Law school was the road not taken. Instead, Michielle Sego-Johnson opted for the sky.
The Montgomery native and Auburn University graduate has not looked back or, in this case, down, since her decision to work at 30,000 feet. What started as a suggestion by her husband has turned into a 35-year airline industry career.
After graduating from Auburn University, where she majored in political science and speech communications, Sego-Johnson’s next goal was law school. Post-Auburn, she moved to Atlanta. She took a gap year, something she said was not “cool” or even a term that was used back then. Her goal: to study and attain a better score on the LSAT, the law school entrance test.
But her husband asked her: “What about being a flight attendant for that year?” This career path was not in her game plan, she notes. “I really never gave airlines a thought,” Sego-Johnson explains.
But the question sparked her interest, especially with Delta Air Lines’ headquarters in Atlanta. She followed her husband’s advice and took to the skies as a Delta flight attendant.
“I still to this day remember flying with a flight attendant who had been flying 10 years, and I thought that was an eternity. But 10 years is a drop in the bucket,” Sego-Johnson says, reflecting on her long career.
“I’ve got jet fuel in my veins” is an oft-heard saying by those who love working in the airline industry, she says. And love it she does.
Sego-Johnson spent 20 years at Delta, beginning as a flight attendant and working her way into inflight leadership. She also served on the A4A industry working group that developed security procedures after the 9/11 attacks.
Sego-Johnson, now based in Chicago, is currently vice president of inflight services and catering operations at United Airlines. She oversees United’s global catering operations and partners with talent acquisition to recruit and hire flight attendants. In addition, she is responsible for inflight safety, training, flight experience and inflight programs.
Across her career at both airlines, inflight services and flight attendants have remained “a great passion of mine,” says Sego-Johnson. “I don’t know if it’s my Southern roots, but I just have such a passion for customer service and a real heart for hospitality.”
Flight attendants are central to the customer experience, she notes, serving everyone from the business traveler to families on vacation. But sad occasions may prompt people to travel as well. “We hear from customers [about] flight attendants that made a difference to them. It can sometimes be the smallest thing that you would not even think would have made the impact,” Sego-Johnson explains.
Sometimes things happen up in the air that are much more serious. “It could be a medical situation that they helped someone with. [Customers] are just so appreciative of flight attendants’ ability to manage a medical event on board,” she says.
To be able to handle such events and other requirements, flight attendants go through rigorous training programs at both United and Delta, Sego-Johnson explains. The rigor was one of the biggest surprises for her when she first started. “Keep in mind, I had just completed my undergraduate degree. I had been used to studying and felt like I was a decent student.”
The pace was tough, she notes, because it comprised about six weeks of training. In addition, she and fellow flight attendants were tested on a new aircraft every day, in addition to showing that they could manage emergency procedures and operate emergency equipment. “And, yes, you’re also learning how to pour beverages at 30,000 feet,” she explains.
The traveling public often does not know how comprehensive the training is or the hectic schedule of a flight attendant, Sego-Johnson says. Even her own parents needed to be enlightened on the subject.
“When I told them I was going through the training and the length of the training, their first question was, ‘How did it take that much to be trained to serve Coke and Diet Coke?’ I said, well, let me tell you what it really takes. They came to my graduation, and they were so proud then because they [had] the insight that they didn’t have [previously],” she recalls.
United flight attendants learn the basics of the operating systems of multiple aircraft, whether it’s the Boeing 777 or an Airbus product. Each aircraft has unique features and emergency procedures, along with specific communication systems, Sego-Johnson explains.
At a newer Houston facility, United flight attendants are trained in “ditching” in case of a water landing, she says. A fuselage mock-up stands at one end of a very large pool. Flight attendants jump out of the fuselage with life vests on, then board a raft.
They also learn customer service skills like how to de-escalate tense situations with passengers. “Sometimes it’s as simple as how you speak to someone and how you offer to help them,” she says.
United posts its flight attendant openings about four times a year. In one day, the company receives about 10,000 applications, Sego-Johnson says. “We are highly selective in who we choose, and only a very small percentage of people are selected for the position and for training. That’s great because we only want the best of the best.”
With decades in the airline industry, Sego-Johnson has witnessed many changes in technology. When she first started flying, she carried a beeper/pager, which alerted her that she was needed for a flight. “You waited to be beeped, and then you had to rush to the airport,” she says.
Beepers are no longer used to flag flight attendants. Paper airline tickets have gone by the wayside, along with paper drink tickets. Passengers have all the flight information they need on their cell phones via the United app, explains Sego-Johnson.
During her career, she has experienced destinations that weren’t top of mind growing up in Alabama. Family vacations consisted of summer trips to Destin or Panama City, plus some other U.S. locales, she says.
“But we didn’t travel internationally,” she explains. “To be able to have that opportunity has been really fantastic.”
A recent business trip took her to New Delhi, India. “It was nowhere on my bucket list, but it was fascinating,” she says.
More than a year ago, she traveled to Dubai as part of her responsibility for United’s catering operations, which span 140 kitchens around the world. “I had the opportunity to go there as we set up our kitchen for routes we were restarting from Newark to Dubai. That was an incredibly interesting place to visit,” Sego-Johnson notes.
“It really is an exciting time to be at United,” she says. “We’re officially now the largest airline in the world.”
Nancy Randall is a Tuscaloosa-based freelance contributor to Business Alabama.
This article appears in the June 2025 issue of Business Alabama.
