Spontaneous love at first sight – that is how Agne Januskeviciute Customer Support Manager at Locatory.com, Avia Solutions Group subsidiary, describes her first encounter with aviation that lasts to this day.
Travel and tourism were something that has always fascinated Agne. While still in university, she took on an internship at a tourism information centre, managing both work and study. This curiosity and excitement about aviation led Agne to try out for a position as a flight attendant at a Lithuanian airline company back in 2015. “It was a quite spontaneous decision on my end,” she recalls. “I was only looking for a summer job, but once I joined aviation as a cabin crew member, I felt that I wanted to stay much much longer!”
Indeed, she did. After spending over three years as a flight attendant, Agne worked with colleagues coming from different cultures and backgrounds – India, Italy, and Sri Lanka among many others. Agne notes that most of her crewmates had other professions on the side as well. Some had education in law, others in IT, arts – but their real passion was aviation. “I love meeting people and hearing their stories or sharing experiences,” says Agne, and for her, aviation is really the place where you can do so.
Travelling across countries and continents was another exciting part of Agne’s workday as a flight attendant. “You start your workday in one country, and you find yourself wrapping it up in another one – that was really exciting,” she remembers. “Local colleagues would also make sure that you’re having dinner at the best spot in town or snap a perfect picture for your Instagram account. It really feels like aviation is a big family, spread all over the world,” Agne smiles.
While working as a member of a cabin crew abroad, Agne took a chance to switch up her focus and try her hand out in tourism as a tour guide, with plans to come back to aviation in a few years’ time. “It was a great experience, but I found it hard to be away from home for so long and started feeling homesick,” Agne looks back. “I lasted only for half a year until I decided to seek career opportunities in my home country. That’s how I found Locatory.com and the Avia Solutions Group family, who all warmly welcomed me back to aviation. I couldn’t be happier now!”
Agne‘s typical day as a Customer Support Manager is filled with emails and calls – looking after Locatory.com’s marketplace clientele. “I make calls to our marketplace users, help them if they have any issues or questions, organise webinars for new users and make sure that they are happy with our platform.” Agne notes that this sort of work gives her a chance to be in the midst of all things aviation and allows her to communicate with people from all over the world. She adds, “Every day brings new challenges my way, but together with our team we are always trying to find the best ways to improve our work processes and enhance the experience for our clients.”
While challenges faced as part of cabin crew differ from those faced working as Customer Service Manager, Agne agrees that on both ends, aviation is a dynamic place to be working in, and requires passion, dedication, hard work, and flexibility – things she learned throughout her career in aviation. “I think most difficulties come to pass when you surround yourself with great colleagues and are a part of a tight-knit team.”
For Agne, Locatory.com feels like a family. “I do love my colleagues and I feel that this type of bond in a team is really important if you want to achieve good results,” she explains. “We all are working towards the same, one goal, but we find different ways to reach it. I am really grateful to all of them for their support and patience, especially in the very beginning, when I joined the team – they helped me a lot and I truly enjoy being here.”
She also notes that most of her proudest moments working in aviation were, too, achieved in a team. “It’s not that surprising,” she says. “As I mentioned before, it really feels like a family, when you work in aviation, and we’re always celebrating achievements of one another!” Agne shares a few of those proudest moments from her time as a flight attendant – staying calm in stressful situations is one of them. She affirms that there have been situations where the cabin crew had to help passengers with medical issues, Agne remembers, “I was always proud of our team during moments like these, how everyone remained very professional and knew exactly what to do under so much pressure.”
Having worked in aviation for quite some time now, made Agne face other types of challenges – like still-existing stereotypes about women in this industry. Looking from a global perspective, there is still quite a low number of women working in aviation, and, while most of Agne‘s colleagues – both cabin crew and at Locatory.com – are women, she agrees that there are still some stereotypes rooted in people’s minds when it comes to women working in aviation. “In general, aviation is the same industry as any other, and I’m sure that the number of women working here is increasing,” she stresses.
Hoping that the rooted stereotypes wouldn’t hold back any women from starting their career in aviation, Agne encourages them to follow their dreams, this way breaking the stereotypes. “Working in aviation is truly a lot of fun – people are very welcoming to newcomers, always ready to help and treat one another like family. Once you join aviation, you won’t want to work anywhere else, trust me,” she adds.
Vilnius, Lithuania
