Crew who came from the military, the police, nursing: what transferred, what surprised you, and why the airlines love you
-
#1 United Houston, and I was a Navy corpsman before this. There are more of us than people think: ex military, ex police, ex nurses, ex paramedics, ex firefighters, all in the cabin. The airlines like us for a reason and the reason is worth saying.
What transferred
The calm. Not the pretend calm. The kind you get from having done real emergencies and knowing what your body does. The checklist brain: the door drill was easy for me because I had spent years doing things in the right order under pressure. The chain of command: the purser is in charge, the captain is in charge of the purser, and I do not need it explained twice. The medical, obviously, for the nurses and the corpsmen. And the ability to be shouted at by a stranger and not take it home.
What surprised me
The service. I could handle a cardiac arrest before I could handle a passenger who wanted a different meal, and the second one is most of the job. The grooming, which in the military was a different set of rules for a different reason. The lack of a uniform culture in the crew room in the way there is in a unit: crew are friends, not a squad, and I had to learn to be a friend. And the passengers, who are a random slice of humanity in a way that a base or a ward is not.
Why the airlines love us
Because we are the calm one in row 30 when it goes wrong. Because we know how to be briefed. Because the training is easy for us and we help the others. And because, honestly, an ex nurse in the cabin is a resource on every medical and every purser knows it.
The transition advice
Say it on the application in plain terms, they want it. Learn the service side properly, do not assume the safety side carries you. And be a friend in the crew room, not a rank.
Who else came from a uniformed job, and what was your version?
-
#2 Delta, ex ER nurse, and every medical on every flight I am on is mine and I do not mind. The service side was my surprise too: I could intubate, I could not do the meal choice conversation without sounding like a triage. Learned it.
-
#3 Ryanair training, ex Irish army, and the door drill being easy is exactly true and the service module being hard is exactly true and the friend not rank thing is the one I am working on.
-
#4 Air New Zealand, ex police, and the 'shouted at by a stranger and not take it home' is the whole transfer. Ten years of it before flying. The passengers are gentle by comparison.
-
#5 @victoriaakl the passengers are gentle by comparison. That is a sentence only an ex cop could write and it is correct.
-
#6 Loganair, ex paramedic, and on an ATR with one crew member the ex paramedic is not a resource, she is the whole medical department. The airline knew it when they hired me. I knew it too.
-
#7 Purser, not ex anything, and I want to say from the other side: when the crew list has a nurse or a medic on it, the briefing changes and I sleep better on the rest break. You are the crew we want.