Attitudes towards Working as a Flight Attendant for an International Airline

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study flight attendants’ attitudes towards working for an international airline. It employed a qualitative research methodology. Data were collected from 10 Thai flight attendants who had at least 2 years of work experiences, selected by purposive sampling and snowball sampling. A combination of semi-structured interviews and participant observation was used to collect the data. The data were then analyzed with thematic analysis. As for the research findings, three main dimensions of attitudes were identified: 1) for the cognitive dimension, being a flight attendant was perceived as a dream career for most girls;  having an  opportunity to travel abroad; gaining good remunerative incentives;  their duties mainly involving providing food and beverage service; 2) as for the affective dimension, all respondents had positive attitudes towards the career ; these attitudes included being excited, enthusiastic, and passionate; 3) for the behavior dimension, it was found that cognitive attitudes and affective attitudes led the respondents to do everything they could to prepare themselves for this career and to ensure that they would gain an opportunity to work as a flight attendant such as taking a English course, getting a training in a service sector, and taking a preparation course for flight attendants.