Corporate Flight Attendant Training Program Review

Corporate flight attendants have a new choice when selecting a company for their cabin safety and service training. Alteon Training, LLC, a Boeing Company, launched a program in November 2003 for corporate flight attendants at their facility in Long Beach, California. I was invited to participate in the class to get a better idea about the training, their facility, and about Alteon itself and to share my findings with the aviation community via this website.

In an industry peppered with training companies of varying sizes and capabilities, my first thoughts about Alteon was that is was just a run-of-the-mill training agency. Alteon not only allayed my original misgivings, but they proved to me that all training companies should be doing the same thing: operating with the FAAs blessings under FAR Part 142. Indeed, Alteons program may soon become the benchmark by which all training companies will be judged. This is good news for flight attendants who are confused or even mislead by some of the programs operating around the U.S.

I arrived in Long Beach from JFK on a Sunday evening, picked up my rental car and went to my room to prepare for my 7 a.m. Monday meeting with Alteon executives Jim Garner and Hal Collison. That morning, we toured the facility where I was able to see their fully equipped training rooms sporting individual computer work stations complemented by the overhead media slideshow housing [indeed, while being trained students could look at the pull down screen or at their computer monitor to view the PowerPoint presentations]. On the ground floor of Alteons facility, I was brought to a room housing individual flight simulators, each of which was for one Boeing product or another.

By 8 a.m. the remaining five students arrived and I settled down with them in a training room to begin the class. After brief introductions, Kathy Cummins was introduced as our service instructor for the first days class. The Corporate School of Etiquette was chosen by Alteon to provide the service side of the training the first day. The middle three days was all Alteon-run training. San Diego CPR was selected to provide the in-flight medical, CPR, and AED training on Friday. When I inquired as to why Alteon outsourced portions of their five-day program, Hal Collison, Director, Flight Training, for Alteon declared, We focus on what we are experts at and do best. The other portions of the course are outsourced to the very best experts in their field with years of experience and access to the latest course content and training materials.

Kathys session began with a discussion on dispatching a trip. Covered material included the steps behind the scheduling and releasing of an aircraft for flight; crewmember assignments; show times and reporting times; aircraft, flight and passenger data; and arranging for catering and supplies. Students previewed a dispatchers checklist and discussed preparing for a six leg international trip using an actual trip sheet to decide what food service was needed and where.

After two hours of classroom teaching, it was all hands on training for most of the rest of the day. Students boarded a company van and headed south to John Wayne Airport in Orange County for the executive service training portion of the program. The class toured Signatures FBO where we located the catering order placed earlier with Air Gourmet. After a discussion about refrigeration, we took the order outside to the waiting Global Express which was graciously provided to us for the day by Monarch Charters. When we boarded the aircraft I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had full access to the galley and cabin whereby we were able to actually heat the food as well as keep the aircraft cool for the passengers.

Kathy gave the students a trip scenario to work with and we went through all the pre-departure procedures including, passenger arrival; take-off; meal and wine service; in-flight procedures; before and after landing; and aircraft cleaning procedures. By mid-afternoon with our in-flight service portion of the training behind us we returned to Long Beach for additional classroom training covering contracts and flight attendant business preparation material. Somehow we managed to squeeze in what seemed like two days of training into one day. By 6 p.m. the class was over and the service training portion of the program was behind us.

Pattie Adams took over the class on Tuesday and for the next three days was tasked with guiding the class through the applicable FARs; crewmember duties and procedures; security; hazmat and more. As a backgrounder, Pattie was one of the chief creators of Alteons new program, drawing on her experience as a contract corporate flight attendant as well as a commercial flight attendant, purser and instructor with United Airlines. Patties experience in the corporate and commercial arenas was helpful as she skillfully translated the language and procedural differences between the two arenas, something that was not lost on those in the class who were new to corporate aviation, but possessed commercial experience only.

Because training was done at Alteons Long Beach facility, guest speakers from within the company were brought in to discuss some of the highly technical aspects of flying. Palermo Gabriel discussed the mechanics of flight and Dick Bloomberg covered the aircraft systems, particularly what happens in the cockpit. Dick also gave the students a thrilling SIM ride, a standard value added feature for those attending this training program.

The third day of training covered turbulence and decompression and was followed by hands on practice of oxygen units and, later, aircraft doors, emergency exits and equipment. Slides and pictures of the various configurations found on the Gulfstreams, Bombardiers/Global Express/ Challengers, and Falcons were covered as well as for the BBJ and Boeings newest corporate entry, the 717 Business Express. Particularly useful to the class was the separate binder that we were given for Emergency Checklists; this Jeppesen size manual could easily be taken on trips, which is what Pattie encouraged students to do.

By Thursday, we were all eager to leave the classroom for hands on activity; we were not disappointed. After a classroom discussion on how fires start, we filed outside, donned personal breathing equipment (PBE) and practiced fire fighting procedures. Immediately after lunch the class boarded the cabin trainer and spent several hours role playing. The day was capped off with a trip to the local hotels outdoor pool for ditching procedures and exercises.

The fifth and final day was the hardest to face. Not that the course material was going to be a major challenge, but rather we were faced with the realization that as a class we would no longer be together. Each of us knew that we were becoming part of Alteon history by participating in their inaugural class.

Pam Hammond, of San Diego CPR, was brought in on Friday to go over the in-flight medical aspect of training, particularly CPR and defibrillator procedures. Having previously completed Red Cross training I was curious to learn what the differences were between Red Cross procedures and the American Heart Association training that Pam was instructing us in. We learned that the Red Cross program, while very good, is geared toward lay people while the American Heart Association program was what the medical community utilized. So, we did as the doctors and paramedics do and started checking airways, looked for signs of breathing, and pounding the chests of the mannequins.

In the afternoon it was all AED training as we practiced hooking up the Heartstream monitor and performing defibrillation. The class ended with a quiz and the distribution of completion cards on behalf of the American Heart Association.

At the end of the day, Alteon executives led by John Alexander, VP of the Americas and Chris Johnson-Pasqua, General Manager, Long Beach Training Center, came to the classroom to thank and congratulate the students. More than once I heard a hearty "thank you from a student to John as each one was grateful for the high level of training they had just completed. Each student left equipped with the confidence needed to carry out their duties as corporate flight attendants.

Matthew Keegan is the owner of a successful web design and marketing company based in North Carolina, USA. He manages several sites including the Corporate Flight Attendant Community at http://www.corporateflyer.net and the Aviation Employment Board at http://www.aviationemploymentboard.net