Yesterday was my one and only flight so far in October. In other words I will have to eat pasta to keep my body working next month. And to no one’s surprise, I was rostered in the afternoon for a Bombay turnaround which of course I predicted two days prior. That was when I checked Femme-Fatale-EVITA (the system that informs us of changes to our rosters over the phone). I wasn’t impressed with the destination. But my worst nightmare, flipped in a second when I knew I was flying with not one, not two, but THREE other crew I knew from training !!!!!!! ZZZzzzane, Veronique and one of them was my SEP instructor Ruth ! Be sure she kept a close eye on me during safe talk [wink], until I was asked what to do when someone falls airsick apart from stuffing stugeron down their necks. I froze. “Oxygen??!” did I say, you cannot go wrong with oxygen as it is a way out of many many many First Aid questions, then the purser will ask you a different question, works every single time ! That’s when Ruth looked at me with fire in her eyes ! But she didn’t say a word.
The flight over was a breeze because now that JetStar opened two daily flights to and from Bombay we have half of the economy cabin to cater for. Leaving us less warped for the return sector. And because each and every worker/expat came into Dubai on a plane, they now how the whole thing works. It’s another story when you fly out of a country like India. It gets harder when you have 20/30 Indian workers to take care of for the return sector. These guys probably never flew before and they’re all kinda lost on an aircraft. You can sense the fear in them. Understandable, totally understandable. So the area I was in charge of had all of the 20/30 workers. I spent the whole flight setting their ICE entertainment to show Hindi musicals, showing them how to buckle/unbuckle the seatbelt and where to [open brackets] relax [close brackets] in case they needed. The funny thing about these flights is the way they react when we tell them the booze on-board is free. You know when the bar comes up to them, their eyes are gonna sparkle. And as my flatmate says they want VISKY (Yes I’ve just discovered my homie had a blog !!!! This turns Blue Building into the building with the most bloggers in Dubai !). And of course when one of them wants VISKY, all the others will have VISKY too. By the way this doesn’t only apply to workers, it applies to the whole cabin.
After raiding our bars, I went up to my first time passengers and tried to ask them if everything was OK and stuff, they nodded sideways, for which I take for a yes. They were a happy lot, whisky in hand and a Hindi film before their eyes !
For the rest of the days I’ve been on ground nothing much has happened, it’s been very gentle. Went twice to Zinc this week. boogied nicely at the Cheese night they have there every Monday and got slushed on booze while I was there. “Une pierre deux coups” as they say (translate to One Stone, Two Strikes).
But whilst wondering along SZ road the other afternoon, I was amazed at how much stuff they can build in 6 months. In 12 weeks and in the span of 1000 metres, they managed to build a viaduct for the soon to be metro, 3 tunnels around Defense roundabout, another roundabout, only this time this one is also a viaduct. Dig up another part of the pavement. Tear down an OLD (10 year old) building to replace it later on. Built a station for the metro. Build foundations for the 3 footbridges that will go over SZ road and so many other projects… ! They just can’t get enough.
This is a WPSimpleViewerGallery
Otherwise, Nick, my brother, will be hitting town tomorrow and this should be fun. Hope I can get him on a flight to Brisbane on the 11th thought. The loads are awful. We’ll see. He apparently needs some swimming gear so we’ll have to hop over to MOEs at some point too so we can go for a tanning session at Jumeirah. We’ll figure it out.
That’s all from me today. More soon. I promise.
LOL C’est bien drole cela me rappel mes vols vers la caraibes a partir de montreal, il fallait tour expliquer aux passagers…By the way , I hope you got my email sent through this site.. can’t.wait for your next story…
A bientot.
Hi ! you made so nice blog. i enjoyed to read your blog.
i am interlessted about men work for cabincrew.
how is going everything! that amazing. anyway enjoy your work!!!
Ah you seem like such a great Flight Attendant, very impressed you made the time for them. It is hard when your pax have never seen the inside of a plane, no matter how hard it makes our job, but your service ethic and patience is GREAT!
Don’t you know everyone in that part of the world pronounces V as W and W as V…try getting somebody to say ‘Vindows Wista” I mean “Windows Vista” LOL
It is very kind of you to treat your BOM passengers that way, I cannot see most FA’s even bothering to see if they were okay….Vous etes tres gentil, monsieur!!