When many people think of a flight attendant, they picture the person who rolls the drink cart down the plane's center aisle and asks if you'd like a pillow or a bag of peanuts during your flight. However, there is a lot more to it than serving passengers from a rolling bar.

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"Primarily we are there for the safety of the passengers,'' says Carol Holmes, assistant to the president of the Association of Flight Attendants and a flight attendant with a major carrier. She says a large part of the job is making sure passengers follow flight safety regulations such as remaining seated during takeoffs and landings.

They also must help passengers in the event of an emergency. This ranges from calming passengers during periods of turbulence to evacuating the plane following an emergency landing.

Before a flight they check to be sure adequate supplies are on board and that the cabin is ready for its next group of passengers. They also greet people as they board the plane and help keep them comfortable throughout the flight.

Holmes says new flight attendants are required to complete four to seven weeks of training, depending on the particular airline, at its flight training center. There they learn basic flight regulations, companies' policies, and are "trained in specific drills for planned and unplanned evacuations.'' They also learn procedures such as administering first aid and water survival tactics.

Flight attendants must also go through a one- to two-day refresher course, says Holmes, to stay updated on FAA regulations and the layouts of different aircraft.

While the travel may be appealing, flight attendants spend more than a third of their time away from home and often work nights, weekends and holidays.

On the plus side, due to their unusual schedule, they usually have 11 or more days off per month, compared with eight to 10 for your average 40-hour-per-week worker.

Federal Aviation Administration rules state that there must be one flight attendant for every 50 seats on a plane, no matter the number of passengers. As the size of planes grows and the number of flights departing each day increases, this will bring a rise in the number of job openings.

According to the AFA, the median salary in 1996 was just over $13,000 for beginning flight attendants. At the senior level they made as much as $40,000 annually. They also receive compensation for hotels and meals while traveling.