Flight attendants don’t get to choose their ‘base’ cities — inside the intense process and what happens if you work somewhere you don’t live

Business Insider spoke to three flight attendants for three different airlines about their experiences.

Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

While training, flight attendants rank their preferred “base cities” where they’ll fly from.It’s an intense process based on seniority and availability, but ultimately the airline decides.Videos of flight attendants revealing the cities they want vs the cities they get go viral.

For the past couple of weeks across TikTok, bright-eyed flight attendant trainees have hopped on the app to eagerly share their base assignments, aka the city and airport they’ll predominantly fly in and out of.

It’s a whirlwind of emotions. One flight attendant has her heart set on the Dallas-Forth Worth area. A clip later, she’s defeated as she tells the camera she was assigned to LaGuardia Airport in New York.

Meanwhile, others are bouncing with joy as they get their top pick: flying out of Chicago.

To viewers, the process feels eerily reminiscent of sorority preferencing, where potential sisters rank which chapters they hope to join. And the results are filled with similar, extreme emotions.

These base reveal videos have consumed people. A video by TikTok user @dogarmnose gained 10 million views in a week. Another by @rainclements has racked up 4.1 million views.

Flight attendants share their reactions to their new homes in base reveal TikTok videos.

David Becker/AP

But there’s a lot to the process viewers are missing. Business Insider spoke to three flight attendants at three different airlines. They shared what it’s really like to go through a base reveal.

“People are crying, people are angry, and some people quit even though you’re almost through training,” Lea McIntyre, an American Airlines flight attendant who goes by @flightattendantbaelee on TikTok and Instagram, told Business Insider.

Some of the flight attendants who spoke to Business Insider for this article asked to omit full names, base locations, and/or airlines for privacy reasons. Insider verified these individuals’ employment as flight attendants with pay stubs and ID badges.

Flight attendants get assigned their base during training

While training, uniforms, and rules can vary widely across airlines, the three flight attendants agreed that the base preferencing process is largely the same across airlines.

Lea McIntyre, a flight attendant at American Airlines.

@flightattendantbaelee/TikTok

Once a flight attendant has accepted a job offer, they go through their airline’s training, which can range from three to six weeks, McIntyre said.

During training, flight attendants learn safety protocols, practice emergency drills, and get familiar with airplane equipment. This is also where they’ll be assigned their base.

The process works based on seniority and age

In some of the TikTok videos, viewers are confused as some flight attendants seem overly confident they’ll get their top choice.

That’s because the process works on seniority, McIntyre said. The older you are, the more likely you are to get a base of your choice.

McIntyre added that this is regardless of whether you’ve had flight attendant experience or not. In her case, McIntyre had experience at a regional airline before working at American Airlines.

When she was preferencing for American Airlines, her experience at a regional carrier didn’t matter. Her age within her training class was what factored into the process.

Flight attendants rank where they want to work

Two flight attendants said their base reveal happened within the first three weeks of training.

Before they received their assignments, the flight attendants were able to rank their top cities.

Alajah Parker, a 25-year-old flight attendant who has been living in her base city for about a year now, told Business Insider her training class was asked to give a ranked top-four list.

Parker’s top choice was New York City, but she was placed in the second city on her list. She said she’s loving it so far.

Alajah Parker, a flight attendant at a US legacy airline.

Alajah Parker

“A lot of people got their first choice, some people got their second, and some people didn’t get their pick at all if they were too junior,” Parker said.

McIntyre called the rankings a “dream sheet,” placing an emphasis on “dream” because, ultimately, an airline is going to place the flight attendants where it needs people — regardless of where they want to work.

“People don’t realize that when the airline asks, ‘Are you willing and able to live anywhere?’ they really mean it,” she said.

When London, a flight attendant who goes by the username @londonkaizen on TikTok, was going through JetBlue’s training a few years ago, she was living in Los Angeles, California, she told Business Insider.

Her top choice was to stay in LA, so she ranked that first. She also had dreams of living in New York, so she put that as her second choice. Below that were cities like Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Boston, Massachusetts; and Orlando, Florida.

London said at the time she knew getting placed in LA was unlikely. For JetBlue, LA was a senior base. This means the airport had appealing flights and flight times, and therefore senior flight attendants sought that location.

London, a flight attendant at JetBlue.

@londonkaizen/TikTok

JFK, on the other hand, was what’s considered a junior base. It had worse flights and flight times. Plus, it’s in an expensive city, so fewer flight attendants with seniority want to work there.

London said she thought there was a good chance she was moving to New York. But when she opened the email revealing her base, she had been assigned to Boston — her fourth choice. In fact, her entire class of trainees was headed to Boston.

“Boston is completely different from LA,” she said. “I had never spent any time there and then thinking about spending all the time there, my emotions weren’t the happiest, naturally.”

London had a choice to make since the airline wasn’t going to force her to move. She could still live in LA while commuting to Boston for work.

Flight attendants aren’t required to live in their base cities

While London said that it’s typically encouraged to live in your base city as a new flight attendant, few airlines require it.

Instead, flight attendants can commute to their base cities and spend their working nights in hotels, temporary apartments, or crash pads, which are affordable dorm-like accommodations specifically for airline crews.

“I had to basically decide if I wanted to commute or move completely across the country in a matter of weeks,” London said.

But commuting via a five-and-a-half-hour flight didn’t make sense. So London, along with two other flight attendants in her training class, moved into a Boston apartment together.

While she wasn’t initially thrilled with the situation, London said “it actually ended up being the best thing that happened to me in the end.” She made new friends and fell in love with a brand-new city.

McIntyre, on the other hand, decided to commute after her base reveal at the regional airline.

She had been assigned to Dayton, Ohio. At the time, she was living in a completely different state.

She didn’t want to pack up her entire life to live in Dayton, so she landed on commuting. Every week, she’d fly into Dayton and spend her nights in a crashpad, which she said she paid about $300 a month for.

Some flight attendants can immediately request a transfer, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get one

Not everyone ends up at their top city.

David Zalubowski/AP

If a flight attendant isn’t happy with their base assignment, many airlines will allow them to request a transfer, McIntyre said.

This isn’t the case for every airline, Parker said. Her airline requires flight attendants to complete a six-month probationary period before they can submit a bid to transfer to a new base.

After six months, they can apply to move around as much as they’d like throughout their career.

London remembers the storm of emotions her training class experienced as they discovered they were all going to Boston. Some were thrilled they’d be in the same city with their newfound friends.

Others were heartbroken to realize that their lives were about to drastically change.

“I was in a state in my life where I wanted some change versus some of my classmates who had family and children and partners,” she said.

But those people who weren’t happy with their base assignment could request a transfer, she said.

Transfers work based on which cities need flight attendants. They can take weeks and months to happen, the flight attendants said. And if a flight attendant agrees to a transfer, they’re required to be in their new city for a minimum of three months, London said.

Once you build more seniority with the company, London said moving and switching bases is easier.

Certain cities, like Miami and Houston, are bases for more senior employees where new hires shouldn’t expect to be placed right away. But, places like New York City and Austin are more realistic choices for junior flight attendants, Parker said.

For London, who has now worked at JetBlue for more than four years, Boston has remained the unexpected place she calls home.