Corporate flight attendants have a new option when selecting a firm for their cabin security and service education. Alteon Coaching, LLC, a Boeing Enterprise, launched a plan in November 2003 for corporate flight attendants at their facility in Long Beach, California. I was invited to participate in the class to get a greater idea about the coaching, their facility, and about Alteon itself and to share my findings with the aviation community by means of this site.
In an industry peppered with instruction organizations of varying sizes and capabilities, my first thoughts about Alteon was that is was just a run-of-the-mill education agency. Alteon not only allayed my original misgivings, but they proved to me that all instruction firms should be carrying out the similar issue: operating with the FAA’s blessings below FAR Element 142. Indeed, Alteon’s program may quickly grow to be the benchmark by which all training providers will be judged. This is fantastic news for flight attendants who are confused or even mislead by some of the applications operating about the U.S.
I arrived in Lengthy Beach from JFK on a Sunday evening, picked up my rental car and went to my area to prepare for my 7 a.m. Monday meeting with Alteon executives Jim Garner and Hal Collison. That morning, we toured the facility exactly where I was capable to see their totally equipped education rooms sporting person computer perform stations complemented by the overhead media slideshow housing [indeed, even though getting educated students could appear at the pull down screen or at their personal computer monitor to view the PowerPoint presentations]. On the ground floor of Alteon’s facility, I was brought to a area housing person flight simulators, each of which was for one particular Boeing product or yet another.
By eight a.m. the remaining five students arrived and I settled down with them in a training space to commence the class. Soon after brief introductions, Kathy Cummins was introduced as our service instructor for the very first day’s class. The Corporate School of Etiquette was chosen by Alteon to give the service side of the education the 1st day. The middle three days was all Alteon-run instruction. San Diego CPR was chosen to present the in-flight healthcare, CPR, and AED coaching on Friday. When I inquired as to why Alteon outsourced portions of their 5-day plan, Hal Collison, Director, Flight Training, for Alteon declared, “We concentrate on what we are experts at and do best. The other portions of the course are outsourced to the very finest professionals in their field with years of knowledge and access to the newest course content and education materials.”
Kathy’s session began with a discussion on dispatching a trip. Covered material included the methods behind the scheduling and releasing of an aircraft for flight crewmember assignments show occasions and reporting occasions aircraft, flight and passenger data and arranging for catering and supplies. Students previewed a dispatcher’s checklist and discussed preparing for a six leg international trip utilizing an actual trip sheet to determine what meals service was necessary and exactly where.
Right after two hours of classroom teaching, it was all hands on coaching for most of the rest of the day. Students boarded a enterprise van and headed south to John Wayne Airport in Orange County for the executive service coaching portion of the system. The class toured Signature’s FBO exactly where we positioned the catering order placed earlier with Air Gourmet. Right after a discussion about refrigeration, we took the order outside to the waiting Worldwide Express which was graciously provided to us for the day by Monarch Charters. When we boarded the aircraft I was pleasantly shocked to see that we had full access to the galley and cabin whereby we had been able to basically heat the food as nicely as retain the aircraft cool for the “passengers.”
training room rental gave the students a trip situation to work with and we went by way of all the pre-departure procedures including, passenger arrival take-off meal and wine service in-flight procedures ahead of and immediately after landing and aircraft cleaning procedures. By mid-afternoon with our in-flight service portion of the coaching behind us we returned to Extended Beach for additional classroom training covering contracts and flight attendant enterprise preparation material. Somehow we managed to squeeze in what seemed like two days of education into one day. By six p.m. the class was more than and the service education portion of the plan was behind us.
Pattie Adams took over the class on Tuesday and for the subsequent 3 days was tasked with guiding the class by way of the applicable FARs crewmember duties and procedures security hazmat and extra. As a backgrounder, Pattie was a single of the chief creators of Alteon’s new plan, drawing on her expertise as a contract corporate flight attendant as effectively as a commercial flight attendant, purser and instructor with United Airlines. Pattie’s practical experience in the corporate and industrial arenas was beneficial as she skillfully translated the language and procedural variations in between the two arenas, some thing that was not lost on those in the class who have been new to corporate aviation, but possessed industrial practical experience only.
Because education was performed at Alteon’s Long Beach facility, guest speakers from within the business had been brought in to go over some of the extremely technical aspects of flying. Palermo Gabriel discussed the mechanics of flight and Dick Bloomberg covered the aircraft systems, specifically what happens in the cockpit. Dick also gave the students a thrilling SIM ride, a standard worth added function for those attending this training program.
The third day of instruction covered turbulence and decompression and was followed by hands on practice of oxygen units and, later, aircraft doors, emergency exits and gear. Slides and photos of the several configurations found on the Gulfstreams, Bombardiers/Worldwide Express/ Challengers, and Falcons were covered as nicely as for the BBJ and Boeing’s newest corporate entry, the 717 Business Express. Especially beneficial to the class was the separate binder that we had been provided for Emergency Checklists this Jeppesen size manual could quickly be taken on trips, which is what Pattie encouraged students to do.
By Thursday, we had been all eager to leave the classroom for hands on activity we have been not disappointed. Right after a classroom discussion on how fires get started, we filed outdoors, donned personal breathing gear (PBE) and practiced fire fighting procedures. Straight away soon after lunch the class boarded the cabin trainer and spent numerous hours role playing. The day was capped off with a trip to the nearby hotel’s outdoor pool for ditching procedures and workouts.