A perspective from inside the aircraft

By Judith Rowe
UMUC Class of 2000

Although I have just recently graduated from UMUC, I have been an American Airlines purser/flight attendant for almost 36 years. Over the years, my co-workers and I have faced special challenges and injustices that we have worked hard to remove and conquer.

Judith Rowe

As our unity and numbers have given us ever increasing strength, we have met and exceeded most of those challenges. This transformation has occurred in such a relatively short period of time (2-3 decades), that most of the public has been unable to shift their thinking to understand what our job truly is, and who we really are.

No, we are not sex objects in the sky, as some airlines have wanted you to believe. We are none of those anachronistic terms such as stewardess, hostess or steward. We are not even that term the media loves to use for brevity-attendants. We are not on board an aircraft primarily to serve coffee. Our job title is Flight Attendant, and we are professional men and women who have chosen a career in safety and security. The duty of the pilots is to get the aircraft to the correct destination safely. The duty of the flight attendant is to board, maintain and deplane passengers in a safe and secure atmosphere. Yes, we are the ones who will initiate and conduct an evacuation, deal with air rage, aid with the birth of a baby, operate the automatic external defibrillator, put out fires, deal with the hijacker, resuscitate the unconscious, and even handle a bomb. Why else would all crewmembers be subjected to random drug testing? Certainly the answer is not because pouring coffee needs a steady hand.

Consequently, on September 11, 2001, 25 flight attendants were dealing with the true trip from Hell. Because the FAA mandates we practice emergency procedure training twice a year, I have no doubt that each crewmember initiated procedures to passively resist the hijackers in efforts to protect the passengers and pilots. (Procedures now are more aggressive.) Regretfully, never could any crewmember have imagined one day dealing with zealots who would use our aircraft as a deadly missile. But according to calls made by passengers and quick-thinking flight attendants, all involved began heroic, aggressive measures. Some flight attendants boiled water to throw on the hijackers, according to a call by one flight attendant. Others organized an en masse passenger storming into first class. Another flight attendant successfully communicated gruesome conditions and location to the company by phone. Most certainly, all capable flight attendants heroically attempted to protect and calm passengers, while fully aware of their tragic denouement. I know this, because the flight attendants on Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon were my friends and coworkers. I had flown with Michele for over 25 years. Ken and Jennifer Lewis (jointly known as Kennifer) had a combined seniority of 30 years. On days off, Renee May ministered to special needs children. Those passengers were blessed with the most experienced professionals. Those professionals were the very first heroes in our national tragedy.

In addition to being heartbroken at the loss of our brothers and sisters, flight attendants and pilots today are angry. Both unions have fought unsuccessfully to force our companies to repair the most egregious security violations. But, the companies have always answered, "economically unfeasible." Therefore, we concur with most of the procedures now being put in place, including more highly trained handlers at the X-ray machines, because we have advocated them for years.

Perhaps if the airlines would have prioritized safety and security as flight attendants and pilots have, rather than spending millions of dollars on CEO salaries and more room in coach, the heroic deeds the flight attendants and pilots performed September 11th would not now be just one more injustice we have had to endure. We are still something special in the air. In our case, fighting for justice is not only worthwhile, it is also a matter of life and death.

Judith Rowe graduated UMUC in the Class of 2000 with a bachelor's degree in psychology. She is currently pursuing her master's degree at the University of Maryland, College Park. Judy is frequently called upon by media outlets for her preference for taking online courses at UMUC and for that reason, she was featured in a Baltimore Sun story about UMUC's expertise in online education. Her educational experiences online at UMUC were also recently featured in another story, this one in U.S. News & World Report magazine. Judy has been a flight attendant for American Airlines for over 35 years and has been an international purser for the airline since 1987.

The views expressed here are those of the author and are not necessarily the opinions of UMUC, the University System of Maryland, or the state of Maryland.