Bases, pay, training, hiring windows and the interview process — from dated sources.
Last updated August 2026 — dated facts carry their own as-of dates below.
Piedmont Airlines is a wholly owned American Airlines Group subsidiary flying as American Eagle — headquartered in Salisbury, Maryland, with a fleet that is 100% Embraer ERJ145 (roughly 68–72 aircraft) on east-coast routes. Heritage note that trips up applicants: today's Piedmont is the former Henson Airlines; 1980s "Piedmont" nostalgia refers to a different airline entirely.
The single most differentiating fact about this job: the ERJ145 is a 50-seat aircraft certificated for a single flight attendant (the FAA minimum is one FA per 50 passenger seats), so Piedmont FAs work the cabin alone. You are the entire cabin crew for every emergency, medical event, and unruly-passenger scenario, with only the flight deck behind a locked door as backup. Training and the interview both select hard for solo confidence — interviewers listen for independent judgment, not just teamwork scripts. That solo-E145 reality holds through at least early 2028: Piedmont announced 45 dual-class E175s in June 2025, but the first delivery is Q1 2028 — today's job is solo E145 flying, and saying "you fly E175s, right?" in an interview is a real miss.
Piedmont also sits at the strict end of the regional appearance spectrum. Verbatim from the official page (checked August 2026): "Flight attendants may not have visible tattoos." And: "Facial, multiple, upper ear piercings as well as extreme colors and/or styles of hair are not permitted while in uniform" — read: no nose studs (stricter than Delta, Endeavor, or Mesa, which allow a single side-nose stud). Whether makeup or uniform coverage satisfies "not visible" is not spelled out — don't assume a workaround without recruiter confirmation.
Baseline requirements (official page, August 2026): "21 years of age or older," high-school diploma or GED, valid driver's license and valid passport, English fluency, and a published height gate few carriers still print: "Stand no taller than 6'0" with a minimum height of 5'2"" — note the 5'2" minimum (SkyWest allows 5'0"). The gate is ERJ145-driven: a low-ceiling, single-aisle 50-seater. Physical specs from postings: lift up to 50 lbs, push/pull service carts in excess of 150 lbs. No swim test appears in any Piedmont FA requirement list reviewed.
Three FA crew bases (official page, checked August 2026): Philadelphia (PHL), Charlotte (CLT), and Harrisburg (MDT) — matching the pilot domicile map. MDT is a real FA base: small, cheap to live in, and deeply junior-friendly; PHL and CLT are the hub operations.
New hires should expect reserve first. No published reserve-length or monthly-guarantee data was found for Piedmont — do not trust hold-time claims you read elsewhere. The seniority list is small (roughly 300–550 FAs per AFA-era counts), which cuts both ways: fewer vacancies, but fast seniority-percentile movement when growth comes.
Flow trap: there is no flight attendant flow-through to American Airlines. The five-year no-interview flow you may have read about is a pilot program. Piedmont FAs wanting mainline apply through American's normal external process — wholly-owned regional experience helps a resume, nothing contractual.
Piedmont FAs are paid per flight hour — boarding, ground delays, and airport standby are not paid at the hourly rate. Numbers below as of August 2026:
Piedmont Airlines requires flight attendants to be at least 21, hold a high school diploma or GED, and stand between 5'2" and 6'0" tall.
Requirements change between hiring windows — confirm them on the Piedmont Airlines careers page before you apply.
Data compiled from airline careers pages, union publications, industry press, and candidate-reported interview intel — wave-dependent facts carry as-of dates. Candidate reports are unofficial; confirm requirements on the airline's own careers site.