Training

Cabin Crew Training: How It Works and What to Expect as a Future Flight Attendant

Cabin crew training is an intensive program designed to prepare flight attendants for the diverse challenges they will face onboard. From managing inflight emergencies to providing first-class service, this training equips them with essential skills to ensure passenger safety and comfort. On average lasting around three months, the exact duration varies by airline. In this article, we provide an overview of the typical cabin crew training programme and modules for future flight attendants.

Aircraft Type Training

First, flight attendants must become familiar with the aircraft type operated by their airline. Some airlines operate a single aircraft type, while others have a diverse fleet on which cabin crew are trained and deployed throughout their career. On their assigned aircraft, crews familiarise themselves with the exact cabin layout, including the location of emergency equipment, galley setup, emergency exits, evacuation procedures and practice passenger safety demonstrations. Cabin crew trainees must also learn how to operate the aircraft's specific emergency exits, lighting systems, fire extinguishers, and cabin intercoms ensuring they can react quickly in any case of an emergency.

Safety and Emergency Procedures

Emergencies are unpredictable and require immediate action. Every crew member must know exactly what procedures to follow. In order to be adequately prepared for real-world emergencies, trainees engage in scenario-based training. This training encompasses practices such as onboard fires and rapid decompression, which are conducted in a controlled environment using realistic simulators, cabin mock-ups and emergency slides. The objective of this training is to ensure that trainees are fully prepared to handle any potential situations in a realistic and controlled manner.

Training is provided for the following emergencies, for example:

1. Evacuations
2. Firefighting
3. Decompression Events
4. Emergency Equipment Use

Security Training

Beyond their role in passenger service, flight attendants are trained to serve as the primary line of defence against security threats on board. Therefore, the module includes procedures on how to:

1. Handle unruly or disruptive passengers
2. Respond to a potential aircraft hijacking or sabotage threat
3. Identify suspicious baggage or objects on board 

The course further introduces techniques for passenger profiling, to identify suspicious behaviour, in addition to conflict de-escalation methods, intending to prevent minor conflicts from escalating.

First Aid Training

In the event of a medical emergency during a flight, the cabin crew are the first responders. The cabin crew must be well-versed in dealing with medical emergencies and be able to stabilise and care for passengers until professional help arrives. It is imperative to handle any emergency calmly and with a reassuring demeanour, as passengers often panic or become anxious in the event of an emergency during the flight. The following knowledge is learnt during first aid training:

1. CPR and Basic Life Support
2. Dealing with heart attacks, strokes and allergic reactions
3. Use of on-board medical kits and defibrillator

In addition to the above, you receive training on handling in-flight childbirth, how to help passengers with disabilities and how to treat illnesses like deep vein thrombosis.

Survival Training

Even if a crash is unlikely, survival training plays an important role in the training course. If the aircraft has to make an emergency landing on water or land, the crew must know what to do. For this reason, it is also a prerequisite that flight attendants know how to swim; during training sessions in the water, the use of life jackets and life rafts is practised. Crews are trained to coordinate passengers after an emergency landing, implement survival strategies, set up emergency shelters, and use distress signals for rescue.

Customer Service

While a flight attendant's main responsibility is to ensure safety on board, onboard service is also a key task that should not be underestimated. Especially for premium airlines, service is an important advertisement and sales factor. During service training, trainee flight attendants learn how to deal efficiently with passenger enquiries and solve problems or complaints diplomatically. At airlines that offer Business and First Class products, cabin crew receive special training in the service and preparation of in-flight catering. On top of this, trainees are given the relevant training to handle passenger complaints diplomatically in the event of long flight delays, overbooking or complaints about the service.