The internet is rife with old wives tales about travel. We see video after video professing ways to fly better, cheaper. To demystify some of our burning questions, we turned to those on the front line of the industry: flight attendants.
While they’re portrayed in movies and television as chic jet-setters or hard-partying ingénues, being a flight attendant has gotten a lot less cinematic. They’ve had to deal with the tumultuous years of pandemic lockdowns and border closures, when they were considered essential workers and still had to fly while most of us stayed safe at home. They’ve faced insults and assaults from angry travelers when enforcing mask mandates. They enroll in self-defense classes to protect themselves on board, miss holidays and family milestones so we can fly to ours, and have been fighting for years for better pay and benefits.
“It’s not a job. It is a lifestyle,” said Beth Bourneuf, a former teacher who became a flight attendant in 2020. “When you go to work, you’re gone for three days … you’re kind of away from it all.”
Because the airport is their second home, we went to them to debunk some common travel myths. We interviewed flight attendants — some with decades of experience and others newer to the field. Some we interviewed spoke on the condition that they be identified by their first name only to protect their employment.
Myth: Dressing up will get you an upgrade
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Reality: False
You can’t charm your way to first class, but you should still be nice.
“You won’t get an upgrade but maybe a free drink,” said Miami-based Trey Antwan, who became a flight attendant in 2007.
Airlines have strict systems for upgrades, and flight attendants don’t have the authority to dole out seating assignments. “I know that if I were to upgrade someone out of order and not go by that [upgrade] list, I would get in so much trouble,” said Vinia DiGeronimo, who’s five years into her career. In fact, “there are times where the people who actually pay for economy plus will call the airline and ask for a refund because they saw people moved up for free,” said Amber, who has been a flight attendant for eight years. “And we can get terminated for that.”