The dark side of being a flight attendant: Medical emergencies, sleep deprivation, entitled passengers and more

There’s a dark side to working 30,000 feet in the air.Medical emergencies, sleep deprivation and 20-minute lunch breaks are all in a day’s work for Australia’s battler cabin crew.And then there’s the blow-ups over ham-and-cheese toasties.“It’s quite an interesting moment when someone calls you a f**kwit because you don’t have any toasties [toasted sandwiches] left,” a Virgin flight attendant told NewsWire this week.“Most of us just laugh it off, but it does get grating for a lot of the crew.”In exclusive and wide-ranging interviews, two flight attendants — one with Virgin and one with Qantas — exposed the gobsmacking levels of entitlement that some members of the travelling public possess.“I had a friend giving CPR (to a passenger) a few years ago,” the Qantas attendant said.“In the middle of CPR someone tapped her on the shoulder and asked when they were getting breakfast.”Both have worked the notorious Bali route, but warned the stresses of the job extend far beyond rude and abusive passengers.Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today's top stories Please provide a valid email address.

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For one thing, flight crew are exposed to sickness at elevated rates — the inescapable effect on working in a contained aluminium tube crammed with hundreds of other people.“Probably in the first 18 months of my flying career, I remember my friend saying to me, ‘You are sick all the time’,” the Qantas attendant said.“I probably don’t get as sick now or maybe I work through my sickness better, I don’t know.“I think you’re just rundown all the time.”A flight crew work day is rarely a 9-5 clock-off job and the Qantas attendant said her shortest day was about 10 hours.“The other thing that is probably not like a normal job is that the timings can be really w...