There’s so much to write about my last few days here in Dubai that I’ll just input you with the most delightful moments I had.
The last two flights were to India. One to Bangalore which was packed but really nice and easy. The second one, a Ahmadabad turnaround was epic. Especially the return flight. One of the problems we encounter on Indian flights is the amount of Duty Free the passengers buy in Dubai to take back home. They have way more plastic bags than actual luggage.But I’ll come back to those flights a little later…
Now, you don’t probably know, but preparing a flight takes a gigantic amount of logistics, from catering, cleaners, cabin crew, flight deck crew, engineering, fuel, Entertainment System Maintenance and so on for ages. Airports are the most organised places I’ve seen so far !
Now Cabin Crew need to prepare their flight. And it starts right when you rise out of bed. Say 4 hours before the actual departure time, we have to get ready, put the uniform on and wait for the bus downstairs our accomodation (it usually picks us up around 2.20 hours before STD (scheduled time of departure). It takes the bus around 35 minutes to do the round of the few buildings on my side of Sheikh Zayed Road. Then direction CBC (Crew Briefing Center) where we’ll have to sign-in our flight, find out where the briefing will be held and then go there, wait for everyone to arrive and commence briefing. We’ll be checked on our documents, we’ll have general information about passenger load and a safety talk. Of course if by any chance you don’t have the required documents, you do not answer a question correctly, you can be offloaded the flight. So this part of the day is quite stressful. Now it all depends on who’s your Purser (Cabin Senior) or your SFS… It’s usually fine but I’ve heard wonderful stories !! After that we have to go through customs and board on a designated shuttle that will take us to the aircraft. In a normal airport that would take around 5-10 minutes. But because, the Emiraties love the word BIG, they decided the spread the tarmac across the whole country. In actual time it takes us around 20 minutes for us to reach our aircraft.
Ok so last night was my flight to Ahmedabad (in India again) and our load was light on the way out. Making the service quick & easy for us. Leaving more time to chat and have something to eat. We were on time. Once in Ahmedabad we were informed that not only economy was packed (282 pax), not a seat to spare, but that 22 of the passengers would come on Wheelchairs ! 22 bloomin’ wheelchairs ! How safe is that on an Aircraft ? The boarding was just nightmare ! Every other couple separated by 15 rows, luggage way to big to be stored in the overheads and mosquitos having a go at us the whole time ! What a mess. God knows how, by the end of boarding, we were still on time ready to fly back to Dubai. Some lucky pax got Business Class seats because there was no one in first class so we upgraded a few passengers to their benefit !
Service on the way back was looooooooonnnnnngggg. I did the bar for the first time. Took me around 1 hour to serve every on. Funny thing about Indian flights is that when you ask what they want, they just nod their heads sideways, not saying yes or no. Making it very difficult for us to understand. Ending up giving what they might not asked for !Oh well.
Got back this morning at around 6 o’ clock. Sign-off and straight back home fo some well deserved rest. Was is bed by 8h00. Newt flight I’m looking forward to, I have a Dubai – Singapore – Melbourne and back with layover in each port !! Can’t wait ! Speak to you soon. Have a good day !
