Back in the pre-jet 1960s when I first began my career as a Northwest Airlines stewardess, I was suddenly struck with the realization that everyone else I knew was earthbound at work, but I was up in the air. Literally!

And my place of work was a mechanical contraption with huge engines and spinning propellers that kept us always moving at high speed.

It also became clear that certain things I’d always taken for granted couldn’t be taken for granted any longer. Heretofore, I’d thought of a thunderstorm as simply a nuisance weather pattern that brought on heavy rainfall and soaked the ground. But a thunderstorm could cause major problems in the air. The pilots had to work to navigate a way around it. And as stewardesses, we had something of a balancing act trying to serve the passengers as best we could despite the turbulence it produced. Indeed, a really bad thunderstorm could even ground a flight altogether.

I also realized I’d have to get accustomed to one job-related practice that was necessarily different. I worked with the same people in my previous position as a secretary. But because airline trips are scheduled on a monthly basis, with crews bidding for a different schedule every month, the pilots and stewardesses I flew with in February might be different from those I’d worked with in January. And I could be with a whole new crew in March.

And as for reporting to the office at 8 in the morning, knowing my workday would end at 5 pm, this of course was not always possible due to working trips. Any number of things could happen to cause your homebound flight to be delayed. “Creeping delays,” mechanical problems, and bad weather were the most common issues. Or worse, you might not finish at all on the scheduled day.

This was the case with the Northwest crew that reported to work on July 1, 1968, for Flight 714, a routine Miami turnaround (Minneapolis-St. Paul to Miami and back the same day). A homesick Cuban national with a loaded revolver skyjacked Flight 714 to Havana. This crew endured a harrowing ordeal in the air and on the ground until the hijacking was over. They didn’t get home until three days later!

I took a special interest in this skyjacking, as I had planned to bid the schedule for having me on that very flight, until I discovered I had to move to a new apartment that same day!

Indeed, most jobs follow a predictable routine. I can’t think of another job where you don’t know what might happen whenever you go to work.

All in all, flexibility is the key to being an airline stewardess or a pilot. A person who requires rigid control of their work environment would never make the grade.

It also doesn’t hurt to be adventuresome. Once, during our frigid Minnesota winter, I was scheduled to work on a trip to Cleveland. But after reporting to the airport, I discovered crew scheduling had changed the destination to Miami, with a 24-hour layover!

Some surprise happenings can be good!

Carol Hall lives in Woodbury. She’s a longtime freelance writer, a University of Minnesota graduate and a former Northwest Airlines stewardess. Hall’s book, Stewardess, relives the golden age of airline travel in the 1960s when she was a stewardess for Northwest Airlines. It is available for sale on Amazon.com.

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