Renee Tanner and Rachael Rensink 

Renee Tanner (RT):   Being a flight attendant is unusual in the sense when you show up to work you don’t know who you're going to be flying with.  And if you're in a big base you may have never seen [LAUGHTER] this person in your life.  And even in a small base like Salt Lake, we're about 800 right now. and there's still people I haven't met, and I've been there for 15 years.

Rachael Rensink (RR): Wow.  I think that was sort of where the Facebook page ultimately came from, right, is that there's a loneliness.  Even though it seems like this big, glamorous, you're always partying, and woo-hoo, it's really solitary, because you know you have to be at this location at this time on this day, and everything else is I'll see when I get there.

RT:  You're absolutely right.  People don't realize that, because I think as flight attendants we're outgoing people, we're with the public...

RR: Just by nature, yeah.

RT:   ...by nature.  But you work really hard all day, and let's say you have a short layover, so you have to quick go to sleep.  I remember being young, and you get to this layover and you want to do something, but maybe the others have plans with their family or other friends.

RR: Or they have friends, yes. 

RT: Right.

RR: I remember the first time I went to Russia.  I was so excited--the first person in my family ever to go to Russia.  And I get there and the Russian speakers are all from Moscow.  They all had family and friends...

RT: Right.

RR: ...there.  And they're, like, "See you later."

RT: Right.

RR: So I'm sitting in the Renaissance by myself.  The rise of social media for us was the power to connect this group of 20,000 - 24,000 people who are individuals and have individual schedules and individual lives, and come from all over the world, and bases all over the world.  And we have a commonality, but we very rarely get to connect.

RT: Yes.

RR: You and I have never met face-to-face except, well, for one meeting we had a couple months ago.  Our relationship is 100% in Facebook.

RT:   In-flight Service 360 is the name of the Facebook page.  So I joined Facebook basically to join that.  And...

RR: Really?

RT:   Yeah.  There's, like you said, 20,000+ flight attendants, and a lot of new people, and a lot of questions.  There's so many things to know about our job in general, or just questions about layovers.  And I thought it's a neat way to help people.  You could answer questions and see what's on people's mind.   I think your world is better when you open it up.