For the past seven years, Denise Campbell and her two daughters, Chantel and Charnel Johnson, have been working together, starting in the same customer service and support class before becoming flight attendants for Southwest Airlines.
Despite having only flown together three times—the most recent one being approximately a week and a half ago—the three collectively have nearly thirty years of experience.
Charnel Johnson told AZ Family, “We started at the same time. We started in customer service and support, and we were in the same class there, and then we transferred over to being a flight attendant.”
The girls expressed admiration for their mother’s 17-year career as a flight attendant. The proud mother remarked, “It does give you a sense of pride. You think about when you were younger and what you thought they were going to do, and no, they [end up doing] the same as you.”
According to Campbell, she had always wanted to work as a flight attendant but wasn’t able to start her job until 2007.
She explained, “We decided to wait until the girls were a little bit older, and I think they were 11 and 12 when I finally became a flight attendant.”
The three of them took to the skies together on New Year’s Eve in St. Louis, Missouri, the year the daughters started their new careers. To ensure they don’t entirely miss celebrating the holidays together, they have only ever overlapped their schedules three times since then and worked certain holidays together, such as Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
As her daughter Charnel Johnson put it, “Stuff is closed, you’re away from your family, but when you fly with your family, it makes it easier being away from home and kids.” She observed that the custom has lessened the loneliness that the holidays frequently bring.
Chantel Johnson added, “It’s so much fun; it’s not work when you’re working with family. We have a great time, and we get to go out and explore new cities together.”
During one of their timed shifts, the three of them took a little excursion to New Orleans and had an absolute blast.
Although they do not know when their next synced-up trip will be, the family hopes it will be in June.
