The Courage of Airline Flight Crews Stands as a Symbol to All Travelers

Among the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. were 33 pilots and flight attendants on hijacked American Airlines Flights 11 and 77 and United Airlines Flights 93 and 175. These were some of the people who fly us where we need to go, point out the location of emergency exits, often can’t get us a window seat or find overhead storage for our excess carry-on baggage and serve us the airplane food we used to love to hate.

When I think of the heroes of the disasters--the firemen, police officers, rescue workers, Pentagon bureaucrats, World Trade Center secretaries and financial analysts--I think of the flight crew members too.

In the last decade or so, as airports have become more congested, planes more packed and in-flight amenities scant (especially in economy class), passengers have found it easy to focus their frustrations on the flight crews. I certainly have when I’ve been forced to sit between two screaming babies, pay for a headset or visit a less-than-clean aircraft restroom.

At the same time, airline flight crews have always seemed like alluring symbols of travel. I perk up when the pilot comes on the loudspeaker, like the star of the show, and I wish that machines didn’t make me nervous so I could fly Alaskan floatplanes or Caribbean puddle-jumpers. I get excited just being at an airport and seeing the crisply uniformed people who spend their working lives in airplanes board a flight with their compact rolling suitcases.

In the wake of the tragedies, I also think about the colleagues of the airline employee victims, faced with the possibility of losing their jobs as passengers cancel trips and the industry tightens its belt. Those with enough seniority to keep their jobs must reboard airplanes, the moving targets of terrorism.

Patricia Friend, a United Airlines flight attendant for 34 years and the president of the Assn. of Flight Attendants, a union that represents the employees of 26 U.S. carriers, says she and her colleagues feel as though their homes had been invaded. “Every little thing makes you jump,” she says.

Sharon Wingler, a Delta flight attendant, feels much the same way. “We are going through the same shock and grief as the entire nation,” she says. “But we also have to come to terms with the fact that airplanes--our second homes--are now weapons for killing thousands of people.”

Still, Friend and Wingler report that only a small percentage of flight attendants are feeling too paralyzed by fear to work. Some are even putting their names on lists to fly in the place of others who need time off. When Friend talks to colleagues who never want to get on an airplane again, she advises them to defer that decision to give themselves space and time. Liz Meagher, a spokeswoman for United Airlines, says the company’s medical director is not treating employees’ fear of flying as a mental health issue because it seems perfectly normal for flight crew members to be scared and concerned.

Like most other airlines, American and United have employee assistance programs, which went into action as the crises unfolded, providing information on the crashes, dispatching counselors to airports and warning workers of such signs of stress and depression as sleeplessness, loss of appetite and the inability to concentrate. The Assn. of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents 24,000 American Airlines cabin attendants, set up a “phone watch” program that received about 1,000 calls a day from APFA members with questions and problems in the week after the tragedies.

Sue Warner-Bean, director of emergency response planning at Alaska Airlines (which had to cope with the crash of Flight 261 off the coast of Ventura County on Jan. 31, 2000), believes that letting crew members talk about their anxieties is a crucial part of the process that ultimately leads them back to work. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 tragedies, Alaska Airlines sent volunteer members of its Critical Incident Response Program to airports in Seattle and Phoenix to give peer support to United pilots, flight attendants, ticket agents and ramp workers. The gesture of fellowship was natural; when Flight 261 went down, critical incident responders from Canadian and Aloha airlines were dispatched to counsel and console Alaska Airlines workers.

But some flight attendants say that knowing measures are being taken to tighten security at airports and on planes is what ultimately makes them able to fly again, over and above the support of colleagues. Delta’s Wingler thinks that the airlines, airport authorities and the federal government have begun doing everything possible to improve security, including confiscating tweezers and nail clippers at checkpoints.

Leslie Mayo, an American Airlines flight attendant and APFA spokeswoman, sees real improvements in security systems. “We all got too comfortable and learned a horrible lesson because of it,” she says.

Perhaps all of us who need or simply want to fly should take a note from airline flight crews. Discussing our fears and giving ourselves space and time before boarding a plane again may help us, as it has them. I’ve always liked and respected the people who fly for a living. So if they’re going aloft, I am too.