Most of us, when reading this title, think that the price of being a crew member (and here we include pilots and Flight attendants) is either economic (how much does it costs to get the degree) or in hours (the effort it takes in hours/training to make you crew member in any of its modalities).
It is true that everyone who signs up for this way of life (let’s be fair, it’s not a profession, it’s a way of understanding life) has an air of adventure and a need for change, something which is disguised as external (we dress differently, uniformity, we have elements that distinguish us, suitcases, we have other schedules and above all an increasingly accentuated geographical mobility) yet is actually an internal issue (we do not fit in with a normal life, nor do we coincide with normal people, nor do we fit in with normal schedules or routines ).
And the PRICE of this way of living is measured in UNITS OF SOLITUDE.
The loneliness of learning things that do not appear in any school, the loneliness of an airport shuttle, the loneliness of a cockpit or a galley, of a hotel, a destination or a base you have to make “your home” thousands of km away from YOUR HOME.
To face yourself.
And it is that loneliness, that ability to face oneself that UNITES us, that makes us understand each other sometimes without speaking. It is the ability to leave the comfort zone and undertake something new, unknown.
That is why when the interviewer asks:
Do you have ties at home? Or Would you be willing to change your city or base?
Even though we answer the “mythic”:
I have no ties at home, or I have no problem in moving tomorrow.
Actually we mean:
“Of course I have ties, my family, my friends, my comfort, my support, but the force, the impulse that moves me to face everything else is much stronger than any tie that ties me home“.
And that’s why we are like this, and precisely why we understand each other.
And we pay the price.
Meanwhile, may you find peaceful skies.
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Enrique. Qrewmentor Team
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