Former Minneapolis flight attendant training to become pilot

(FOX 9) – A day after federal aviation officers make an essential rule change for flight attendants, a former flight attendant is sharing her story of why she exited the sphere and the way she’s landed in a unique aviation profession.

For the final seven years, Jennifer Koecher has spent her life up within the skies, first as a flight attendant and now as a flight teacher, serving to aspiring pilots obtain their lifelong dream.

“I actually like the angle it brings,” Koecher stated. “Once we’re down on the bottom, issues appears so huge. Up within the air, you see a complete totally different view.”

As she displays on her three and a half years as a flight attendant, she remembers each the nice and the unhealthy.

“I used to be seeing new cities, touring to totally different locations. Nevertheless it was a grind. It was exhausting,” she stated.

That exhaustion is without doubt one of the major causes she selected to depart in 2018. So she’s glad to see the Federal Aviation Administration now making relaxation a precedence for flight attendants. Federal aviation officers this week elevated the remainder interval between flight attendants’ shifts.

“They’re skilled to evacuate the plane. They’re skilled to be the primary responders for any emergency below the solar< and if they do not have satisfactory relaxation, that is not going to occur,” Koecher stated.

Her time within the cabin crew additionally gave her distinctive perception into the lifetime of a pilot.

“They have been getting paid rather a lot higher to reside an analogous way of life and never cope with plenty of the downsides of the job,” she stated.

With that realization, a brand new profession started to take flight. She’s now mere months away from turning into a pilot for a regional airline.

“After I determined to do that, it was 6 % girls have been in aviation throughout the board,” Koecher stated.

However there have been girls who got here earlier than her and confirmed her this pipeline was an possibility.

“I feel I can title 9 flight attendants who’re both airline pilots now, flight instructors like myself or coming by way of the ranks,” she stated.

As a member of the native non-profit Stars of the North, which seeks to convey extra girls into aviation fields, she hopes her story will convey extra girls into the skies.

“If I discover a technique to do it, you are able to do it,” she stated.