Why Flight Attendants Always Pack an Extra Pair of Shoes

There are a lot of special tricks to packing like a flight attendant. One big rule all members of a flight crew abide by: Take care of your feet.

While some travelers have to make sacrifices when it comes to their footwear, often leaving behind those extra pairs of shoes in an effort to save space, flight attendants know that an extra pair of comfy kicks will really come in handy in their line of work.

Flight attendant Kelly Kincaid told HuffPost that most female flight attendants have to wear at least two-inch heels while walking through an airport. Maybe that’s not a big deal for people who get to work in a chair all day, but for a flight attendant running up and down narrow aisles for hours at a time, it can be excruciating by the end of a shift.

“Once you’re on the plane for 10-plus hours, 2-inch pumps just won’t cut the mustard. So, many flight attendants bring flat, comfortable shoes for working, or what we like to call ‘in-flights.’ So you’ve got your ‘airport’ or ‘terminal’ shoes,” Kincaid said.

Kincaid also said flight attendants wear heels during takeoff and landing.

“I also know of some flight attendants that always travel with fold-able flip-flops, you know, just in case their flights get rerouted to a beach somewhere,” Kincaid said.

Other items flight attendants interviewed by HuffPost mentioned they always keep in their carry-ons include exercise clothes, lip balm, a personal Wi-Fi hotspot, Airborne, and a selfie stick.

While all these items seem pretty essential as well, this definitely makes us rethink how we pack our footwear.