New York Newsday recently carried an article on the new security challenges faced by today’s flight attendants as opposed to “back in the day.”

The piece focused on a former coworker of mine at Eastern who started, like me, “lured by the excitement of travel and the opportunities to meet new people.”

What she and I had in common some 35 years ago was that we both liked the style of uniforms that Eastern Airlines had. And of course, the prestige and attraction of being a “stewardess” beckoned us.

Our primary purpose for being on board, even then, was for safety reasons.

Eastern’s east coast route structure made us vulnerable to “hijacking” by Cuban nationals. Air Marshals were put on board with guns. Flight attendant “terrorist” training back then consisted of “putting ourselves between the hijacker and the cockpit door!” But none of us in the airline industry could have foreseen the changes that would occur in homeland security some 30 years later.

At one time, we were required to wear nail polish, now you are required to carry restraint tape! Now on the TWU Local 556 (Southwest flight attendants) Safety Team’s website, you can see a little box in orange that states, “Threat Advisory-high risk of terrorists attacks.”

The President of the Association of Professional Flight Attendants for American Airlines, Laura Glading, said, “Everything about flight attendant life has changed since 9/11, becoming more of a high stress job. You are learning to defend yourself, how to attack, how to hurt a passenger with what you have. It’s a whole new way to use a coffee pot.”

On December 13, 2003, President Bush signed the Vision 100-Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act into law. This measure, part of the FAA Reauthorization Bill, was designed to strengthen America’s aviation sector and enhance the safety of the traveling public. The Act further requires the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to develop and make available to flight and cabin crew members an advanced self-defense training program that includes appropriate and effective responses for defending against an attacker.

However, on May 13, 2004 Rep. Peter DeFazio, ranking member on the House Transportation Aviation Subcommittee, began collecting signatures on a letter to the TSA Acting Administrator David Stone, asking him to improve flight attendant security training. Senators Barbara Boxer and Joe Lieberman, ranking members on Governmental Affairs, joined forces with DeFazio.

Flight attendants continue “reporting that they are not receiving comprehensive basic security training and that the air carriers’ training programs vary drastically throughout the industry,” DeFazio noted in his letter. It is troubling that TSA has not yet addressed these large discrepancies among the air carrier flight attendant security training programs, especially since it was given the express authority in Section 603 of “Vision 100” to establish minimum standards for such programs.

Finally, “Vision 100” required air carriers providing passenger air transportation to conduct basic security training for their flight and cabin crews in order to prepare them for potential threat conditions that may occur onboard an aircraft. Crew members are given a DVD and student manual designed to familiarize themselves with self defense concepts and techniques. After completing the review, the crewmember schedules a one-day “hands-on” training program conducted at participating colleges.

We never would have thought airlines would ban smoking on board, pilots now carry guns, and flight attendants are now using “suitcases as a weapon.”