Says FAs Are Supplementing Dwindling Income By Accepting Money For Sex

A Japanese magazine has alleged that there is a growing problem of prostitution on the part of flight attendants needing to supplement their shrinking salaries.

A report appearing in the Japanese Language Shukan Post relayed by the U.K. newspaper The Daily Mail indicates that the average salary of a flight attendant had fallen by nearly $10,000 between 2004 and 2013, and some of the FAs are turning to prostitution to supplement their incomes. The transactions are normally between the FAs and the airline's pilots, according to the report.

In some instances, a senior flight attendant will act as the 'madam' to arrange the assignations. In others, flight attendants will allegedly line up for inspection by the pilot and copilot of the flight, who would use hand signals to indicate which FA had caught their interest. Some flight attendants also have reportedly begun working for escort services that specialize in flight attendant fantasies.

The Shukan Post says that younger flight attendants can be paid up to $700 for 90 minutes with a pilot.

The practice was the subject of an anonymous report on the part of an FA against an airline for which she had worked since 2007. The airline's solution, that FA said, was to fire the flight attendant who had organized the prostitution ring, but the whistle-blower says that the practice still continues at the unnamed airline.

FMI: www.mlit.go.jp/koku/15_hf_000020.html