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Read Time: 7 minutes
Last Modified: 2025-07-01

As you probably know — but it’s always worth repeating — cabin crew are first and foremost safety professionals.

That’s why customer service experience is non-negotiable.

Allow me to connect the dots.

The airlines job is to get new crew fit to fly according to all the regulations that govern it. They aren’t there to teach customer service because they’ll be too busy drilling you on evacuations, decompressions, defibs and door operation.

Roughly 90% of your cabin crew training will focus on safety drills, security protocols, medical emergencies, and emergency evacuation. Only 10% is service.

Airlines invest millions in state-of-the-art training centres and it costs a fortune to train new crew. This is why no airline is going to pour their training budget in teaching new joiners all the nuances of customer service when they can get that experience on the ground for minimum wage at any coffee shop.

They expect you to arrive with customer service already handled so they can focus on what you can’t get on the ground — aviation safety and security protocols. In just a few weeks, you have to know how to find the plastic baby in the smoke-filled cabin, evacuate an entire aircraft in under 90 seconds, and know the location of every piece of safety equipment on board.

Customer service experience is absolutely non-negotiable and the recruitment process is set up to validate you have that experience.

Now, that’s thinking like an airline, but it’s the recruiters who validate you have this experience. So you need to shift over and think like a recruiter.

And, that brings us to an important question: do you have proven experience to turn into stories? (aka: answers for behavioural interview questions?)

Do you have experience to turn into stories?

Passengers are a feisty, frustrated, flirtatious, and frighfully complex bunch, and nobody wants you realising at 38,000 ft that you get teary-eyed during conflict.

When you enter the recruitment process, it’s the recruiter’s job to ensure you have the required range of skills and the correct disposition.

If you’ve worked in a shoe store, that says to the recruiters that you might have been eyeball to eyeball with an angry customer trying to return used sneakers.

If you’re a hairdresser, maybe you’ve had mascara streaked onto your jumper from a stranger sobbing on your shoulder.

Your background is how recruiters are assured you can handle an entitled businessman or an Ozzy Osborne Stag who thinks your ass is a call bell.

If you’ve never been in the trenches, how can they trust you’ll cope under pressure?

But here’s another challenge you’ll face.

Without regular customer contact, your answers become hypothetical. And hypotheticals? Ugh. They translate directly to: “I have no idea.”

Hypotheticals are fine when it comes to desert island survival, but not when it comes to the core aspect of your role.

When the recruiter asks,“What is the most challenging customer you have faced? ” They don’t want to hear, “Well, I would try to see things from their point of…”

You’ve already lost them.

Now, if you say: “Once, a customer threw a pair of knickers at my head…”

Now you’ve got their attention.

Doesn’t have to be knickers. Could be a receipt, could just be a tantrum. The point is “I had” is real. “I would” is fiction.

And when you do get a one-on-one with a recruiter, you can bet they’ll throw something at you: and it’ll be a behavioural question with follow-up probes.

If you really don’t have any customer service experience, you have no answers to their questions, so you will absolutely need to get some. Even if you have to accept a voluntary position at a homeless shelter to get it.

Now, don’t just get a job as a yoga receptionist and call it a day. If your only customer conflict was someone complaining the kombucha fridge is not spiritual enough, get more experience.

You need variety. You need stories about challenging customers, sad customers, overly-flirtatious customers — and not necessarily all at the same time.

An evening job in a nightclub? You’ll have a full suite of stories by closing time. And the beauty is: you can spin getting that job into a story about being proactive — someone who went out and hunted down experience on purpose.

Oh yes, they like proactive.

Now, having said all that…

Plenty of roles aren’t technically “customer service” — but still involve customers. Interior designers, accountants, etc.

If your job involves clients or the public in any way, that’s what you highlight on your CV. Though, best avoid the keyword spam.

Take interior designers, for example. Not directly a customer service role. It has designer in the title, that’s the first clue. However, it can become related when you target and frame it right. The recruiter doesn’t care how you paired pistachio with slate. They want to know how you handled the client meltdown when she realised pistachio was, in fact, green.

Same goes for hair stylists. Recruiters don’t care how many blow-dries you can do in an hour or your knowledge of psoriisis, psoriasis, soriasis (ugh, point made, leave that off the resume for obvious reasons). Recruiters want to hear how you consult, listen, adapt — all while managing the emotions of someone who’s about to break down over bangs.

Whatever your job, the airline doesn’t want the label — they want the transferable skills behind the label.

Any profession can be pitched well and any can be pitched poorly. It’s all about the frame.

Life aboard a flight is a world of chaos. Airlines want applicants who will become the Face Of The Airline. And that face? It’s going to be snapped at, seathed at, and occasionally splashed with spittle by 12 million passengers over the next 9 years. That’s a lot of faces and a lot of splashback.

Yes, 12 million passengers. Here’s your complimentary crosscheck of my claim: Airline S10 E19 – 13:55.

Now, remember, the recruiter sitting across from you? They might end up working with you and they want to know, can you hold your own, or do they need to hold your hand whilst you cry into a sick bag?

When writing your CV, lead with customer contact — consultations with clients, complaint handling, negotiating with suppliers, all the juicy people bits.

Leave out the word-processing and the hair clipping and the AutoCadding.

And while we’re on the subject of labels — let’s talk client versus customer. Are they the same? Sort of.

Which term is favoured by the Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)?

“Client” sounds lovely, very polished, very boutique-y. But airlines don’t ask for “client service experience”. Nope, they require “customer service experience”. They don’t say “passenger service experience”. Think about that.

They want customer, not client, not passenger, not punter. So, be specific with your phrases. Mirror their language. Speak the same dialect as the job ad.

In the The Cabin Crew Interview Made Easy Finishing School, you’ll learn how to turn your experience into compelling, airline-relevant stories — and take smart, proactive steps to close any gaps. All guided by expert instructors and supported by a community that gets it.