You want to give up your day job and see the world? Have an idea that you can leave the grind behind and become a flight attendant? Figure you know how to push a cart and pantomime emergency procedures–how hard can it be? Think again. The odds of becoming a flight attendant for Delta are longer than those of getting into Harvard or Stanford.
In 2013 Delta received 44,000 applications for flight attendant jobs–and the airline had only 400 flight attendant positions to fill. Incredibly, two people applied to Delta every minute in the first week after the jobs were posted, with a total of 22,000 applications being received. For comparison: the class of 2018, prestigious Stanford University admitted 2,138 students on approximately the same number of applicants as Delta had for its flight attendant crew. Stanford received 42, 167 applicants.
