2015-10-16
835
Airline pilots have high social status and earn a great deal of money. Air hostesses' have an uncertain status and earn little. For those recently qualified, the basic pay in some airlines is as little as £300 a month.
This is little to balance against the possibility of a hijack2 or a disaster. So why do they do it?
I went to see Diane Humphreys, Senior Hostess with Dan-Air at Manchester Airport, to try to find the answer to this question. Mrs. Humphreys has had the job for 16 years. Before that she was an ordinary air hostess for six years.
One reason why air hostesses don't get over-anxious about flying • may be that they're so busy, before, during and after a flight. I asked Mrs. Humphreys to tell me what a typical summer timetable for a hostess would be. She said that four or five flights a week during the summer is not uncommon.
«On a Monday morning, a hostess might have an early morning flight, ' perhaps at 7 a.m. She has to check in 1.5 hours before the flight.
She has to prepare the cabin and toilets and make sure that the food and drinks are aboard. Dan-Air does not do long-distance flights, just short or medium distance ones, and so there are no overnight stopovers unless weather conditions prevent take-off or landing, or the plane develops technical problems. There's a 45-minute interval, when the hostesses have to prepare the plane for the return flight. Depending on where you're flying, this can make it a 12-hour day; with delays it can even be 16 hours.»
«During the flight you've got no time to relax — the safety instructions have to be demonstrated and the food and drinks served. You're always busy. So one day you might have an early morning flight; the next an afternoon flight; the day after you might be on relief duty and have to be ready to work if someone else becomes ill or there is an emergency. This means that you have to stay near a phone all the time and be no more than an hour and a half from the airport.»
1 air hostess — стюардесса
2 hijack —угон самолета
Test № 29
I. Определите, верны (True) или неверны (False) следующие утверждения.
1. According to the passage the money that air hostesses earn does not cover the risks that their profession involves.
2. Diane Humphreys has been an air hostess for 16 years.
3. Air hostesses can only relax during a 45-minute interval before the return flight.
4. When on relief duty an air hostess has to telephone to the airport every one and a half hours.
