Flight Attendant Day

What Is Flight Attendant Day?

Every March 5th is "Flight Attendant Day" (スチュワーデスの日, Suchuwādesu no Hi) in Japan. On March 5, 1931, the Tokyo Air Transport Company (東京航空輸送) conducted Japan's first recruitment examination for "air girls" (エアガール, ea gāru) — the earliest Japanese female cabin crew. The eight women selected became Japan's first professional female flight cabin attendants — pioneering a role that would eventually become an internationally recognized profession and one of Japan's most competitive career aspirations for women through much of the 20th century.

Japan's First Air Girls

The 1931 "air girl" recruitment drew an extraordinary 141 applicants for 8 positions — a competition ratio of nearly 18:1 that foreshadowed the fierce competition for flight attendant positions that would characterize Japanese aviation for decades. The eight selected women were nurses by training — the expectation being that they could provide medical assistance as well as passenger service on the small, bumpy aircraft of the early aviation era. Their role was genuinely novel: women in a public-facing professional role serving passengers in an elite new transportation medium.

The Flight Attendant Profession in Japan

Through the postwar era of commercial aviation's growth, Japanese airlines — particularly Japan Airlines (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) — built flight attendant corps that were internationally recognized for their courtesy, professionalism, and service standards. "Cabin attendant" (客室乗務員, kyakushitsu jōmu-in, or CA) positions at major Japanese airlines became among the most sought-after professional positions for university-educated Japanese women, attracting thousands of applicants per opening.

Gender and Professional Aviation

Japan's flight attendant profession reflects broader patterns of women's professional participation in Japan — initially innovative in creating professional roles for women in a new industry, but also revealing in the extent to which attractiveness, youth, and service orientation were emphasized over other professional qualifications. Contemporary Japanese airlines have progressively reformed their hiring and retention practices to address these concerns.

Fun Facts

• Competition ratios: At their peak, ANA and JAL cabin attendant position applications attracted 30,000-40,000 applicants per year for a few hundred positions — competition ratios that exceeded Japan's most selective universities and reflected the extraordinary prestige of the profession in Japanese popular culture.
• Age limits: Japan's airlines maintained mandatory retirement ages for female flight attendants for many decades — a practice that reflected age discrimination embedded in the profession's early gender conventions. These restrictions have been progressively challenged and reduced through labor law reform and court decisions.