A flight attendant posted a viral video sharing the pros and cons of working with airlines after hearing comments about the job being “easy.”
Destanie’s (@destanieaaa) TikTok video has reached over 246,000 views and 16,000 likes by Tuesday.
As her video begins, Destanie mocks a quote she’s heard about being a flight attendant. “Being a flight attendant is the easiest job in the world. Imagine getting paid to just pass out peanuts and pour Diet Coke,” she says.
“OK, first of all,” she continues, “tell me you don’t travel without telling me you don’t travel.”
She then adds that airlines no longer serve peanuts because a lot of people are allergic to them. “Get with the times, bro,” she says.
Destanie captioned her video, “I love this job and don’t know where I would be without it but it is NOT easy.”
She prefaces by saying despite this being one of the hardest jobs she has ever had, it’s also been the easiest, “all at once.”
“When it comes to day-to-day tasks, this job is so easy,” she says. Coming from a bartending and serving background, Destanie says serving 20 passengers is “really not that hard.”
“It’s the same two options all the time,” she adds. “So, for me, it’s not that hard.”
But she begins explaining why it is also the hardest job she’s ever had.
“The scheduling, the people, the things we have to deal with, the pay,” she says. “You will not understand until you’re in our position how hard it is.”
First, Destanie says being on-call for all hours of the night and not knowing your schedule is one of the most challenging things. She says sometimes, after getting only one hour of sleep, “you don’t have time to pack yourself a meal, and you get dropped off at some random hotel in the middle of the night.”
Second, Destanie says it’s difficult to schedule time to hang out with friends or start dating someone. She says she’s had guys who say, “You seem literally impossible to date.”
“I’m like, oh, cool, thanks,” she adds.
Next, she says she has to call out almost once a month because of how many illnesses she catches. “I’ve almost blew my eardrum out,” she says, “because I flew when I was congested because I was afraid of getting in trouble.”
“Worst part of it all, passengers,” Destanie adds.
She says passengers have a tendency to be inconsiderate to flight attendants. After having multiple flight delays and being stuck at random airports for hours, she says, “People come at you and scream at you for the weather.”
“I don’t know if you guys know, but airlines aren’t mother nature,” she adds, “nor [is] your little flight attendant that’s probably stuck and away from home at the same place as you are.”
@destanieaaa I love this job and don’t know where I would be without it but it is NOT easy. #flightattendant ♬ original sound – Destanie | Flight Attendant ✈️
Destanie acknowledges that the majority of passengers are fine but says she has “experienced a level of disrespect that I have never experienced in my entire life.”
She then tells the story of a day she had three flights, two of which had been delayed. Once she got off the first delayed flight and made her way to the second, she says the passengers started clapping as the attendants arrived.
“Oh, so nice of you to join us. What, were you getting Starbucks or something?” she says they reacted.
“You just have to be like, ‘No, we were just coming from another flight, and it also got delayed,’” she says.
Destanie tells another story about a man on a flight who waved his trash in front of her face. While she was eating behind the curtain, she said the passenger quickly opened it, waved his trash in her face, and said, “Hello, can I have a garbage can?”
She adds another story of a woman who screamed at her because a different passenger had spilled her coffee. “I gave her hot towels,” she says. “I gave her everything I had.” She says the passenger continued to scream at her.
“Ma’am, at 30,000 feet in the air, what am I supposed to do for you?” Destanie adds.
The most frequent negative experiences she has are with passengers who wear headphones. Destanie says they shoo her away when she asks if they need something, only to scream at her when she doesn’t bring anything.
Before ending her video, she appreciated the passengers who were kind and recognized that delays and other complications are normal.
“In training, they say you have to be a palm tree and just sway with the wind,” she adds. “It’s hard.”
One viewer left a comment to Destanie saying, “this is [why] as a passenger I just say thank you, cookies please, and ginger ale.”
“Slay,” Destanie responds.
Destanie did not respond to the Daily Dots request for comment via TikTok direct message.
