§44728 Flight Attendant Certification

Summary

You must have an FAA certificate that proves you can do the job to work as a flight attendant on an airline plane. If the FAA, the NTSB, or another federal agency asks, you must show that certificate within a reasonable time. A person already working as a flight attendant when the rule starts may keep working until they finish their required recurrent or requalification training and get certified. When an airline tells the FAA that a person has shown they are proficient, the person is treated as holding the certificate, and the FAA will issue the actual certificate after getting that notification. An airline’s director of operations is the person who decides whether someone finished the FAA-approved training. Each certificate must be recorded and include the holder’s name, address, a description, the airplane group, and look like airmen certificates. The FAA must issue it no later than 120 days after the airline notifies the FAA, and for current attendants no later than 1 year after the rule starts. Airline training programs must be FAA-approved, and programs approved in the 1-year period ending on the date of enactment count as proving proficiency. Flight attendants must also show they can read, speak, and write English well enough to read and understand English material, give directions and answer questions in English, write reports and log entries, and follow written and oral instructions. That English rule does not apply to attendants who serve only between points outside the United States. A “flight attendant” here means a person working in the cabin of an aircraft with 20 or more seats used by an air carrier for air transportation.