What does it take to be a flight attendant? Training addresses new industry challenges — like handling unruly passengers

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All future United flight attendants go through rigorous schooling at the airline's newly-opened, 56,000-square-foot training center in Houston. It's six weeks of instruction, drills and testing as the airline aims to hire 4,000 flight attendants this year.

Flight attendants are among the industry's frontline workers when disruptions like these happen – and they're being trained to meet new challenges.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw thousands of flight attendants who either quit, were furloughed or took a buyout. Then, as travel rebounded, airlines were short-staffed. All of them are now hiring."I thought I was kind of old but then I thought this would be a nice career transition to take me into retirement," heShe was previously a firefighter but doesn't expect her new line of work to be less stressful.

First, trainees must learn tasks like the mechanics of opening the doors of six different aircraft types. A model of a plane's fuselage in the new aquatic center has trainees practicing for water landings. There's also the everyday duties of food and beverage service.

 

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That's very neat. I would definitely feel safer if I ever fly again, knowing all that dedicated training they had.

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