Alfred G. Marchand had been a flight attendant less than a year when he worked United Airlines Flight 175 on Tuesday. At 44, he had just retired from his first career–as a police officer.
After working his way up the ranks to lieutenant over 21 years with his hometown police department in New Mexico, Marchand was making vacation reservations when he happened upon a job posting for flight attendants late last year, his wife’s best friend said.
On a whim, he signed up, said Connie Lane. “He just decided to do something really different. It really surprised us.”
As it turned out, he loved it.
He and his wife of four years, Rebecca, had met for the weekend in Boston. She was scheduled to fly back to New Mexico when her husband flew off to work, but the pair almost changed plans to spend a few more hours together in the air. She considered switching to fly on his plane.
In the end, she worried that she might not be able to rearrange her flights to get home and kept her original plan.
