What's it like to be a flight attendant in present-day?

Dude, I joined AskMe JUST to answer your question. Seriously, I've been a religious reader for over a year and finally had to break out my $5. ANYWAY my boyfriend of nearly 5 years is a flight attendant, so I can tell you pretty much all there is to know! He works for a regional carrier, so he doesn't fly internationally (well, except Canada and Mexico, sometimes) and the scheduling and perks would be different from the mother airline (not a technical term). He generally is out of town 3 nights a week and then home for the same amount, but there are longer and shorter trips. He has been with the company 6 years so he has a bit of seniority which means a bit more control over his schedule. He gets 6 buddy passes per year to give to friends, but don't be fooled--they're not free. We're not entirely sure what the amount is based on, but for me to fly between Atlanta and Portland, OR is about $300 round trip. I am his domestic partner (we are a straight couple if it matters--he does get some shit about being a dude stewardess, but he loves his job and is not bothered by such things) so I don't count against his passes, but I still don't fly free. His parents DO fly free, though. So for the nights he's gone, he stays in a hotel that is paid for by the airline. It's generally a decent hotel. In Cedar Rapids, IA he gets a Renaissance Inn but he sees his fair share of Holiday Inns and Hamptons and whatnot, too. His company is union, so if there are a bunch of complaints about a hotel, the company will have to switch to a better one. They are only paid their hourly wage while the door of the airplane is closed, but they do get a per diem to cover meals on the road. He gets automatic raises based on his length of employment. For the most part he really likes his job, but I have met multiple coworkers of his who HATE it. But they seem like the type of people who'd hate whatever job they had, you know? There does seem to be a lot of uh, promiscuity, but again I think that depends on the person more than the job. I was super paranoid about dating a flight attendant when we met, but he is a very trustworthy dude and I don't worry when he's gone. ALL THAT to notice I have barely answered your questions. Sorry. We weren't dating when he was in training, but it is pretty intense. He does have to have recurrent training every year, in which they practice their commands ("Heads down! Stay down! You at the window exit, jump out feet first!", etc.). Just reading his manual can make me kinda nervous. He is not and never has been scared of flying. He LOVES when it's turbulent because it's exciting. Meanwhile I'm white-knuckling it. I kinda covered the average week thing, I suppose. There isn't too much sexism for dudes, from what I've seen. The pilots don't make fun of him for being a male stewardess, or anything. If you have any other questions, let me know. Sorry to go all hog-wild on my first answer, but I couldn't help it!

Someone I know is a flight attendant. An Orthodox Jew once asked her if she was on the rag --- they are not supposed to take food served by women on their period. (She told him to go take a hike.)

your starting salary may not be high, but it will get high in time especially since your raises are mandated and not based on merit. Also even the starting salary can be more than a job with similar duties on the ground. You also have great benefits. And while you may have to put up with some crazy jerks - you do have the benefit knowing that their actions may become a federal crime unlike a customer service employee on the ground. How many waiters, retail clerks, etc would giggle to see the customer who treated them like trash being hauled off in cuffs for being an ass :)

This only gets at a tiny part of your question (the sexism part), but you might find it interesting: the sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild wrote http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0520239334/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ in 1983. It's a classic sociological text and introduced the concept of "emotional labor"--basically the idea that people in some service occupations are asked to provide emotional connection (or the simulation of it) to customers as part of their jobs. She uses flight attendants as one of her main examples, and talks a lot about the sexism of the profession. The book is pretty outdated now, but an updated edition was published in 2003 with a new preface. You can read the flight-attendant focused chapter http://caringlabor.wordpress.com/2010/11/19/arlie-hochschild-feeling-management-from-private-to-commercial-uses/.

Oh, and welcome to Metafilter, masques!

My old roommate was a flight attendant a few years back for one of the medium-sized US-based airlines. She absolutely hated it and only lasted a year. She had to go to the airport frequently to sit in a room for several hours and wait to see if she was needed, and I don't believe she got paid for these "on call" shifts. I'm not sure how much sexual harassment was going on but I know she frequently got grief from pilots for various things, and it seemed like it was a very hierarchical business to be in. And customers treated her like a waitress. It sounded horrible to me.

Glad to be here, thank you! :)

Thank you for these answers! Just what I was looking for.

http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/tenuredradical/2011/10/when-the-skies-were-friendly-and-the-girdles-were-tight-a-review-of-pan-am-sunday-10-est-abc/ by an academic (and former flight attendant!) who's working on a book about the history of flight attendant unionization is a pretty interesting historical perspective on the Pan Am period and what came next.