employed in the United States,seventy nine percent of which are women.
(03:31):
Despite this large difference in gender ratio. Women earned ninety five cents for every
one dollar earned by men before anyonegets up in arms, which you know,
this is actually better than the nationalaverage across all industries, in which
women earned eighty two cents for everydollar a man makes. That was one
stat that jumped out of me,and we could talk all day about the
(03:52):
gender wage gap. But the secondstan stat that jumped out at me was
the average career length of airline crewmembers. Roughly seventy four percent of all
flight attendants last less than five years. And so my question is this,
Alley, you've been working as aflight attendant for four approaching that five year
mark, which means you're in theminority of people who have stuck it out
(04:14):
for this long. We're about towhy do you think people last long or
short in this industry? Wow,I'm actually I'm surprised to hear at that
statuo. I thought it would bethe opposite, that more people would stay,
and I think a pro of stayingwould be that your seniority accrues.
So it's definitely like the longer you'rewith the company, the betterer schedule gets,
the higher your pay is, themore the better time you can schedule
(04:40):
your days off, you can chooseto just work trips to Rome instead of
Toledo and things like that. Andthen I would say, maybe, yeah,
that's I would assume that I wouldhave assumed that most people would stay
longer. But I could also seea lot of people as well just wanting
to try it for a few years, because it is one of those industries
that you can kind of pop intofor a few years in between careers or
(05:04):
after school, or really just anytimeand try something new, travel the world
for free for a few years.Get in, get out, I'll do
your thing. So definitely I couldsee I could see both sides playing having
their pros and cons of like stayinglonger or just doing it for the experience.
Yeah, And you know, Iwas equally surprised to things that I
(05:24):
want to say about that one.I think it was eight percent of the
workforce falls between the ages of twentyto thirty years, so flight attendants are
tend to be on the older side. I think the percentage is about seventy
four percent of them are forty yearsor older. Has that been your experience
in what you see in every dayworking in this industry? I would say,
(05:47):
it's definitely a mix, and Ithink a lot over the last few
years, especially after COVID when therewas a little bit of a hiring freeze
for all airlines, that hirings pickedup again. So we're seeing a lot
of junior flight attendants coming to allthese different bases, which is great because
it's bumping up my seniority. Myschedules and trips are getting better, so
I'm like, keep them coming.But so I'm seeing definitely at a mix
(06:11):
of new hires, but the newhires do vary in age. I see
some new hires that are twenty,some new hires that are forty and they're
just looking for something different, ormaybe they were flight attendant in their twenties
they quit. Now they're back.But you do start at the bottom again,
whatever your age is. Yeah,I think the average age was actually
forty one for flight attendance, whichwas again another eye popping stat considering everything
(06:34):
we talked about. But interesting,right, Yes, let's talk a little
bit more about you though. Whydid you get into this line of work
and what has kept you going?So I have an aunt that has been
a flight attendant for I want tosay it's been thirty seven years or something
(06:55):
really really long like that. AndI always grew up with stories of her
telling me about her just day inthe life as a flight attendant, which
oftentimes involved a quick trip to Beijingfor a few days, and she'd be
like it so casual, and she'dbe like, do you guys want anything,
I'm gonna be in Beijing. ThenI'm gonna be in London next week.
And I was like, what inthe world. You're going to all
(07:16):
these cool places You're getting paid togo. This is your life. So
I always just from a really youngage, I was really interested in that
work side, and I always thoughtI was like, no matter what I
do, maybe I'll just like tryto I'll apply, maybe I'll be a
flight attendant for a year, travelthe world, experience it. And I
thought I was going to be aget in, get out type of person.
(07:38):
And so it originally started. Iwas working in marketing for a startup
in Los Angeles. I started workingthere when I was nineteen, and then
I was there for two and ahalf years. But towards the end of
staying there, I really just likeI just wanted to travel and I was
having as a startup it's a littletough to be, like, can I
vacation every week all the time?Un though you're like working through yourself or
(08:01):
you are in the travel industry orsomething like that. So I started.
Eventually, I transitioned out of themarketing role I was in. It was
in marketing wholesale, social media PR. Small team, so everyone was doing
a lot of everything. And Istarted freelancing and was like, this is
the perfect time that I can gobecome a flight attendant. I'll apply,
(08:22):
I'll go through the process, andI'll do both of them and I can
do the freelance and the go kindof be my own boss, but also
be able to travel the world forfree. And I was like, and
then I'll figure it out from there. But I fully intended to just do
it for one year. So Imean, maybe that's where that statistic comes
from, right, that a lotof people drop before the five years because
they might go into it with thatmindset and something allow something makes them,
(08:46):
something keeps them going. But youbrought up something that I wanted to talk
about. You said, your loveof travel kind of influence your decision and
become a flight attendant. I knowit's not a prerequisite for the job person.
But would you say that most ofyour colleagues are travel enthusiasts. Absolutely,
And I think what I see fromthe friends that I have that have
(09:11):
quit or they've moved on to differentroles in different industries or just move away
from the airline industry and from flyingso much, is when they lose their
kind of like passion for travel.Because a lot of friends that the friends
that I have that have what theyhave kind of like gotten to the point
where they're like, oh, Ihaven't really used my travel benefits in like
six months. I visited my brother, but other than that, and then
(09:35):
it's like those people that tend tojust like drift off. And I think
it's because a lot of the timesyou joined the travel industry, specifically in
a role like a flight attendant forthe flight benefits, Like you're not necessarily
doing it for the money. You'redoing it because you want to travel for
free, you want the flexibility,and you like being on the go.
So once that starts stops being excitingand lighting that spark, I think that's
(09:58):
when people tend to time to dropoff, losing their travel spark. Not
something I can empathize with yet hopefullyit doesn't hit me, it doesn't sound
like it's hit you yet. Butone last thing I want to talk about
this topic is burnout. Do youever experience it? I mean, it
is a very demanding job, andwe will talk about the perks later on,
(10:20):
but in respect to burnout, isthat common along for flight attendance?
Absolutely? And I think that alsogoes hand in hand with kind of the
spark thing as well, is thatif you're traveling so much for work and
your day to day is like inyour like you're spending all day on an
airplane and you're doing the drinks andyou're doing the quick layovers and all the
(10:43):
things. It makes it tough whenyou're getting back home to want to go
take a trip because you're like,oh, I'm home for three days.
Do I go to Europe or doI stay home? And in a lot
of cases, you're like, Ijust want to relax for three days.
So it starts to become a littlemore work than vacations. So I think
to kind of get that perfect balanceis to each their own, for sure,
(11:05):
But definitely the burnout I think comesfrom when you're working so much you
kind of want to stay home onthe days that you have off versus go
travel some other places. So Iwould say burnout is definitely common. I'm
in a position which I'm very thankfulfor that I'm very what I do.
Am a part time flight attendant,So I fly basically the least amount of
(11:26):
hours that I can fly to stillkeep my benefits and all the things.
And then I also have my marketingagency over Case Media as well, so
I kind of can take that onthe go. So I work my work
trips, and then I come home, spend some days at home, and
then I still feel energized enough togo work abroad somewhere else, which is
really cool. And you know,a good analogy for that is like the
(11:48):
chef who's cooking all day at arestaurant and prepping, and then if you
have to come home and then cookfor yourself or your family, gets a
little bit daunting or exhausting. Butsince you brought up the minimum hour is
required, let's talk about a littlebit more about the technical aspects of your
job. What is the minimum requiredfor a quote unquote part time flight attendant
(12:09):
and what would deem you full time? And what are some of the perks
and cons of either. So Ithink it varies airline to airline because I
think some maybe don't have a specificminimum, or maybe the minimum just varies.
But with my airline, it isforty hours the minimum, so forty
hours per month, So I tendto sit around like forty five to fifty
(12:33):
five hours, and I would saya general like an average line would be
about eighty hours, So I'm workingabout half of what a typical flight attendant
schedule would look like. But thereare also opportunities to work high high time
is what we call it. Wecall it high time, and you could
work one hundred and thirty hours beinglike top top, which is like a
lot, but it's it's funny becauseit's not like a traditional like forty hour
(12:56):
work week because you're really you're onlygetting paid while the boarding doors close.
So it's like you could be atthe airport all day for like twelve hours
one day, but it's only fivehours that you're getting paid for, So
it's those like paying hours that itcounts as if that makes sense, So
one hundred and thirty hours, Sosomeone would be like, that's like kind
of normal, but like that's likeactually working every single day, no weekends,
(13:16):
it's a lot of that's a hightime, and I think an important
distinction to make is that it's notyour traditional forty hour job week where you're
getting assigned your schedule ahead of time, depending what your role is. I
think there's something that you discuss withme last time. It's you can technically
bid to sign up for a shift. How does that work? Yeah,
(13:37):
so it depends on It's kind oflike split into two sectors. There's a
reserve flight attendant and a line holderflight attendant, and the reserves are typically
the newer hires. So like whenyou join, you're typically on reserve for
a year straight, and depending onthe airline, you might be on reserve
for a few years. And inthat case, you're given before the month
(13:58):
starts, you're giving your days off, so you know, like I'll be
home these twelve days, everything elseis awash. You could be anywhere at
any time on any of those otherdays other days, similar to like being
a nurse on call or something likethat. Accept instead of like going to
the hospital, you're like being whiskedaway overseas or to like the neighboring state
for who knows how long, andat what time in the middle of the
(14:20):
night you're called for it. Andthen as a lineholder, you can kind
of bid specific trips. So youcan say, like, oh, my
brother lives in Austin and I wantto be there on his birthday on September
fifth, I'm gonna did for anAustin lay over, and you can kind
of bid that way, and thenhow it's awarded to you. It's really
really cool, and how it's awardedto you is based off of seniority.
(14:41):
So if there's a lot of peoplebidding for that specific layover, it's going
to kind of go in seniority.Base are in seniority order. So like
if I tried to start bidding forRome every week this system, it would
never get to me because I've onlybeen flying for four years and I think
you would be flying for like thirtyyears to have that trip. So it's
a really cool way. Like onreserve, you can bid your days off,
(15:03):
but it's a little more up inthe air about where you're going.
What would be the advantages so ofbidding for like, let's say you a
shorter flight, Like if you're biddingto you know you're currently based in Florida.
Right, So if you were goingMiami to Orlando and vice versa multiple
times a day versus going Miami toLos Angeles, not just in terms of
(15:24):
the job, but also like thewear and tear on your body. I
don't know how invested you have tobe on those shorter flights versus multiple shorter
flights versus one long flight. That'sa great question, and I think it
depends on the type of person,because for myself, I would prefer to
work three short flights and go tolike Orlando and then do like a Havannah
(15:46):
turn or something like where they're likeless than an hour flights Like twould do
like three quick flights, then doMiami to LA. And there's so many
other flight A sendants Out'll be likehi hat doing three flights to day.
I'd rather just do the one anddone. And it just totally pends.
I just wait, prefer like thequick like it kind of keeps it like
exciting when you're on like Miami LasI mean it could be almost six hours
(16:07):
to kind of on you know,the wind and all the things, and
you know that can get a littleboring sometimes. I mean you could read
and flight, but I kind oflike it to be a little quicker pace.
It's like we're up and now we'redown. So it definitely depends on
the person. Yeah, I meanI didn't. I didn't think about that,
right, like it, I'm surethe shift goes by a lot faster
when you're constantly on your feet forthat one one and a half hour flight
(16:29):
doing that multiple times versus the amountof downtime that you would have. Miami
to LA or Miami to Europe veryinteresting. If it's a European trip,
I'll take it. If I'm like, by the time I get from like
Miami to LA, I could belike Miami to Europe, I'm like,
I'll take the I'll take the Europeantrips any day over the three short flights.
(16:52):
And you know, I think anotherthing that's unlike other jobs is that
there's a mandatory rest period in betweentaking these flights. Can you talk a
little bit more about that and educateour listeners because it's still not clear to
me how it works. Yeah.So the FAA, I think it's the
FA requirement is that we need aminimum of ten hours of rest, which
(17:14):
also was just updated as like thelast I want to say the last year,
it used to be eight hours,which is so wild to think that
you could like potentially work like afifteen hour day and then have eight hours
to like rest, hour change andbe at the airport like all in that
eight hour and then be on thenext flight. So it's kind of nice
that it's ten now. But mostlayovers sit around like twelve hours just in
(17:36):
case there's delays, lots of thingsthat could happen, so it's usually like
built in like a little bit ofa buffer. So you usually see minimum
layovers to be around twelve hours.But the further you go, like if
you're laying over in Europe, basedon kind of like the schedule the airline
is running, maybe there's only likeone flight per day going to Rome for
Miami or something like that, thatyour layover time is one you have to
(18:00):
have a longer rest, but alsobecause there's only one flight operating per day,
so you kind of get like thatfull twenty four hours before the next
flight has to go back. Soit kind of depends on the sequence of
how the flights schedule is, justlike as a company wide thing. And
but then the rest, I wouldsay most labors around or They all vary,
(18:21):
but definitely doesn't really go under twelvethese days, Allie, you keep
bringing up Rome. Are you goingthere soon? Or did you just get
back from Rome? Is it yourfavorite city? What's going on here?
I don't know why I keep bringingup Rome other than you know what it
probably is. It's because it wasmy first trip that I worked on Reserve
that was an international trip and I'mlike still jazzed over it because it was
(18:42):
so like it was so shocking,Like I was like sitting at home and
then I was like, Oh,maybe I'll go like to this North shromrac,
go shopping, go here. I'mlike walking around and I'm like on
the phone with my mom and Iget a text. It's like, oh,
there's been a trip added to youradded to your line. You're going
to you know x y Z login to see your where you're going.
(19:03):
And I was like, oh,Mom, I just got a trip.
Let me see what it is.And I stopped in the middle of the
North sharmac and I was like,I am going to Rome. And it's
like still something that I think of, Like that's like kind of a fun
thing on Reserve is you never knowwhere you're gonna go and you get those
cool tricks when you're like just kindof there anyway. So that's probably why
I just keep cleaning up ron rightnow. No, let's talk more about
(19:25):
that experience, because you know,the way that you're describing it, you're
already thinking about kind of the destination, the layover, and the fun time
you get to yourself, the freetime you get to yourself in that city.
When you tell me that story fromthe outside looking in, I'm thinking
about how long you're going to haveto work and you know, serve people
on that flight, But it soundslike you don't really remember the service part.
(19:48):
You do remember getting the touchdown inRome and exploring. Can you talk
about that a little bit more?Definitely. So, well, first,
when you get an assignment on reservetoically have like in a base. I
was based in Chicago at the time, we had a two hour call out,
So when you get that notice,you have two hours to get to
the airport. So I was like, I gotta leave, I gotta go
pack up and go, and soit's kind of like really really fast,
(20:11):
and then all of a sudden you'relike in the flight, you're working,
and it's kind of like it itjust goes by really fast because I think
you're so excited to go there,especially as someone that's like a new hire,
which I still considered a new higheras well, but like just going
to Rome for the first time andlike being really excited to be with your
crew and all those things. Ithink it's just like like everything becomes a
(20:33):
blur until you land and you're like, Okay, we've twenty four hours,
what can we do? And youjust like do everything and you try not
to sleep because you're like, Ijust want to see everything. And it's
not like you like won't ever goback, but you're just kind of like
so jazzed about being there that you'relike, how much can we do with
twenty four hours on thirty minutes ofsleep? And Ali, are you given
as far as I'm as far asI'm aware, you are given accommodations for
(20:56):
them I paid for the airline oragency that you work for. Do you
also get a per diem for foodor anything like that? Yes, so
per diem is with every trip,So I think it's I don't know what
the exact numbers, it's like maybea dollar and sixty cents or something,
like that per out or per houryou're away from base. So if you're
(21:17):
on a four day trip and that'stwenty four forty eight, you know,
like every hour you're getting your crewingthat perdem and then hotel is always paid
for, and then our transportation toand from the airport, so you just
have to like show up and thenfigure figure out what you want to do
when you're later. So you reallydo get paid paid to travel in a
(21:38):
lot of ways. Talking about yourcrew, and you know, you just
mentioned how you go out, howhow often do you work with the same
crew, And would you say youhave friends now that are other crew members
that you enjoy working with. Absolutely, So it's very rare to work with
the same crew. I don't thinkI've ever in my life worked with the
(22:00):
same exactit, like the same fourof us or anything. Every now and
then you'll be like, oh,like I remember you from two years ago.
We worked together that one trip toTulsa. We like went out here,
and it's like, oh, Iremember that. That was a great
trip, and you kind of likehave that moment. It's like all right,
onto the next and then you likework your trip together. But I
would say for the most part,your trips are kind of like completely new
(22:22):
people every single time, So you'remeeting each other for the first time every
trip, and if it's like athree day trip, you work together for
the full three days, but you'remeeting at that like first leg. And
then as far as friends, absolutely, yeah, I've made so many flight
a tenant friends. We're kind ofall spread out across New York, Charlotte,
Chicago, Phoenix, LA. Everyone'skind of all over, but my
(22:45):
friends here in Miami. I'm newishor newer to Miami by about nine months,
but I've made a lot of friendshere since I've been here, and
so we kind of want to afew of our friends. We want to
buddy vid, which is essentially justlike opting in when we're bidding for our
schedules or saying we want to flyevery trip together. And then you can
work with a friend, which isgreat. You could work even your whole
crew. You can do the fourof you. If it's most crews are
(23:07):
like four people, you could bidthe four of yous every lay over you
have, it's all together. It'sfair to say that when you sign on
to be a flight attendant, youcould have never predicted that COVID was about
to take over. Can you talka little bit about the challenges going into
COVID and how they affected you personallyas a you know, as a new
(23:30):
flight attendant. Yeah, it wasreally wild. So COVID hit around nine
months into being a flight attendant,so I was still on reserve. I
was freshly off probation, and thenthere was all this talk about COVID happening,
and everyone stopped traveling and stay home, and I was like, oh
my gosh, Like my job isliterally the opposite of that, and like
(23:52):
I have to travel and go home, Like I wonder what's going to happen.
So it was really wild to seehow things started to unfold, because
as it started, it was oneday everything was normal, and then the
next day the airports were ghost towns, like everything just completely shut down.
And I was still flying and wewere still working trips. I would definitely
say as far as like the flightswent, all the flights were cut in
(24:15):
half. So if I was usedto flying X amount of hours, I
worked a higher time then I wouldwork like eighty hours on reserve. I
all of a sudden started working fortyor it was barely meeting the minimum because
all the flights were cut in half, and so that was like a really
weird, weird time to be in. And then when I was in the
airports, it was just completely empty. It was like lights were off in
(24:36):
different areas. It felt like wewere in like an apocalypse, like the
Walking Dead sort of vibes. Itwas really really weird. And then there
was a furlough as well across theindustry, so most flight attendants were furloughed
for about You could opt to takea leave, but most flight attendants were
furloughed for about nine months. Iwould say yourself yes, So it started
(25:02):
so COVID that started like chaos,like the everything really shutting down, was
like that March fifteenth sort of time. And in April is when they companies
were offering leaves. So they wereoffering leaves for up to six months.
And I talked to my family andthey were like, take a leave.
You don't want to be flying duringthis time, whether other people are traveling
(25:23):
or not. Take the leave.So I started taking leaves one by one,
so I would opt in to takea leave for April. Then I
opted to take a leave for May. Then for June, so I started
to just kind of like take personalleaves, and most flight astendants did because
there wasn't a need for flight destendants. There weren't enough flights going out,
so and it was kind of encouragedto take a leave if you could,
(25:45):
because if you did, there wouldn'thave to be a furlough if we could
just keep it to the bare minimum. And eventually a furlough did happen,
and it was around October of twentytwenty and then we were all brought back
on the line in March of twentytwenty one, so roughly a full year
later. I can't imagine, atleast in your case, it doesn't sound
(26:07):
like, you know, the intentionfor being a flight attendant was attendant was
financially motivated. But I'm sure fora lot of people they do depend on,
you know, the paycheck to tolive day to day. So I
can't imagine how stressful it was duringthat time. And something else that's caught
my mind is since then, there'sbeen a rise in the amount of yearly
(26:30):
accidents that have been shown towards flightattendants. There was another stat from Politico
that I read that from twenty twentyto twenty twenty one, the number of
yearly accidents jump from one thousand tosix thousand in the United States alone.
Can you talk to us a bitmore from your perspective, how if that's
(26:51):
affected you in any way or ifyou know anyone that was affected and their
experience of dealing with customers obviously withall the mandates a mask and that sort
of thing. Yeah, like asan accidents, you mean, like like
incidents in flight where someone's on wantingto put their mask on, like things
like that. Yeah, or youknow, I mean they've been as extreme
(27:12):
as people. You know, you'veseen the videos people getting tied with duct
tape. I'm not you know,I don't think that you were on one
of those planes, but you know, just the I would say the animosity
has grown towards flight attendants for somethingthat they have no control over. You
didn't make the mass mandate, rightthat. That was definitely a tough thing
(27:34):
to come back to because we hadthe majority of US had about a year
off and then went back and themandate was still in place. The mass
mandate for I don't I can't evenremember, but like it must have been
like a year was it twenty twentytwo, but it couldn't even remember.
I would say at least two yearsthat I can remember it being in place
(27:56):
roughly, yeah, must have beenabout a year then with masks on in
flight required in flight, and thatwas definitely tough because a bunch of like
states and islands in different places areall very different with like what they wanted
to do, and not even froma political sense, although it did get
a little political and in some waysa lot of people didn't want to wear
(28:19):
them and we were told, youknow, like they have to. If
they don't, they can't fly.It made other people uncomfortable around them if
they weren't wearing a mask. Soit was chaos having to one just focus
on our daily operations of like gettingthe job done, making sure everything is
safe and secure, and focus onthose priorities of the day to day,
(28:41):
and then also have to go aroundand like babysit make sure everyone had a
mask on. They're like, whatdid our job? We kind of just
like doubled and work. What happenedthere? I want to talk about empathy,
you know there's because I think itreally boils down to a lack of
education and mostly empathy. When Isay lack of education, I just mean
(29:02):
the anger is redirected at the wrongpersonnel. Like I said, you did
not implement the mass mandate, butit's part of your job to enforce those
rules. What would you say somethings? What would you say are some
things that passengers need to keep inmind when realizing that things aren't in your
control delays, mandates, And howcan we help foster a more empathetic attitude
(29:26):
towards flight attendants? I think exactlylike as you said, I think just
like being empathetic and like just rememberingthat when you hear like there is a
delay or something, it's no one'sspecific, but it could be the weather,
it could be maintenance, and maybethat is something that like, and
like maintenance is even necessarily like oneparticular person's fault. Things get wear and
(29:48):
tear, things need to be fixed. It's better to fly on a safe
plane that was fixed than a brokenplate and maybe not get where you're going
to go. So I think likethinking of it in that mindset of you
know, like hopefully we're gonna getwhere we need to go and it's going
to be tonight, if not goingto be smart, but we're there safe.
Like that's I think a positive wayto think of it. But I
think just like having compassion towards otherpeople, whether it's like your fellow passengers
(30:12):
that are also maybe delayed getting intotheir best friend's wedding or their work conference
or something like that, that everybodyhas their own story. Everybody's trying to
get somewhere and or they're going homefrom somewhere, and everyone has different things
going on that you never know.So we stray people with respects the kinds,
whether it's a flight attendance or fellowpassengers, the maintenance team, the
(30:33):
pilots, and I think that thatdefinitely makes flying a way more fun and
enjoyable and nice environment. Yeah,definitely to those tough times. Definitely.
And in that same political article,you know, I read that legislation was
trying was being introduced to help trainflight attendance to be equipped with more skills
(30:56):
in case you get rowdy passengers.Have you seen any changes being implemented in
how you deal with customers in thelast let's say two years so as far.
It's so funny that you mentioned tooabout like the like self defense sort
of side of things, because that'ssomething that we do do in training and
our initial qualification, but then alsowe go back and we train every year
(31:18):
and we go back to our huband we are requalified, and so the
self defense is always a part ofit. But it was funny kind of
going back during that COVID time andyou know, we're kind of like,
Okay, now this stuff might actuallyneed to be used, like on a
data bright like the self defense thing, like just joking around it. But
(31:40):
but I forget the what was it? Did I stray away from that?
No? No, no, youdid that? So no, no,
no, because I guess I wasthinking that you lack that training. But
it sounds like you already go throughthat training. The only difference is that
now you might actually have to usethat, where before it might have seen
like some being kind of silly togo through. Right Exactly, there's like
(32:04):
a little like dummy in training andbe like practice. There's a whole thing
exactly, there's a whole training sectionon it, which is fun and you
do it every year. That's hilarious. Again, this good insider knowledge.
I would have never guessed. Butnow that we've talked about some of the
more difficult parts about being a flightattendant, I want to tell all or
(32:25):
I don't. My goal is notto dissuade anyone to do this. It's
not in all doom and gloom scenario. There are clearly some amazing perks you
get to take advantage of. Canyou tell us about some of them aside
from the free travel, yes,definitely. So there is the free travel
for yourself, but then there's alsofree travel for any person of your choice.
(32:49):
So that could be a significant other, a brother, a best friend,
I know, anyone that you choose. You get that same sort of
employee benefit to one other person ofyour choice, your parents sliper really discounted
rated essentially comes out to being justlike the taxes, and then you get
some buddy passes, so it's like, yeah, there's some really good travel
benefits there. And then kind ofon that same tune of travel, as
(33:13):
well, as a flight attendant pilot, you also get to take extra jump
seats. So if there's a flightthat's super full, like let's say I'm
trying to get from here to LAbut the flight's oversold by twenty but there's
extra jump seats on the plane,I could be like, and I'm thirty
on the list for getting getting aseat, I can say like, oh,
I'll take the jump seat. I'lllike volunteer and you can take the
extra jump seat, which is onlythe cabin ones are only for the flight
(33:36):
attendants and the flight deck ones areonly for the pilots. So that's a
really big bonus of being like thatkind of differentiates airline employee and then like
flight crew, because that's a bigone. It's kind of like the fallback
on, like whenever you're somewhere,you're like, at least I know I
could take the jump seat. Ican get home and not be stranded for
five days. Two quick follow upsto that one out of the first one.
Do people fight to be your buddyas in family versus this partner?
(34:00):
Absolutely. My brother and sister wentright at it right when it rag.
When I was like, guys,I think I'm gonna apply to be a
flight attend. They were like me, choose me as your person because they
knew how it works because our aunt'sis in the industry, and so I
kind of described I told them.I was like, my sister, you
can have it the first year.My brother, Tyler, you can have
it the second year, and Iwas like, if I have a boyfriend
(34:22):
at that point, guys, like, I hope you enjoyed your years,
because I'm I'm gonna switch it overto him. And so my sister had
it the first year, my brotherthe second year. I was kind of
a watch because it was during COVID. So he had it for like a
year and nine months. I waslike, I feel too guilty taking it
from you couldn't use it at all. So he had it for almost two
years. And then now my boyfriendhas it. We'll congrats him winning the
(34:44):
lottery with the flights? Does itwork in the way that they have to
be traveling with you to take advantageof that benefit? For example, let's
say your brother, Oh okay,So if your brother's let's say in Austin,
then you're in Miami and you wantto get to beliefs. You can
utilize that buddy pass. Absolutely,he can use it in any way that
(35:06):
he wants to. So he canlike come here and visit me. We
could meet in Montana, we couldmeet in Rome. We can meet in
Rome. Very cool, very verycool. I had no idea. So
what's been your favorite travel experience thatarose from you being a flight attendant outside
of Rome. Outside of Rome,I would say another great experience. It's
(35:31):
a similar, similar, like theRome one, but actually a little even
crazier. It was actually a tripto Athens. When I was Chicago based.
I was sitting on airport stand by, which is something that it's a
very like you do it for yourfirst few years as a new hire,
but when you're on reserve, youhave to sit stand by twice per month,
which essentially is just sitting in theairport for six hour periods and you
(35:53):
just wait to get called. Solike you sit there and like you watch
your movies, you talk with yourfriend, lunch, whatever you want to
do. But when you get acall, it's like instead of being home
and like get to the airport intwo hours, it's a hey, go
to gate Kate twelve and be therein three and a half minutes, like
that sort of thing. So you'relike on standby, and that's for if
(36:13):
any cruise go illegal, someone's wearinglate, something happened with someone didn't bring
their passport, which you do havestaff that's ready on standby in case.
I didn't know that. I alwaysthought they had to call someone from home
to rush over, but okay,get to know, yeah, like sitting
in the airport, so we havecare rooms where pretty much at all times,
(36:35):
unless it's like after midnight. That'slike usually when the last one goes
home is just cruise ready to go. You've got your bags packed for anything
and anywhere you could be going forhowever long. And so in this instance,
that's a really memorable one was Iwas sitting on standby based in Chicago,
was talking with a friend. We'resitting there, I think we were
eating lunch, and then I getit. There was actually like a sound
(36:59):
speaker that off and it was likeflight attended case, please call crew scheduling,
Flight attenda case, please call CrewScheduling. And I was like,
well that's where they didn't call myphone, but okay, let me call
and I'm like, hi, Ijust heard the message whatever, Like did
I get a to rep? Andthey're like, oh, yeah, you're
going to Athens And I was likeAthens, Georgia, which is important distinction.
(37:22):
Yeah. I was like which whichAthens? Like because this could really
affect my reaction right now, andthey were like, oh yeah, no,
you're going to Athens, Greeze you'regoing to be the number six flight
attendant and the flights of parts inthirty five minutes, So go to the
gate right now. And I waslike, wait, oh my gosh,
(37:42):
this is so wild, And itturned out it was actually it was related
to like a COVID situation, whichit was during around that time where you
needed to be tested to go in, but it was kind of like ambiguous
on whether as flight attendants you neededto either one you had to be vaccinated
or you needed to just have beentested the day before, and like within
that twenty four hour period, andthen I guess there was like a crew
(38:05):
that went illegal and something something,someone's time ran out in some way.
So there were two positions that opened. So then two flight attendants, leaving
one of them from stand by,we were called onto the trip. And
it was funny because we actually wentto the gate and then we were told
like, oh no, actually everything'sfine, go back to stand by.
You're okay. And I was likewe were both like that I know,
(38:27):
and we were like, oh mygosh. And I was texting my family
like I can't make dinner tonight,guys. I'm going to grease, Like
this has happening and they're like,oh my god. So then I like
go back to standby and everyone thatwas sitting there they're like, oh my
gosh, you're not going because Iwas like, oh going, guy.
It was like adorable. It waslike like when I don't know, it
could have been like a movie sceneand exactly. And then I like came
(38:47):
back and they're like, no,what happened when they saw me walk back?
I spoth walked back in and I'mlike, oh, I guess it
like fixed out whatever. And thentwenty minutes later we get another call and
it's like, okay, never mind, you actually are going. I go
back to the gate whatever. Wejust need to verify your vaccination car in
YadA, YadA, YadA. AndI was like, don't play with me,
am I actually going? Yeah,have my heartbroken for a second time.
(39:09):
And lo and behold, we endedup going and I had a really
great time. It was really fun. Good. I'm glad it worked out
for you. And yeah, Imean you even you just saying that story
like I was deflated for you.I actually thought the story was going to
end and you didn't actually get togo. But I love Grease. I
love Athens. I love the food, so hopefully you enjoyed some of that
(39:30):
over there. It was super funand the first thing I thought was like,
I hope I have things that arelike packed for grease, because I
was like, I don't remember whatI packed, so I just had active
or in my back, like itwas never expecting to go to Greece when
I woke up that day, soI was like, it's just like,
oh my god, I don't rememberwhat I packed, but I guess it
could buy something I need. Ingeneral, is it fair to say you
have to pack for summer and winterweather all in once, And definitely you
(39:55):
kind of have to have. Youhave to be packed for any sort of
terrain, and sometimes it's one day, sometimes it's four days, so you
kind of just have to. Andsometimes if it's a standby situation, sometimes
you just go home at the endof the day and you're like, well,
I didn't even open my suitcase andI'm packed for four days in summer
and winter. So you just gottahave to be prepared for anything and everything
at all times. The funniest thingabout this conversation has been the spontaneity of
(40:17):
the job, right You really justhave no idea how long you're gone and
where you're going to. That's that'svery cool. For anyone that wants to
get into this line of work,what would you caution them to consider both
the good and the bad. Ithink something that comes up a lot a
question that someone asked me is abouttime at home and spending time with family,
(40:39):
having kids, having a puppy,things like that. So something I
would caution against is it's it's toughyour first year, because especially your first
year, it can be tough buildinga routine, you know, forever because
your schedule is always changing. Itgets easier with time, but I would
say especially your first few years,it's tough to make plans. So that's
(41:00):
a really tough one. You're gonnamiss holidays. You're not really gonna be
able to send Christmas at home,Thanksgiving, that's just like a given,
like you you will be working onehundred percent on those holidays, and then
just because you're like on the reserveperiod, you're giving your twelve days off
and everything else is kind of awash. It's hard to make plans in
(41:20):
the sense of like, yes,I can make this birthday dinner or you
know, if you have a newpuppy, having someone to watch your puppy
when you're like, sorry, Ihave to be at the important two hours.
Can you help me, like rightnow or something like that. That's
that's a tough part for sure.That does sound tough. Never mind about
what I said about this job beingtotally awesome. I can't leave my dog
(41:43):
that long. I know I don'thave a suppy, but I really want
one, and it's gonna be It'sgonna be tough. So I can't do
it right now because I wouldn't beable to, like correct, feel like
I'm fully in it right. You'rebeing responsible about it, is what you're
saying. Absolutely, But hopefully inthe next year, two years, three
years, we're going to put youinto the family. Good Ali, This
(42:07):
conversation has been so insightful and interesting. But before we let you go,
I want to talk a little bitmore about Upper Case Media and it's mission.
What services do you provide your clients. Yeah, so we are a
full service social media marketing agency,a specializing in brands and health and wellness
and food in BEV and we doanything and everything you can think of with
(42:28):
social media. So content creation,influencer marketing, paid social community building,
the full nine yards, anything youcould think of. We do it,
and we love it, and wehave a small, buttonimble team, and
I love it so much. Ireally enjoy doing both things because both are
just insanely passionate and sanely passionate.Insanely passionate interests are both major interests.
(42:52):
I'm very passionate about both, andso I'm really lucky to be able to
do both every day. And youknow, before we wrap up, I
do you have a few rapid firequestions related to travel? We'd like to
ask you? Are you ready?I'm ready. Let's do it. Out
of all the countries you've been to, what has been your favorite so far?
My number one is Israel. Ilove Israel. That's my favorite,
(43:17):
and I think it was it wasone of my first trips that I ever
took, like really really far,so that one always sits really close to
home for me. And a littleBertie told me you got really sick on
that trip too, I did.We might have to save that one for
another podcast episode. Fair enough,your favorite dish or cuisine from a country
(43:38):
you visited. Oh, the firstone that comes to mind is this twelve
course meal that a few friends andI did in Buenos Aires. It was
insane. It was have you hadin the same experience. My favorite experience
culinary experience has also been in BuenosAires. It was I want to say,
(43:59):
ten courses. Wow. Do youremember the restaurant Chila Oh okay mine.
It was called El Baciano and wedid a wine pairing with it.
We had a glass of wine withevery like our table was full of wine
glasses. They never took them away. I think it was for the vibe.
So we have like pictures of uslike sitting there with like we put
all the wine glasses around one person. It looked like someone drink like thirty
(44:22):
glasses of wine and we're like itwas so funny, amazing. Experience of
food was amazing. Good. Well, we share that same experience. The
most underrated country you've been to?Most underrated country I so off the top
of my head, I would sayEcuador. I don't know if it's underrated,
but I think before I went,I didn't know too much about Ecuador.
(44:45):
But I did a ten day backpackingtrip with some girlfriends and flight attendants
a few years ago and had themost amazing time. I think my top
two countries are Israel and Ecuador.I think they'll sit like side by side.
There's so much fun. But II think there was just so much
to see and between the water andthe mountains, and man, I loved
it. There so much. Veryoriginal answers. Favorite beverage you've had abroad,
(45:08):
alcoholic or otherwise, Oh my gosh, this one. Okay, I've
got a really good one for this. So it was in Tokyo and it
was it was actually before I wasa flight attendant. I was there for
my twenty second birthday and we foundthis cool like bar kind of lounge restaurant
and it was called Sip and Guzzle. It had a kind of bar.
(45:29):
It was a two story thing.The top when you walk in was a
bar, and it's kind of likewhere you go and just kind of have
that bar experience, and then youget this like secret invite. We found
out if they're like, oh,we like you whatever whatever to get invited
to go down this like speakeasy sortof staircase to this lounge area where it's
like more like romantic vibes, likeit's a little like more dim. You
(45:52):
kind of open this gate and you'rewalked in and then it's like like actual
like table seating and it was soso pulled down at the bottom. When
we we were taking shots with thebartender. It was my birthday, just
like just hit mid midnight. They'relike, oh, we want to invite
you down to this like experience downstairsand this this drink called the Tomato Tree.
It was I don't even remember whatit was. It was like some
(46:14):
sort of like tomato water, tomatojuice with maybe like gin or something.
I don't even remember, but itwas delicious. And when I got back
to La where I was living atthe time, I sent an email to
the restaurant and I was like,can you please send me this recipe?
And they were like, no,sorry, you have to come back that
no shots to anyone that's ever answeredthat question before. That was a great
(46:37):
story, very cool experience. Andlast one the country you are most eager
to visit. I really want togo to Portugal. I hear the best
things about Portugal. It's like oneof those spots that I feel like if
you ask anyone like where's your favoriteplay see that you've ever been, they
always say somewhere in Portugal, SoI'm like, I'm missing something. I
(46:59):
gotta get a very sad. Yeah, I mean it's, you know,
along the lines of what you said. It's it's such a popular destination that
we actually did an episode of whyis everyone going to Portugal? And so
we answer that question. You gottatune back to listen to that one.
But Ali, I want to saythank you so much for being a guest
on the Globetrotters. Can you tellour listeners where they can find you if
(47:20):
they want to learn a little bitmore about you and Uppercase Media, Yeah,
absolutely, my personal Instagram, TikTok, any social media. I'm Ali
case one al y b As andthen the number one Uppercase Media. We
just have an Instagram It's Uppercase dotMedia on Instagram, and then Uppercase dashmedia
dot com for our website. Incredibleand if you want to learn a little
(47:45):
bit more about us, you canvisit us on our website at www dot
GTS podcast dot com. You canalso find us on any streaming platform,
Facebook or Instagram at Globetrotters Podcasts,Twitter at globetrot Pod. And we'll be
back next week with another thrilling episodeuntil next time. M
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