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My wife and I have a new guilty pleasure: watching pilot and flight attendant vlogs on YouTube!
These commercial airline and private aviation employees film trips, layovers, “airport appreciation” (slang for “airport standby” duty), travel tips, and a host of other topics. They produce, shoot, star in, and edit the videos themselves. These aren’t big budget, scripted reality shows — but we find them very entertaining and frequently insightful!
You and I, of course, love Rene’s YouTube channel, which takes us diving in Cayman (WITH SHARKS), onboard fantastic cruise ships (in suites), and plane spotting at SXMs Maho Beach (so cool)! But what other real-life aviation and travel-related vlogs are on YouTube?
Thanks to the YouTube app on smart TVs or Amazon FireStick (very cool btw), it’s easier than ever to get hooked on vlogs.
And that’s exactly what happened to us.
The flight attendants multi-task, often vlogging while applying or removing makeup. Or narrating their journey while walking from flight to flight. They don’t explicitly reveal their employers — so as to not get anyone in hot water — but most of us frequent flyers can pretty easily identify who flies for which airlines.
So what are some of the flight attendant and pilot YouTube vlogs we regularly watch?
Flight Attendants
Trolley Dolley
Our favorite is the prolific Trolley Dolley, starring a flight attendant named Lindsey. We can easily deduce she flies for Sun Country.
She gives viewers a galley tour, takes us into a crashpad, and shares the spotlight with a recurring pair of flight attendant friends with whom she “buddy bids” so they can all work together.
Lindsey is based at MSP but lives in Orlando. So she must commute the 1300+ miles before and after work (And here I thought my drive was bad!).
Some of Lindsey’s videos are brutally honest. Many flight attendants are drastically underpaid — as evidenced by when she tells us about being down to only $3 in her bank account. Becoming a flight attendant is no walk in the park, either. She shares her experiences and tips in a series of vlogs about becoming a flight attendant.
Wonderfully Ale
Wonderfully Ale stars Ale (pronounced “Al-lee”)), another flight attendant who flies for what appears to be Spirit Airlines (thankfully, there’s no fee to watch her videos 😉 )
(She also gives lifestyle and motherhood tips in other vlogs, if you’re interested.)
Ashley SmithTV
Ashley Smith’s The “Real Life” of a Flight Attendant stars Southwest FA Ashley.
Kat Nesbitt
Relatively new-ish onto the YouTube scene is Kat Nesbitt, an American Airlines flight attendant.
Curious what flight attendants want to say to people who ride up front?
Pilots and AvGeekery
Rachel Dutch: A Pilot’s Life for Me
Yo-ho, yo-ho, A Pilot’s Life for Rachel Dutch! She’s an Embraer 170/175 pilot for a regional airline (which appears to be SkyWest — maybe she was your first officer on a Delta Connection flight!)
Like many of the other vloggers, she answers viewer questions.
Swayne Martin
Swayne Martin is a young, new pilot at regional airline Envoy and flies the ERJ-145 aircraft.
But here’s what I found especially interesting. While studying aviation at the University of North Dakota (like yours truly did for, well, several weeks…) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, Swayne commuted on weekends. To Hawaii.
It was worth it, though. While his classmates froze their flaps off in North Dakota, he flew for Mokulele Airlines.
Swayne is a commuter, like Trolley Dolley, Lindsey. He still lives in Grand Forks, drives to my hometown of Fargo, and flies to his Chicago base.
Corporate Pilot Life
Corporate Pilot Life stars a Shaun, a Gulfstream and Hawker pilot.
Watch for gorgeous cloud views during his flight from Portsmouth, ME to Prague. And he gives us a pilot’s eye view of landing at the world famous Sint Maarten airport (SXM) Maybe he buzzed René and some Rene’s Points readers during the meetup a few years ago. 🙂
Guido Warnecke
Guido Warnecke is another corporate pilot who virtually brings viewers along on trips, a nice chunk of which take place in Citation V aircraft.
He takes a C172 Skyhawk around Manhattan and shows us what it’s like to experience windshear during landing (no thank you!).
What’s On Your Watch List?
What are your favorite travel or aviation-themed YouTube programs or clips? Please share them in the comment section! – Chris
Featured image: ©iStock.com/maxcam2008
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A pilot who I really enjoy following on YouTube is Mentour Pilot. He’s a great one to follow for anyone interested in becoming a pilot or just enjoys and learning more about aviation. His videos are very informative and entertaining. He even takes you into the simulator to see how certain situations are handled. You’ll find him here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwpHKudUkP5tNgmMdexB3ow
He’s also on Instagram under the name, Mentour Pilot. I have no affiliation with him whatsoever. Just sharing because I really enjoy his videos.
@Susan: It looks like a great channel! Thanks!
There are several flight attendants I follow, they give different perspective of the life of a flight attendant. Mentour Pilot gives the information about the life of a pilot. He has also a Mentour App where people can chat and in the forums people can talk about different topics on for instance nervous flyer, accidents pilot schools etc.
I follow
Fly with Stella, an international flight attendant who shows different parts of New York and the life in New York.
Let’s Journey, a regional flight attendant who shows how it is to work in the galley
Wildlydiera, a flight attendant who shows her vacation in different places and the layovers
CarrieAnn, a flight attendant in Chicago who shows the daily life of a flight attendant.
Swizz Air and Lufthansa has several videos on how it is to work in hte cockpit from takeoff to landing. Swizz Air has also some videos about the pilots layover in Miami and Beijing.
Fly with Stella. She can be a little ditsy, but generally entertaining. I like that she shows New York City.