5 years ago, flight attendant Heather Poole started a blog to chronicle life as a flight attendant. Adding to the trend of compiling blog posts into a book, Cruising Attitude: Tales of Crashpads, Crew Drama, and Crazy Passengers at 35,000 Feet, available in paperback and on the Kindle (sadly the $.99 price when I wrote the post is no longer available), chronicles Heather’s career in the sky.
Heather’s mother pushed her to be a flight attendant since she was a little girl, and while Heather initially balked at the idea, she applied to a large airline but was turned down. She was then hired by Sun Jet, the now defunct low-cost airline, before finally landing a job at another large airline, which she has never named for understandable reasons.
Cruising Attitude is filled with horror stories of passengers doing everything from eating off discarded food trays to locking themselves in the first class bathroom for the entire flight. Through it all Heather manages to keep a calm demeanor and a smile on her face.
Heather explains the rigorous training process that flight attendants must endure, how flight attendants are assigned flights (though this part made my head hurt and I still don’t quite get it), the strict dress code that specifies everything down to the type of shoe they must wear, the chain of command on a particular flight that’s based on seniority and many other things you didn’t know you wanted to know about flying. She also describes how flight attendants live, usually in apartments or houses called crash pads, and the ways they scrimp in order to save money.
Many blogs that become books are stilted and not well put together – it’s obvious that it’s just a bunch of blog posts slapped together without a cohesive thread. Cruising Attitude avoids this trap and reads like a memoir should – telling a story.
Whether you are a frequent flier, only fly on occasion or even are afraid to fly, Cruising Attitude is a fun look into the life of a flight attendant.
Nancy doesn’t mind to fly but could do without turbulence. She writes about her 2 boys, books and life in Colorado at Life With My Boys and Books.
I spent a couple of hours on her blog last night–very funny and eye-opening.
I was going to buy it on my kindle, but it is $9.99 — rather more than the $0.99 you mention above.
This sounds like so much fun to read! I have always thought I might have enjoyed being a flight attendant when I was younger, I still love going to the airport!