Friday Fun Fact

Many of the earliest flight attendants were nurses

*interestingfacts.com

Flight attendants make our journeys through the sky safer and more comfortable. Yet they do more than just serve peanuts and soda; they’re trained to respond to safety and medical emergencies, necessary skills for cruising at 35,000 feet. However, modern flight attendants don’t have to have in-depth medical training the way the first American in-air staff did — the earliest commercial airlines equipped with flight attendants required their staff to be registered nurses.

The first flight attendants to board U.S. commercial flights were led by Ellen Church, a nurse who was also a licensed aviator. Unable to find work as a pilot due to gender discrimination, Church found another way into the sky by pitching airlines the concept of the “flight stewardess,” who could use her nursing skills to aid sick or injured passengers while also easing nerves at a time when flying was still somewhat dangerous and often uncomfortable for passengers. Boeing Air Transport tested Church’s idea in May 1930, hiring Church and seven other nurses for flights between San Francisco and Chicago (with 13 stops in between). In air, the attendants were tasked with serving meals, cleaning the plane’s interior, securing the seats to the floor, and even keeping passengers from accidentally opening the emergency exit door. After a successful three-month stint, other airlines picked up Church’s idea, putting out calls for nurses in their early 20s to join the first flight crews — standard requirements until World War II, when nurses overwhelmingly joined the war effort, leaving room for more women of all backgrounds to enter the aviation field.