I was recently traveling to Raleigh Durham when I noticed my flight had four Flight Attendants. One more than our normal three, I noticed the fourth had a name tag and realized she must be going through the Inflight training program. I asked one of the Flight Attendants if it would be alright to interview her for Red Belly Radio and he didn’t see any problem.
I knew I liked Jaimy from the minute I met her as she (wisely) questioned my authenticity and asked to see my Employee ID. At this stage, she was dealing with some ribbing and practical joking from the three Flight Attendants so—like I said, wise to question me. Of course if the prank these guys pulled on Jaimy was to put a sign on her back that read “Tell me I’m Cute” I guess the worst thing is that someone might actually tell her she is cute. BTW—she totally is!
She had never heard of Red Belly Radio (I will be talking to Inflight Training about that) and was of course concerned about saying something that might get her fired—or at that point not hired.
Since I interviewed her, I decided to go see what the Inflight class 245 graduation was all about. I have only been to one other and that was years ago. I got to see Jaimy get her wings and seemed happy to see me again. I presented her with a photo of the prank the Flight Crew played on her and she totally loved it.
The graduation ceremony is a rather large event. Family members attend and if the new Flight Attendant wishes, he/she can select someone to present his/her wings and I did catch and interview a father/daughter pilot/new Flight Attendant couple who will probably both soon be referring their friends to apply.
This podcast has a lot. Manager Inflight Training John Zenici hosted the event; Director of Inflight Training Steve Banegas shared an inspirational poem; Vice President Fuel Management Rob Myrben teaches us the origin of the word "travel;" and Senior Director Inflight Standards and Training David Curry talks about future classes.
The training is lengthy—four weeks—and there are a lot of tests. It is not easy to get picked to go through training and once there, it is not easy to graduate. Congratulations to Jaimy and all of Inflight Class 245!