Ashley Ellis-Alleyne is an all around maverick. She acts, dances, day trades, and is a flight attendant for a major airline. She has her own youtube channel Soaring with Ashley where she dives deep into this fascinating world. She’s taken time out to answer some of our questions.

1) What made you want to become a flight attendant?
Originally, I didn’t plan on it and it was never my intention to become one in my life. Dancing, acting, and singing has always been my dream and passion. I went to take a two-week intensive acting class at The American of Academy of Dramatic Arts over the summer in 2016 in Los Angeles, California. I thought I was going to be networking with LA classmates, but it turned out that a majority of my classmates were from international! The program had three choices; there was a 2 week, 4 week, and a 6 week. I was only able to get two weeks off, but a lot of my classmates did the other choices and the programs were an all day kind of thing, hard to do any outside work when you’re in the program. Most of them were around my age so I was wondering, “How are they taking time off with their jobs this long period of time?’’ I asked one of my classmates Athena (from Greece) out of curiosity because she was doing the whole six week program. She told me she was a flight attendant for Emirates. Athena explained to me how much she loved it and also how she can take time off when she is not working to freely do what she loved to do which was acting. That conversation or that idea came into my head. Later on that same year due to personal reasons, I put my two weeks notice for my job and then went back to perform my second season with Busch Gardens Williamsburg for the spring and summer of 2017. Since Busch Gardens was a seasonal job, I needed to look for something else. I ended up remembering my conversation with Athena, did my research and looked into how to become a flight attendant. Now three years later, I had made it happen.

2) How is the food kept hot?
If you are asking about the meals for the passengers (most likely for first class passengers unless its a long haul flight), they are stored in a cool cart. Once we safely take off in the air and it is safe to move about in the cabin for the flight attendants, the person in charge of meal prep takes the meals and put them in the oven to heat up while the rest of the crew prepare the set up so we can serve.

3) How do you balance on the plane and in heels?
We do not have to keep heels on once we start our service, it can be a flat shoes that fits in the dress code guidelines of the company. We must wear our heels stepping off the plane and walking through the airport. Some folks can go throughout the whole flight with heels, but I don’t recommend doing that especially if they are working more than one leg of the trip.

4) Where do flight attendants sleep on long flights?
They are little compartments “bunkers” we can go to rest on the aircraft, The Purser (flight attendant leader) assigns when and what time each flight attendant goes on rest typically starts most junior (early on into the shift) to senior of the crew.

5) How long is a typical shift?
If not an international trip, a flight attendant can be put to work up to 15 hours that day but depends on the period they started, duty hours can be less. It is hard to really give you an answer as we do not have a normal 9-5 job so it varies. It’s not a typical shift set but we have contracts in place with some many different rules to protect us from not being overworked and also how long can we work with this or that situation occurs.

6) Best way to deal with jet lag?
Melatonin is my best friend. If a flight attendant is at their layover for more than 24 hours and in a different time zone my suggestion is to get to the hotel and rest for a bit to adjust before venturing out to explore.

7) What is your favorite destination so far?
Honestly you wouldn’t have guessed. I had a great layover in Milwaukee. The time I went, Summerfest was going on and the crew went out to celebrate.

8) Do you get cool perks like free flights?
Yes we do.

9) Flight attendants always look so put together. What’s your secret?
I mean, I was put together before ever even becoming a flight attendant so I guess that it my secret! It comes with the job. We have my executives, the CEO, or other people from headquarters that fly back and forth so you want to make sure you are your best all the time.

10) Where do you stay if you are left in a city you’re unfamiliar with?
The company provides the hotel on our layovers and the crew is put under the same hotel. The company has contracts with certain hotels so we do not get to pick. Also, hotels we are put in have to have some requirements to accommodate the flight crew.

11) Do you recommend this career path for someone who loves to travel?
I would recommend the career path for someone who loves more than just traveling but love to be around people as well.

If you have more questions for Ashley, check out her social media:

Tiktok: ashleydancr089

Instagram: ashleydancr08
YouTube: Soaring With Ashley

Soaring with Ashley: A Flight Attendant's Insight