More safety tips

Thanks so much for the article regarding traveling as a solo female (“Tips for a Safe Trip From Women With Bona Fides,” On the Spot, by Catharine Hamm, April 28).

I am a retired flight attendant with Western and Delta Airlines (1985- 2002), and there were a few rules about hotel and layover safety we had to adhere to. I’m sure there are newer rules, but I still travel with these tips:

It’s not OK for front desk employees to shout out your room number; if they did, we could refuse the rooms. If that happened, we were instructed to ask for different rooms, quietly.

We never were placed on the ground floor.

Walk to rooms with a co-worker, if possible (the buddy system). On several occasions, strangers followed flight attendants down the hall, noting their rooms, and at least once, a person walked right behind the flight attendant into her room.

Check people “working” in the hotel.

This happened to me in San Diego. A “workman” knocked at my door, saying he needed to change the emergency exit placards. I looked through the peephole and noticed he had on a weird gray jumpsuit and was carrying an empty plastic tool box. I did not let him in and shouted that I was calling the front desk. After I spoke with an employee at the desk, they checked with the maintenance department. No one was working on placards that day.

In certain cities, we were told to dine, sight-see and shop only with the cockpit crew. This was a little tough at times, because the cockpit crew had different layover hours.

We were instructed to omit all personal information on our crew flight bag tags. We put the important info on the backside, not visible to the public.