International Flight Attendant Day Date in the current year: May 31, 2024

A flight attendant, also known as an air host/air hostess or steward/stewardess, is a member of the flight crew aboard commercial flights, as well as many private jets and some government aircraft. Collectively referred to as cabin crew, flight attendants are responsible for the safety and comfort of passengers.

The world’s first flight attendant was Heinrich Kubis. A professional waiter who originally worked in luxury hotels, he began attending to passengers on the LZ 10 Schwaben rigid airship in 1912. The first female flight attendant was Ellen Church, a trained nurse and pilot who began working for Boeing Air Transport in 1930.

Within the next half a decade, female flight attendants became ubiquitous and replaced most of the male ones. By the 1960s, flight attendants were no longer required to be registered nurses. Instead, appearance became one of the most important requirements to become a stewardess, and airlines eagerly exploited female sexuality to boost their profits. Even today the majority of flight attendants are female, although the number of male flight attendants has been growing steadily since the 1980s, when they began re-entering the profession.

Flight attendants are responsible for conducting a safety check prior to the flight, assisting passengers with loading the carry-on baggage, making sure passengers seated in exit rows are able and willing to assist during evacuation, giving a safety demonstration, securing the cabin before take-off, performing customer service duties (such as serving food and drinks) during the flight, dealing with passenger requests, delivering first aid if necessary, and dealing with emergencies.

Although a lot of people think of flight attendants as glorified waitstaff, the primary task of the cabin crew is ensuring the safety of passengers on board. For example, the professionalism of flight attendants during the famous landing on the Hudson River ensured that all passengers were evacuated from the aircraft and no one died.

Being a flight attendant is a physically and emotionally taxing job. Cabin crew spend most of the flight on their feet, have to deal with difficult passengers on a regular basis, often suffer from circadian rhythm sleep disorder due to their work schedule, and are at a higher risk of developing a number of health conditions. And yet they often don’t get enough credit for all the work they do to keep passengers safe and comfortable.

International Flight Attendant Day was started by a flight attendants union in Canada in 2015. Since then, it has been observed every year to highlight the important role cabin crews play in civil aviation and recognize the hard work and dedication of flight attendants throughout the world.