American Red Cross

Company flight attendants have a new choice when choosing a corporation for his or her cabin security and service coaching. Alteon Coaching, LLC, a Boeing Business, launched a program in November 2003 for company flight attendants at their facility in Long Beach, California. I was invited to take part inside the class to get a far better notion in regards to the training, their facility, and about Alteon alone and to share my findings using the aviation neighborhood via this internet site.

In an business peppered with training companies of various sizes and capabilities, my 1st ideas about Alteon was which is was only a run-of-the-mill training agency. Alteon not only allayed my authentic misgivings, however they proved to me that all coaching firms need to be doing the exact same thing: operating with all the FAA’s blessings below FAR Part 142. Without a doubt, Alteon’s system may well quickly grow to be the benchmark by which all coaching companies are going to be judged. This is fantastic news for flight attendants who’re baffled or maybe mislead by a number of the systems operating across the U.S.

I arrived in Long Beach from JFK on a Sunday evening, picked up my rental automobile and went to my room to get ready for my 7 a.m. Monday meeting with Alteon executives Jim Garner and Hal Collison. That early morning, we toured the facility exactly where I was ready to see their totally outfitted training rooms sporting individual pc function stations complemented by the overhead media slideshow housing [indeed, although becoming trained college students could look at the pull down screen or at their personal computer watch to see the PowerPoint presentations]. Around the ground floor of Alteon’s facility, I used to be brought to a room housing individual flight simulators, every of which was for 1 Boeing product or yet another.

By eight a.m. the remaining five students arrived and I settled down with them inside a coaching room to start the class. Immediately after brief introductions, Kathy Cummins was introduced as our support instructor for the first day’s class. The Company College of Etiquette was chosen by Alteon to give the service side of the training the first day. The middle three days was all Alteon-run coaching. San Diego CPR was chosen to present the in-flight health care, CPR, and AED training on Friday. When I inquired as to why Alteon outsourced parts of their five-day system, Hal Collison, Director, Flight Coaching, for Alteon declared, “We concentrate on what we are professionals at and do greatest. The other parts of the program are outsourced for the really best professionals in their field with a long time of expertise and access towards the newest course content and coaching materials.”

Kathy’s session began having a discussion on dispatching a visit. Covered material included the steps behind the scheduling and releasing of an aircraft for flight; crewmember assignments; indicate occasions and reporting occasions; aircraft, flight and passenger data; and arranging for catering and materials. College students previewed a dispatcher’s checklist and talked about getting ready for a six leg global trip making use of an real trip sheet to choose what food support was required and exactly where.

Following two hrs of classroom teaching, it absolutely was all fingers on training for most with the relaxation of the day. College students boarded a firm van and headed south to John Wayne Airport in Orange County for the executive support training portion from the system. The class toured Signature’s FBO exactly where we located the catering order put previously with Air Connoisseur. Right after a discussion about refrigeration, we took the purchase outdoors to the waiting Global Express which was graciously supplied to us for your day by Monarch Charters. Once we boarded the aircraft I was pleasantly surprised to determine that we had complete accessibility for the galley and cabin whereby we had been ready to really heat the foods at the same time as maintain the aircraft cool for that “passengers.”

Kathy gave the college students a visit situation to function with and we went by way of all of the pre-departure techniques including, passenger arrival; take-off; meal and wine support; in-flight methods; prior to and immediately after landing; and aircraft cleaning procedures. By mid-afternoon with our in-flight service portion from the coaching behind us we returned to Long Seaside for further classroom training covering contracts and flight attendant small business preparing materials. Somehow we managed to squeeze in what appeared like two days of coaching into 1 day. By six p.m. the class was more than as well as the services training portion from the system was behind us.

Pattie Adams took over the class on Tuesday and for the next 3 days was tasked with guiding the class via the applicable FARs; crewmember responsibilities and procedures; security; hazmat and extra. As a backgrounder, Pattie was one of the chief creators of Alteon’s new plan, drawing on her expertise being a contract corporate flight attendant as well like a industrial flight attendant, purser and instructor with United Airlines. Pattie’s experience within the corporate and commercial arenas was beneficial as she skillfully translated the language and procedural variations between the 2 arenas, some thing that was not misplaced on these inside the class who had been new to corporate aviation, but possessed industrial encounter only.

Mainly because coaching was accomplished at Alteon’s Lengthy Seashore facility, guest speakers from inside the corporation were brought in to discuss a few of the highly technical elements of flying. Palermo Gabriel mentioned the mechanics of flight and Dick Bloomberg coated the aircraft programs, especially what happens within the cockpit. Dick also gave the college students a thrilling SIM trip, a standard value additional characteristic for those attending this coaching program.

The third day of training covered turbulence and decompression and was followed by fingers on practice of oxygen units and, later on, aircraft doors, emergency exits and gear. Slides and photos with the numerous configurations found on the Gulfstreams, Bombardiers/Global Express/ Challengers, and Falcons were coated too as for your BBJ and Boeing’s newest company entry, the 717 Business enterprise Express. Particularly useful towards the class was the separate binder that we were provided for Emergency Checklists; this Jeppesen dimension manual could quickly be taken on journeys, that is what Pattie encouraged college students to do.

By Thursday, we were all keen to depart the classroom for hands on activity; we had been not disappointed. Immediately after a classroom discussion on how fires commence, we filed exterior, donned individual breathing equipment (PBE) and practiced fire fighting techniques. Instantly after lunch the class boarded the cabin trainer and invested several several hours function taking part in. The day was capped off with a trip to the regional hotel’s outdoor pool for ditching procedures and exercises.

The fifth and ultimate day was the toughest to deal with. Not the program material was going to be considered a major problem, but rather we had been faced with all the realization that as a class we might no longer be together. Each of us realized that we were becoming component of Alteon history by taking part within their inaugural class.

Pam Hammond, of San Diego CPR, was brought in on Friday to go over the in-flight health care facet of training, especially CPR and defibrillator methods. Getting formerly completed Red Cross coaching I was curious to understand what the variations were in between Red Cross procedures and also the American Heart Association coaching that Pam was instructing us in. We learned that the Red Cross system, though quite very good, is geared toward lay persons even though the American Heart Association plan was what the health-related community used. So, we did as the doctors and paramedics do and started checking airways, looked for signs of breathing, and pounding the chests from the mannequins.

In the afternoon it had been all AED training as we practiced hooking up the Heartstream® monitor and executing defibrillation. The class ended with a quiz along with the distribution of completion cards on behalf of the American Heart Association.

In the end with the day, Alteon executives led by John Alexander, VP with the Americas and Chris Johnson-Pasqua, General Manager, Long Seashore Training Middle, came towards the classroom to thank and congratulate the students. A lot more than when I heard a hearty “thank you” from a pupil to John as each 1 was grateful for the large amount of coaching they had just finished. Every pupil left equipped with all the confidence required to perform their responsibilities as company flight attendants.