Seong Hae-eun (left), an influencer and former Korean Air flight attendant, and Ryu I-seo, a YouTuber and former Asiana Airlines flight attendant. [Captured from YouTube channel 'My Love Ryu I-seo']
Seong Hae-eun (left), an influencer and former Korean Air flight attendant, and Ryu I-seo, a YouTuber and former Asiana Airlines flight attendant. [Captured from YouTube channel 'My Love Ryu I-seo']

Behind the glamorous image of flight attendants lies a strict hierarchy and rigid culture between senior and junior crew members, two former attendants have revealed.

Ryu I-seo, wife of singer Jeon Jin and a former flight attendant at a major domestic airline, invited fellow influencer Seong Hae-eun — a former attendant at another carrier — to her YouTube channel on Thursday to reminisce about their days in the cabin.

The two recalled the strict sunbae-hoobae culture that once defined flight attendant organizations.

Seong said that by the time she was working, the top-down culture had already faded considerably from earlier years, but added that "in the old days, you apparently had to give your seniors wake-up calls and even wash their stockings."

Ryu said she had personally made wake-up calls to her seniors.

"Whenever we were on a layover abroad, the time difference meant I had to call them directly," she said. "I would introduce myself — my department and name — and then say, 'Have you woken up? It is now [such-and-such] o'clock.'"

Asked what would happen if she skipped the wake-up call, Ryu said, "That would have been a big problem." She added, however, that the practice has since disappeared.

Forms of address were also strictly regulated. Seong said that at her airline, junior female crew members called their senior female colleagues "unni" — an honorific for an older sister — regardless of actual age. "Even if a senior looked much younger than me, if she had a higher cohort number, she was still 'unni,'" she said.

She recalled that failing to use the term could prompt a rebuke: "If you didn't call them 'unni,' you might hear, 'Are you not calling me unni because you think I'm younger than you?'" Male seniors, she said, were addressed as "sunbae-nim."

Junior crew members also had specific duties when riding elevators. Ryu said the most junior attendant was expected to hold the elevator button and board last, after all seniors had entered.

Seong agreed, saying it was absolutely forbidden to walk ahead of or past a senior.

The two also opened up about the hardships that came with the nature of the job.

Ryu recounted an incident in which a male passenger secretly photographed her during a flight.

"While I was providing service in the cabin, a man kept hunching over and doing something," she said. "I was wearing a skirt at the time, and it looked like he was photographing my legs, so I immediately reported the situation to the purser." When the passenger's phone was checked, photos of her body were found on it.

"After that experience, I became very sensitive about being photographed," Ryu said.

Seong said she faced similar unwanted attention on her commute. "My home was in Seongnam at the time, so I took the subway all the way to Incheon," she said. "People seemed to find it curious to see someone in a flight attendant uniform, and some would take photos of me on the sly."

Seong left the airline where she had worked for about five years after appearing on the dating reality program "Hwanseung Yeonae 2" and has since become a star influencer with about 1.2 million subscribers. Ryu worked as a flight attendant for 16 years before marrying Jeon Jin, a former member of the group Shinhwa, in 2020 and now connects with fans through YouTube.


betterj@heraldcorp.com