Mom, daughter to get flight-attendant wings

Beth Braaten's Mother's Day present will be delayed until Tuesday.

That's when the Medina woman will receive her flight-attendant wings from Alaska Airlines. The wings are part of a package deal that includes a lot of parental pride. Braaten's daughter, Summer, will graduate from the same class. It is the second time Alaska Airlines as trained a mother-daughter team together, said Matthew Coder, manager of Inflight Services Training. The first was in 2001.

"We've had sisters together, and husbands and wives, but not a mother-daughter," he said Friday. "What usually happens is the daughter goes through the training first and they like their jobs so much, we get the mother later."

With the Braatens, it worked the other way.

Encouraged by a supportive spouse and friends who are flight attendants, Beth Braaten applied first.

"I wanted to be a flight attendant since I was a little girl. It never went away," said the 46-year-old interior designer. "A year ago I decided to pursue the dream."

About the same time, Summer Braaten, who graduated from Central Washington University in 2006 with a degree in tourism and hotel management, was working in catering. On a job, she met an Alaska Airlines recruiter.

"It was mom's dream, but it sounded like fun," said Summer, 23.

She applied in March, two weeks after Beth.

Both were accepted and scheduled for the same training class. Rather than commute from the Eastside, five weeks ago the two joined nearly 50 other recruits at a hotel in SeaTac.

"You have to focus and study hard," Beth Braaten said. "You have to always be on time so we didn't want to take a chance getting caught in the commute traffic."

Although they're free on weekends, the mother and daughter use those hours to study, reviewing material together. The training and studying have made Beth more sympathetic when talking to her two younger children, both college students. She said she now understands the pressure of finals.

"We've had no life except this for the last five weeks. This is boot camp for flight attendants," Summer said. "Even when we go home, we're talking airplane language. When dad's in the car with us, all he hears about is airplane stuff."

Flight attendants wear many hats beyond serving drinks, the women said. Their first priority is the safety of passengers. On Thursday they were tested on emergency procedures. Instructors threw scenarios at them such as performing CPR on a passenger. They donned vision-restricting goggles and were told the plane was filled with smoke, some exits weren't functioning and they had to evacuate passengers in 90 seconds or less.

"We learn to work as a team with the other flight attendants," Summer said.

In the early days of commercial air travel, flight attendants had to be registered nurses. Today applicants must be 21, generally fit, have a high-school diploma and two years of customer-service experience. Coder said recruiters look for people who are sharp, bright and outgoing.

The Braatens have already received their first assignments. They'll both be based in Anchorage after next week's winging ceremony. Because they'll both be in the same seniority bracket, Coder said it is quite possible they will fly together this summer.

"I never imagined when I held Summer in my arms my first Mother's Day [in 1984] that we'd ever be doing something like this together." Beth said. "Our graduation is a perfect Mother's Day gift."

Sherry Grindeland: 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published May 12, was corrected May 18. A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Beth and Summer Braaten are the first mother-daughter team to attend Alaska Airlines flight attendant training together. They are not. A mother and two daughters trained together in 2001. The error was due to incorrect information provided by an airline spokesman.