Flightster

But just because I’m flying around the country working and “vacationing,” doesn’t exempt me from coming down with a cold or getting sick. Not many people realize the complexity of a flight attendant getting sick and what the experience of being stuck in a random city without help can be like (unless, it’s happened to you too, in which case.. I feel your pain!).

I learned a lesson, and I learned it hard. Be prepared. You can never be over prepared for getting sick while not at home.

A few years ago I was working a 4 day trip, and on day three I bought myself a fruit and cheese plate from a well known coffee shop while on a layover in Los Angeles headed to Seattle. I’m sure you can predict where this is going already. I was fine and feeling well until about 2am the next morning when I awoke from a deep sleep feeling nauseous and sick. I spent the better part of my morning, well, let’s just say not feeling well. I had food poisoning.

I felt the worst that I ever have in my life. And, what added to my pain was the thought that it was 2am, I was in a hotel in the middle of downtown Seattle, with no access to a car to get to a 24 hour drug store, no assistance from a friend close by to help me. I was stuck.

I suffered through the morning and then finally called crew scheduling. I was scheduled to work the first flight of the morning from Seattle to San Francisco and I knew that if I called in sick, the flight would either cancel or be delayed until later in the morning when they could send a crewmember up to Seattle to relieve the flight. I told scheduling that I would be willing to work, and suffer through my illness, just to bring the plane back to San Francisco and not displace everyone, but once I got there, I was calling in sick. After much negotiating (as usual with scheduling) they agreed.

Prior to this particular trip I only ever traveled with headache medicine to help me get through those long days in the air. Now, I’ve got a medication for everything in my bag. Headaches, nausea, allergies, congestion, sinus pressure, you name it. I have it. I can’t allow myself to be in that situation again.

I was lucky though. I was able to work and bring the plane back to base rather than remaining sick in the hotel. That’s one of my worst fears: being sick enough to have to call in out of “base” and being unable to get to a drug store or get assistance for longer than one day. Luckily, my airline has a partnership with a well known company called MedAire. MedAire is a company which initiates radio patches between aircraft and doctors on the ground at a Phoenix, Arizona hospital. This way, if there was a medical emergency on board one of our flights, we can speak to a medical profressional in the event one wasn’t on board, and they could then walk us through the proper treatment to help our passenger. Well, MedAire is also set up to handle crewmember illnesses. They have a program in place which tracks and assists crewmembers stuck in cities other than their base gain medical assistance. Whether it be locating and making a Doctor’s appointment, transportation to a hospital, etc., they’re available to help for free.

In those instances where a flight attendant is to sick to fly, what happens? Once we call scheduling a few things happen: 1) Your supervisor is notified, mostly to check up on you and see if you need assistance, but also for disciplinary reasons. We get in trouble for calling in sick too much (which, in my opinion, isn’t fair. We’re around so many people who have various kinds of colds and ailments.. we’re bound to get sick more often than the normal person) and 2) Scheduling starts work on figuring out how to replace the sick flight attendant.

If there are crewmembers on other trips laying over in the same hotel who are working flights that go out later than yours, they may call upon one of them to work your earlier flight. This keeps the earlier flight ontime and buys them time to get a crewmember in position to work the later flight. They can also call flight attendants at home on their days off in the city you’ve called out sick to see if they’d be willing to work, usually for extra pay or a favor from scheduling, but at most airlines even if these off duty flight attendants are called, they’re not required to go to work. Lastly, if the flight that someone called in sick for is late enough in the day the airline can “deadhead” (send a flight attendant to a location as passenger and not a working flight attendant) a crewmember from base to the the city in question and position them just in time (or with a minor delay) to work the flight back.

It takes a lot of man power, scheduling, organizing and problem solving to help a sick flight attendant on the road, and replace them so that your flight takes off without a delay.