Menstrual cycle, the roster and long haul: what female crew actually do about periods, jet lag and the pill on a changing schedule
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#1 Seven years of long haul and this is the thread that every female crew member has needed and nobody has written, because it is not a comfortable subject at a briefing. Here it is anyway, from the women on my fleet and from me.
The cycle and the time zones
Crossing time zones repeatedly disrupts the cycle for a lot of women. Irregular periods, heavier or lighter, and for some crew the cycle settles into a new pattern after a year and for others it never does. This is normal and the aviation medical literature says so. It is not a sign of something wrong; it is the body reacting to a body clock that is never in one place.
The pill on a changing schedule
The combined pill needs to be taken at roughly the same time each day and the time zone changes make that a puzzle. What crew do: keep the pill on home time (take it at the same home clock hour wherever you are, using the phone's home time zone), set an alarm on home time, and accept that on some days it will be 4am local. The progestogen only pill has a tighter window and is harder on the roster; several crew switched to a long acting method (the implant, the coil) for exactly that reason and describe it as the best decision of their flying life.
Periods on duty
A heavy day on a 14 hour sector in the uniform is a management problem and crew solve it with the products that last longest, a spare set in the crew bag, and the crew rest breaks planned around it. The galley has a private moment if you ask a colleague to cover. Nobody on a decent crew has an issue with it. The days when it is bad are the days the seniors say 'go and sort yourself out, I have the cart'.
Pain
Crew who have painful periods and fly long haul have a real problem and the answer is the doctor, not the galley. Some have used the pill continuously to skip periods on the roster, with medical advice. Some use the anti inflammatory painkillers that the airline permits. The crew who tried to power through a four sector day in pain are the ones who ended up in the fatigue and sickness threads.
Fertility and planning
The cycle disruption worries crew who are planning a family and the honest answer from the aviation medical side is that the evidence is mixed and the disruption is real. Crew who are trying to conceive often move to short haul or ground for a period. The pregnancy thread on here covers what happens once you are.
Tracking
The cycle apps handle time zones badly. Track on home dates and ignore the app's time zone logic.
The point
Half the cabin crew workforce deals with this every month on a roster that ignores it, and the manuals say nothing. Say it at the briefing if you need to. The good crews handle it without a blink. And the doctor is the answer to the hard cases, not the willpower.
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#2 Purser, and this thread should be pinned. The 'go and sort yourself out, I have the cart' sentence is what every good senior says and every new crew member is afraid to need. Say it. We know.
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#3 Emirates, and I switched to the implant in year two for exactly the reason Rosa describes: the pill on home time at 4am in Sydney was not working. Best decision. Every female crew friend I told did the same within a year.
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#4 Air NZ, and the cycle app time zone problem is real and nobody talks about it. Home dates, always. The app thinks I am in Auckland when I am in LA and the prediction is nonsense.
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#5 BA, and the continuous pill to skip periods on the roster was the advice from the airline doctor at my medical, unprompted. The aviation medical side knows. The briefing rooms do not. Thank you for writing it.