Have you considered a career as a corporate flight attendant?

Have you considered a career as a corporate flight attendant?

One of the fastest growing sectors in the aviation industry, has been the recent upswing in Corporate Jets. While once available only to the rich and famous, the advent of the innovative "fractional jet ownership" has brought executive jets closer to non-executives as well. And growing along with the jets is the need for trained and qualified crews, including corporate flight attendants.
In the early days of business aviation, aviation managers and the chief pilots usually used a male flight technician/mechanic in the back of the airplane as the acting third crewmember. There was no emphasis on specialized or quality food service. As interiors became increasingly detail oriented in order to support the client's needs, so did the need to have a third crewmember in the back of the aircraft that could accommodate specialized culinary and amenity requests. The galley and cabin equipment became more elaborate and extensive as did the high tech electronic communication and in-flight entertainments systems.
Fractional jet ownership came into existence in the late 1990's. Simply put, a corporate jet is shared by a few companies or individuals- each owning a time-share, or fraction of the aircraft use per month. This opens up the corporate jet option to a larger group of people, and has been the catalyst to make this the fastest growth sector in the industry.
It is important to emphasize that first and foremost, the safety of the passengers and the aircraft environment is paramount. When you consider your corporate client is paying anywhere from $4,000 to $6,000 per hour for the use of the corporate jet, excluding fuel burn ($30 per minute!) and food/catering costs you come to understand why a corporate flight attendant must excel in their work.
So what are the qualities that a good corporate flight attendant needs to be successful in this industry? In no particular order those qualities are:

Flexibility
Organizational Skills
Creativity
Detail Oriented
Personal Accountability
Integrity
Confidentiality
High Interpersonal Skills
No Ego
Taking Direction
Listening Skills
Resolution Skills
Confidentiality
Professionalism


In addition to those skills mentioned above, the "contract/freelance" corporate flight attendant must possess the following abilities:

Effective time management skills
Book trips & keep a cohesive monthly schedule
Manage yourself as a business
Interface with several flight departments
Adaptability to several flight departments' standard operational procedures
Stay open-minded at all times

You must always be aware of, and remain on the leading edge of business aviation industry news and trends. You will do extensive research on the corporations you are flying for, including: the corporate structure, the products or services they produce, as well as the companies they own. If you are flying the CEO of Coca-Cola on your jet, you surely don't want to order Pepsi products from your caterer, or even Frito's, which is a Pepsi-owned company. As with commercial aviation, the sources of this information can be found at your local library, on the Internet, and from such publications as Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and The Financial Times- to mention a few. It is recommended that you maintain this information in a database of your own design, so that you can review it in the event you fly the same client more than once. Client privacy and discretion are foremost, not only as a good business practice, but also for the security of your client and flight. You can't blab to your friends that you are flying Donald Trump or Madonna around the country.

Like commercial aviation, a corporate flight attendant needs to be trained in safety, emergency and first-aid training. However, some private corporate flight departments do not yet require it. These operations will place a flight attendant onboard an aircraft as a food server, and does not consider them as part of the working crew. Advocates within the business aviation industry are working hard to require that ALL flight attendants in corporate aviation receive corporate specific training as part of the career. Until that time, it is in your best interest to procure training on your own if a corporate flight department does not offer it. This will make you much more marketable to those companies who only utilize corporate specific trained flight attendants. You should have as much "current" business aviation and industry training as possible. This would include the following:

Corporate specific emergency and first aid training.
General corporate aviation training classes
Service training classes
Culinary training classes

Having as much industry training as possible will allow you to act professionally within this specialized venue of aviation should an emergency arise as well as creating an industry respect from the professionals in corporate /business aviation. Some of the training companies include:

Susan Friedenberg Corporate Flight Attendant Training
FlightSafety International
MedAire, Inc.
Survival Systems Training, Inc.
FACTS Training

You will find an extensive listing of training sources in the Appendix of The Flight Attendant Job Finder & Career Guide by Tim Kirkwood, available from Amazon.com.

Contract flying is some of the hardest flying you will ever do. It is without a doubt the most difficult area of flying for many reasons and the most rewarding for the same reasons! On a daily basis you find yourself interfacing within many diversified corporate cultures and the various personalities of many corporate flight departments. You must work with, and keep happy on every trip that you fly: The CEO, their corporate and personal family, the aviation manager, chief pilot, chief flight attendant, dispatcher, chief scheduler, chief of maintenance, the FBO staff and caterers. In Corporate flying, even more so than Commercial flying, you are a vital part of the team. It is in the best interest of your company and clients for you to be highly trained and prepared as possible. In Mr. Kirkwood's book you will also find listings of various training and fraternal organizations to assist you in pursuing this growing and exciting facet of the Flight Attendant Career.

Hiring outlook improving for Flight Attendants

Delray Beach, FL The biggest and best news this year from the aviation sector was the announcement that Atlanta-based Delta Airlines will be hiring up to 1,000 new flight attendants. Delta, who recently merged with Northwest Airlines, is the first of the “legacy” airlines to hire flight attendants in recent years.

“Normally, after a merger, there is a lag in hiring as both work groups are absorbed into one.” says Tim Kirkwood, author of The Flight Attendant Job Finder & Career Guide. “This hiring gives an optimistic trend to airline employment”.

The industry has been trending up in 2010.

- International Air Transport Association (IATA) reported that passenger traffic climbed by 9.2 percent in July on an annual basis, with the Asia-Pacific region showing the highest gain at 10.9 percent. Also, cargo volume gained 22.7 percent.

- Boeing predicts that nearly half-a-million new pilots and almost 600,000 in support-staff will need to be trained over the next 20 years to accommodate higher travel demand – up from about 233,000 pilots and 100,000 mechanics/engineers who are currently employed by airlines worldwide.

- Dahlman Rose's weekly airline and aircraft lessor report indicates most of the airlines continue to see double digit revenue growth for 3Q2010 and strong forward bookings at least through mid-November.

- Minneapolis Airlines/Airport Examiner reports August revenue continued to show double-digit increases at United Airlines, though the increase was slightly lower than in previous months. Passenger revenue rose by nearly 19 percent while the year-to-year capacity increase at the Chicago-based carrier was 1.7 percent. System-wide load factor for the month rose to 86.7 percent, an increase of 0.6 percent from a year ago.

While the legacy carriers are showing growth in employment needs, the Mid-Size and Regional airlines have been hiring pretty much non-stop. Virgin America, jetBlue, AirTran, SkyWest, Alaska, Pinnacle, Mesaba are only some of the companies looking for new in-flight crewmembers.

Applicants can see who is hiring in the US and Canada on Mr. Kirkwood’s website, at www.FlightAttendantCareerGuide.com/jobs.cfm. He also recommends the page-after-page of all jobs available at www.AviaNation.com/student.

Contact info:

Tim Kirkwood, Author

The Flight Attendant Job Finder & Career Guide

Crew4jets@aol.com

AviaNation Reaches Out to Displaced Airline Personnel Worldwide

While airlines around the world are shutting down and laying off workers, AviaNation is reaching out to help displaced airline employees locate new positions in the industry by granting free access to its world wide database of job postings.

Delray Beach, FL (PRWEB) -- In response to financial turmoil that has gripped the global aviation industry, leading airline job firm AviaNation is opening up its database of job postings to airline personnel around the world. Job seekers can post their resumes on the website for free as well as access thousands of current international job positions.

For the second time in a decade, there is turbulence in the field of aviation. In 2001, massive layoffs resulted after 9/11. Airlines downsized and underwent bankruptcy protection as passengers stayed home out of fear and uncertainty.

Five years on, the rising price of petroleum delivered another severe blow to the industry. In the US, Aloha Airlines, Trans Air, Champion Air, Eos, Maxjet, and Skybus have all shut down operations and released thousands of employees into an already slumped job market. LAvion in France has done the same, Air Canada is closing crew bases, Alitalia is in bankruptcy, and Indian and Asian airlines are experiencing comparable pressure.

According to Tim Kirkwood of AviaNation.com, finding a job in todays precarious airline industry is challenging.

We have been in online aviation job placement for over 15 years, and we know how hard it can be to find an aviation career in an environment such as we have today," he says.

Our responsibility is two-fold: to provide the most and best jobs for our members, and to provide sufficient applications to our member companies in order to ensure that they continue to post their openings on our website."

Job searchers have free access to position listings two weeks after they are posted on AviaNation.com, giving paid members first read. However, many of these jobs remain active long after being posted.

Additionally, job seekers can post their resumes on the website for free, thus allowing any company around the world that searches the database to see applicants resumes and contact them directly.

AviaNation does not come between the applicant and company during the hiring process, nor do they take money from either the employer or applicant once a hire has been made. AviaNations entire revenue stream comes from active members who pay to see jobs within two weeks of their original posting, as well as additional search enhancements. Consequently, these tend to be the motivated applicants that employers look for.

Employers are also able to register and post their aviation job openings for free on the website. In doing so, employers have the ability to ask pre-screening questions, post blind ads, and even simultaneously post on their companys own employment web page.

Recently, AviaNation reached a milestone in their membership with 1,700 paying job seekers and nearly 60,000 members taking advantage of the free search option.

To view AviaNations posted jobs, please visit www.avianation.com/student or simply click on the FREE JOBS link at the bottom of the homepage at www.AviaNation.com.

Applicants seeking to post their resumes can access the resume input form at www.avianation.com/resumes or by clicking on Free Services" in the FOR JOB SEEKERS box on the home page.

ABOUT AVIANATION.COM: AviaNation.com is one of the premier job posting web sites for pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and all other aviation jobs. With their world-wide database of companies posting jobs, and 54,000 resumes from around the globe, AviaNation is the one-stop location for an aviation career.

ABOUT TIM KIRKWOOD: Tim has been an aviation professional for over 30 years, active in aviation job placement for over 15 years, and is the author of The Flight Attendant Job Finder & Career Guide, a career guide book for US and Canadian flight attendants- now in it's third edition.

Contact information:

Tim Kirkwood
AviaNation.com
561-843-6006