The Finnish version can be found here 🙂
Why did I quit flying – I thought I could make a post about a subject that so many people have been asking about. Why did I quit flying. In May I quit flying and returned on the ground and to a “normal” job. Quite many people seemed to be very surprised about this and I understand. A lot of my blog’s content had something to do with my traveling and I’m sure my blog gave an impression that I’m living my dream flying around the world. This was partly true, because there are so many good sides in that job. However, there are also the negative sides, which finally made me to decide to quit flying.
I thought I could briefly mention a few reasons that finally led me to this decision. First I could mention my education. I am an Economist, which was a hot topic for all the colleagues and it always led to the same questions. For sure, I’m not the only flight attendant with a university degree, there are actually quite many of us, but still the colleagues would always ask me the same questions: Why am i a flight attendant, am I planning on getting a job that fits my education, wouldn’t I make better money somewhere else, is the situation for Economists so bad that you have to work here etc. These questions I heard every single time I told about my background. At some point I realized that it will be much easier for me if I just don’t tell about my education at all.
When I decided to go for the flight attendant’s career, my idea was to have a little break after six years of university studies. I never planned flying to be my job for the rest of my life. It sure gave me nice change and experiences, but it also motivated me to return back behind a desk. Of course I want to work in my field, I made a big effort by graduating from the university.
One major reason for the quitting was the salary. A flight attendant won’t get rich by working, although nobody in Finland won’t, the taxation makes sure of that. In order to work as a flight attendant, one needs to live in Helsinki or the surrounding areas. Living in Helsinki is so expensive that normally around half of my income went to living costs. Some months, when the salary was lover, the sum was more than half of it. I’m not saying that flight attendants should necessarily have a higher salary, since the training to become a flight attendant lasts only eight weeks, but if there is a chance to make more money, I will take that chance.
One of the best – and the worst – sides of a flight attendant’s work is the schedules and the rhythm of life. Compared to a normal job, there is less work hours and the days off can be any days! It is so nice to go shopping or run errands on a Tuesday day, for example, when everyone else is at work. The days off in the middle of the week and a life without a rhythm brings some kind of a freedom. The down side of that is that you never know more than a month beforehand what your schedules will be. You can’t know if you can make it to your friend’s bachelorette party or wedding and you can’t really plan any weekend activities with people who have normal working rhythm. We had one free weekend in a month, if I remember correctly. Of course the Monday-Friday schedule can be tiring too, but then you surely appreciate the free weekend more. Also, from the relationship’s point of view, it is not cool to not have free time together on the weekends, because the days off can be any given days.
One thing that started bothering me was the health aspect of the flight attendant life. Many people don’t realize that working as a flight attendant can be even more tough for the body than some other shift job, because the work schedule is completely irregular. There are morning, day and night shifts all happily mixed! Of course there are specific resting times after each shift, but for example keeping up with some kind of a sleeping rhythm is impossible for longer than a couple of days. The time differences on long-haul flights are tough for the body and I’m not too keen about the radiation either that we are exposed to on long-haul flights.
On this post I wanted to explain honestly why I decided to quit flying. My point is not to discredit the job itself, but to explain my own feelings and opinions, because people have been asking. I will gladly answer, if someone still wants to ask something about this subject! My time as a flight attendant brought me super cool memories and experiences and after flying I have more appreciation on some everyday things that I didn’t think too much about before.
