It’s still fresh in my head, so I’ll pen it. As you’ve probably seen on my roster this month. I have 3 CDGs lined up. My first one just gone by. I loved it. So much happened in the lapse of 30 hours. I will try my best – with fatigue kicking in – to describe the whole thing.
Briefing. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard an Open Day mate Raphael (center in the picture above) blast a big “BOOONNNJOUUUR” as soon as I entered the briefing room. I knocked out a huge smile and another “BOOOOJOUUR” in return. Hearing french speakers in briefing is uber-rare these days. It only happens on CDGs (rightly so) and it’s a great way to start the day. Another french speaker was amongst the team for the trip, his name was John (from La Reunion), a french departement (province) in the Indian Ocean. I’d already flew with him and swapped a couple flights with him, and I recognized his familiar face. Greated him, in French, of course. So we started gossiping in French, just to give the tone of the flight. Laughed and started giving french lessons and french etiquette manners to our fellow colleagues in the briefing room. The trip started very well, everyone laughing at our customs: giving kisses on the cheeks for example, and making the ‘mwa’ noise at the same time, and telling them depending on the region you come from in France, you either give 2, 3 or 4 kisses evenly between the two cheeks and also depending again on the region you come from, you either start from the left or right cheek. It’s apparently a right nightmare for foreigners but come so naturally for us. We also gossiped about the loads, as you do and the passenger profile: Bread & Red Wine freaks, that’s how crew describe us French when we fly ! How compelling… We carried on giving basic french catch phrases for the crew :
“Je m’appelle XXXX, je suis celibataire. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi” was amongst the stuff a Flight Attendant going to Paris needs to know before actually landing in the country of stinkin’ cheeses, wine and awesome baguettes.
Loads. These days, and it’s no secret, loads are awful business wise. Not exempt of the current turmoil. The afternoon Paris CDG flight from Dubai is empty, dismally empty. We had to bus 73 pax over to Paris yesterday ! As you can imagine, it was a fairly easy flight. We crew love it when it’s like that, because spirits are high, the team shows extreme well-being and passengers notice it. Service is extremely personalized and little details we can take care of. So the passengers were delighted to have a real nice time with us. Not only did they get business class like service, but they also had a row of 4 seats each to lie horizontaly too. Thus them leaving the aircraft with a huge smile and loads of thank yous… We also got off the plane with smiles because the flight was 50 minutes (read fifty) early. I do not know how that happened but, that a true record knowing how efficient Paris Charles De Gaulle is and the queues for landing at this particular time of the evening… The fun part was actually getting to the hotel before the outgoing crew managed to get on their shuttle bus !
Cherry on the cake, Melissa was there to greet us ! All glossed up in red lipstick and donning the red hat ! Lovely to see her in my homeland. I did know she was bound for Paris, but didn’t expect a second we’d actually see each other there. She did manage to go to the city and discovered some of the places. Thought I will leave her the chance to blog about it ! Won’t tell you where she ventured. Read her Flight Attendant blog to find out.
I had planned to catch up with Mother and Father in a restaurant close to their home, in the 19th district. Before that Mum managed to come and pick me up at the hotel with the hearse (Father’s car. I like to call it like that, because it’s black). Quick G&T + shower at home, then we zoomed off to that little ‘resto’ where Dad was waiting, already downing a white wine. Had some lurrrvely grubs. Caught up with stuff and gossiped about Emirates, Dubai, etc… Then went on to check out my mates playing a gig near Bastille and had more drinks there before heading for some after party in central Paris. Came home pretty late considering the day I just went through but loved it to bits !
The way back to Dubai was a little more painful… After checking the loads on the portal, I had a scare. It was full which is quite usual for this trip. But full load is OK when there’s only one service to deal with. The caterer in charge came down the back as we were prepping for the flight. She had a huge smile on her face. A “Bonsoir” later, she announced the big deal. The entire aft galley was packed with carts of SPMLs (or special meals). AVMLs to be precise. 117 trays with different meals… Special meals are for vegetarians or any other passenger that requested a meal to suit his/her culinary needs while booking their ticket. The only problems with those is when it becomes out of control and we end up having to serve by hand over a 100 of them. And AVMLs being AVMLs, we knew right before boarding that the passengers would swap seats and make this delivery of meal a right headache.
True to our belief when it came to the service the whole lot had changed their seats from one end of the cabin to the other, without, of course, telling us. So we’re left there wondering with a pile of 3 trays going up and down the aisles trying to figure the mess out. Delaying the normal service for other pax. The brilliant decision was to prepare those SPMLs in carts, so we didn’t serve them one to one and instead took the whole lot in the cabin. Each cart was organized as per our PIL (Passenger Information Listing) from top row left for one cart, while the other cart was organized from top row right. This made our delivery very easy as we strolled down the cabin. The best part is when those SPMLs change their mind and try to get a normal meal instead. But on this particular flight we didn’t have any choice for them because of the shear amount of AVML meals. So by the time we served all those special meals, we had served half the cabin already.
The rest of the flight was extremely easy. People were nice and enjoyed their ride. 3 Parisian girls entertained us in the back galley. They never stopped talking. Very tiring towards the end… The crew on this particular flight was awesome. From first to Economy we had a great laugh. This flight will defo stay in my mind for quite some time. Check out the few picture below :
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The next trip is Lagos, where I’m sure I’ll experience things to blog about so stay tuned for more in a few days. Peace out fools !
Ooooh Lagos! Have never had the pleasure of doing it, but from what I hear, because the crew can’t venture out of the hotel they tend to bond more at dinner/drinks and whatnot. Have fun! I’m off to Jo-burg now, should really get off the internets!
Haha! So true .with the AVML pax. You really hit the nail on the head there …..!
Enjoy LOS … can’t wait to read your post about that one!
Ah yes, good old SPML musical chairs… always fun on a full flight!
Lagos sounds interesting from all the stories I heard about it, have fun!
Nice you got 3 Paris, thats cool! Paris is such a wonderful place…plus you get to see your family which is great!
117 SPML that sounds crazy. Is that a record? I have my first supy in Barhain this week!!!!!!! I am afraid I will be sans réponses when they ask me a safe talk question at briefing…it would be bad.
Anyways I will try to study well haha.
ciao
My god, handling so many special meals is really a nightmare isn’t it? How about the pax profile on CDG flights? Aren’t they mostly french? Quite strange to have so many special meals…It reminds me the Delhi flight I just had last Saturday
lol