8 Things Flight Attendants Really Want You to Know but Rarely Talk About

Flight attendants do far more than serve drinks and smile at 35,000 feet—they’re trained professionals juggling safety, efficiency, and customer care, all while navigating unpredictable passengers and tight schedules.

• A lot of babies and small children cry because the pressure changes hurt their ears. Older kids and adults know how to pop their ears, but babies and little kids can’t do this.
  The best thing to do is give them something to suck on during take off and landing. A dummy or a lolly works well. This will pop their ears for them and relive the pain. © LazerTRex / Reddit

• When people ask for the reason for a delay, we usually make up a response because the real answer would spook passengers. “We have a minor technical problem and engineers are on their way.” And in reality: The cabin pressure isn’t working. © CheatingOut***/ Reddit

• It means a lot to us if a passenger actually says hello back to us and smiles. We’ll remember your face. Believe me, because we got 150+ people who usually ignore us.
  One guy said, “Hey, good morning!” to me, and all flight I gave him priority, while I made others wait 5–10 minutes because I was busy. © CheatingOut***/ Reddit

• Unless you’re extremely lucky and your aircraft just rolled out of the hangar after major maintenance, there will absolutely be something broken in it. An aircraft can have a whole host of broken parts and still be allowed to fly, the broken parts just get labeled, recorded, and put on the to-do list for the next time it goes to maintenance. © ConstableBlimeyChips / Reddit

• 98% of our training is for the 0.1% of our job that we hope to never use. I went to training for 6 weeks, and we spent 3 days on service. We’re trained to fight fires, treat medical emergencies, evacuate a plane in record time, and much more.
  Service is still a very important part of the job, as that’s what we do 99.9% of the time, but the majority of training goes into emergency situations. © EMTinprogress / Reddit

• I remember my first flight alone after turning 21. I was so excited to order on the plane that I had my order ready before the FA got there. Only to find out I can’t pay with cash.
  Nice enough, FA gave me my drink on the house. I guess he saw how disappointed I was. So I can confirm they have some leeway when you are nice to them. © Mistersh*** / Reddit

• Flight attendants have a level of authority on the flight that’s below the captain, but they can (and do) make the call about whether you will fly or not. If you’re belligerent, and if you give them the impression you will not follow their instructions on a flight, the FAs can kick you off. © vertigo3pc / Reddit

• We can tell when your emotional support animal is real and when you just manipulated the system to avoid paying the cabin pet fee. © Unknown author / Reddit

There’s a lot more to air travel than meets the eye, and flight attendants often carry the weight of it all with quiet professionalism.