Breakfast in Paris, lunch in London, dinner in Bangkok – this was my dream for quite a few months before I actually started the job of becoming a cabin crew member of an international airline in the Middle East. A colleague at my previous job who had done it before warned me that it wasn’t all glamorous.
“You’ll get yelled at in a foreign language and you’ll have to clean a bathroom used by people who haven’t yet grasped the concept of flushing” she said.
I laughed and scoffed a reply, “If I have to do some dirty work and then get paid to fly to Bali to have cocktails on a sandy paradise then I don’t care what they throw at me!”
I was confident that cleaning a bathroom was a more virtuous act than, say, being an escort which was the only other way it seemed I would ever travel the world while being paid.
Well, one year on and I can greatly expound upon my list of things that make this job far less beguiling, indeed there are times I glance at the rent boy sites with less judgment.
Though I will also claim there is much more to flying all over the world than I had ever imagined.
Here’s a list of the painstakingly-earned Pro’s and crippling Cons of taking on a job as a Cabin Crew for an international airline.
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Pros
Chance to see the world
I’ll start with the obvious; you see a good deal of this beautiful globe of land and sea we call home. I’ve laid eyes on countries that were on my top list of places to go, and ones I’d never even heard of before and my eyes opened to destinations I had previously only imagined the wonder of in books, magazines and Travel Blogs I had done the courtesy of subscribing to so they could stay afloat.
Immerse yourself in many different cultures
There’s a lovely little ritual we all do when we meet up for the first time in a briefing room before we get down to the dirty details of that days flight – we greet and introduce ourselves before we properly start. And I mean every single flight because despite flying for a year now, I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve flown with a crew member I’ve worked with before. Because every flight consists of alternating crew, we have to introduce ourselves every day to our new workmates with whom we share the responsibility of ensuring a safe and 5-star quality flight
I know it can seem like a monotonous chore to some, especially those with many years under their belt but for me it’s a delightful daily reminder of the various types of cultures I work with.
“Hi everyone, I’m Sandra from the UK”
“Good day, I am Preethi from India”
“A very good morning to you all, I’m Paulo from Brazil”
This interaction is the start of my day and every now and then a lovely surprise comes along in the form of a new nationality I’ve never had the chance to work with, such as an exotic beauty from the Fiji Islands or a sober man from Ireland – crazy stuff like that.
Typically I get to learn a lot about their different heritages on flights where we can sometimes have hours of nothing to do but talk while the passengers on-board sleep within the dimly-lit cabin, with the occasional interruption of someone pressing the call bell to ask for a black coffee… with two sugars…and some milk.
During these benign moments floating through the cloud-soaked sky I have the pleasure of having pictures of humans who live such different lives from me painted in vibrant and detailed colouring. I learn what makes up the individual threads of a fellow traveller’s tapestry with tints and textures so different from my own palette.
It’s not only fellow cabin crew members I hear this from either; passengers, perhaps bored with the movie choices available or needing to stretch their legs, lumber up to the galley (the airplane kitchen) to ask for a cup of tea and to inquire – only sometimes jokingly – where the smoking lounge is. I love to answer “right outside on the wing” before I give the stern lecture that smoking on board will kill everyone.
They are usually also in the mood for a little chat and as long as I’m not obviously busy, such as lifting something half my size or preparing 5 different drink orders, I’m only too happy to have a warm chat with a stranger either on their way to exciting new ventures or eagerly returning home with stories of their own to regale friends and family.
Every flight is a new tale waiting to be passed onto from a fellow human being’s angle, and I eagerly love to collect them all whenever I possibly can.
Growing in mind and soul
Traveling opens networks in the mansion of our soul the blueprints of which I never knew existed before. It’s hard to have any racist or misanthropic beliefs when you are exposed to the core of what makes a person from the other side of the world tick.
This job has instilled in me a higher threshold for patience and empathy than I ever thought I would ever be comfortable with. For a fair number of people on certain flights, it’s their first time on an aircraft and their once in a lifetime opportunity to go somewhere other than their home country.
Maybe they’re going for a well deserved vacation with loved ones or flying to see family on the other side of the world. Either way they’re heading out with bags of too much clothing, high expectations, palpable excitement and sometimes a distinct lack on any grasp of the English vernacular.
When I first started I became easily frustrated because they didn’t seem to follow the etiquette on board that in which I was so comfortably well-versed. They didn’t know how the food service curriculum worked or when was an acceptable time to ask for another drink or how to open a bloody bathroom door that says “PUSH” in three languages.
It wasn’t until I had proper visits in their “Third World Country” cities and was the stranger feeling confounded by everything around me, and happened to be lucky enough that they came over to offer help with a genuine toothy smile that I learned how callous my inner thoughts were when dealing with their misunderstandings.
In various countries of non-Christian origin (The religion I was most surrounded with growing up) I learnt important lessons on spirituality and the impact of ritual and holy spaces for those believers going about their day to day lives.
Purity in faith, inner peace through meditation, and enlightenment through lessons in ancient scripture…these are things I haven’t the slightest clue about and haven’t personally experienced, but have had the great opportunity to observe quite closely in my travels.
I cherish my memories and trips to the iconic and aesthetic places of worship in various cities, enjoying the peace and feeling of contentment even though I don’t follow that particular religion or creed.
On a personal note: in my experience of religion from birth to current day I’ve gone from questioning Christian to Militant Atheist to drifting Non-Secularist, and in this venture of my life I find myself becoming more an…open and fluid Agnostic / Part-time-Theist.
Some may think of this as being a bit of a wanton religion slut (“pick something already and settle down you incorrigible heathen”) but I have enjoyed visiting most of the major (and many of the minor) places of worship, and the various questions each one offers to try answer.
Great many opportunities open up
Most people have a life-long dream of some sort.
“I want to start my own business” / “ I want to own a decent amount of property in good parts of town”/ “I want to be able to afford studying my dream degree” / “I want to be able to start a family” / “I want to see all the wonders of the world” – these are just some examples.
This job allows those idle dreams to become firm realities. Want to help support your family? This job gives you strong foundation of income. Want to see the world and find where you fit into the big picture? This job is all about flying over the biggest picture of all.
A great many things that seemed flighty fancies become fantastic realities when you fly.
The Money
Back home I was making ¼ of what I’m earning now and back then I was damn excited about that. Apart from a decent salary (with regular opportunities to increase it through promotions) there are a great other number of financial benefits. Rent is paid for, there is no taxation on your hard earned cash and most transport costs for work are covered.
Not only am I making a much larger amount than before but I’m keeping a larger percentage of it. It’s a decent feeling being able to buy a nice looking shirt in a store in London without ending up having a gander at the price tag and then slowly backing away with my hand over my mouth and tears running down my cheeks because of my lost innocence.
Exciting schedule
I’ve been there; driving to work on the same route every day, getting ready to file the same reports to the same manager and being greeted by the office water cooler lounger everyday:
“Why the long face man? You got a case of the Mondays?”
It’s Wednesday Frank… and I hate you.
This kind of timetable can weaken the soul and deepen that rut in the frown lines. What I’ve come to love is that no flight will ever be the same workday. Every single one will have a different set of crew to work with, different supervisors to work under and different passengers with some unique challenges.
And the reward reaped for a long day’s work is a different city every time so the results to any challenging work day never grow monotonous.
Travel Benefits
On top of being paid to travel to different countries all over the world, cabin crew also have some major benefits in organising their own personal adventures on days off. Heavily discounted tickets for you, friends and family members mean a holiday in Bali comes at a fraction of the cost which just leaves more money for those tasty cocktails and skimpy swimwear.
It’s also way easier to get necessary visas to visit other countries as a Cabin Crew member. This might not seem like a real nuisance to those with strong passports (*looks daggers at American and European holders*) but for those like myself traveling on what at times feels like a very colourful scrapbook worth only sentimental value, it can be a godsend to know that a Schengen or US visa can take only a few days as opposed to weeks to get ready.
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And now onto the moments you’ll find yourself staring into the open void of your ceiling (or current hotel room) wondering at what brought you to this dark place in your life.
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Cons
Far away from home
No matter how much fun you have overseas and how many new mates you make, every now and then you’ll be prison-bitch slapped by the calloused hand of homesickness. It happens, it’s normal and it passes, but at the time it can really hurt like a legitimate shank attack. I found it happens less and less as time goes on but still to this day I’ll have random nights where I toss and turn in my sleep, feeling a little empty knowing my family and close friends are more than just a brisk walk away.
The funny thing I find is this never seems to happen while on a layover anywhere, only if I’m at “home” base and have a few days off before I fly again. Making plans with new chums helps but you’ll often catch yourself looking at old message chats you had with friends back home from a few days ago, and having to stop yourself asking what they’re up to because its 3AM back there and no one has time for your emotional crap so cut that out.
There are times I can physically feel every step of those thousands of kilometres.
Moments of loneliness
This may seem like a further extension of onto the point above but often I can find myself in a position where I feel quite lonely without feeling the need to go back home. This job, despite its high requirements to be good in social interactions and exposing you to hundreds of people every day – can have moments of feeling “lost in a crowd”.
If I meet someone I click with and enjoy their conversation and company and we have a rather enjoyable time together or in a group on layovers, I’ll swap contact information with them and we’ll promise to make plans back at home-base sometime.
We might do that, but we might also discover that the rest of our month’s roster doesn’t sync up with any time off on the same days. And then the month after that it’s the same story, or we might have one day off at the same time but one of us is coming back from an Ultra Long haul (10+ hours) flight and we need that day off to rest and recover some sanity.
And so the two of you sort of fade out with making plans and that good time becomes another memory to store away.
Now despite this I do have some good mates always ready for a catch up over a glass of wine and to regale each other with layover adventures and quirky passenger stories, but then again it only seems to be handful of times a month sort of arrangement.
I came from a pretty big social group back home; seeing some of my friends literally every single day without fail, and so to go from that to these moments of social “isolation” was a change of pace. But on the other hand it’s a more varied crowd I spend my time with these days and a larger influx of people.
Although I do sometimes crave my old schedule of work and the expectation that each day ended off with a bottle of wine with dinner and friends…
…as opposed to a bottle of wine with only snacks and whatever’s on the Netflix for company some nights.
Missing events back home
Facebook’s App “On this day” can be a real bitch sometimes. You’ll see friend’s birthday parties, Halloween events and generally fun shindigs of the past pop up and remind you that this might be currently going on at the moment and you’re missing it this year.
It is especially bothersome when your friend invited you to some regaling affair months ago but you couldn’t get the days off necessary to come over for a visit, and now you’re stuck on a flight showing someone the different vintage wines you have on board while your companions back home are doing body shots off walkway models and sending you messages going “Miss ur faaaace” and having a grand ol’ time. You’ll read such texts in horror / jealousy as you recall that it used to be you falling down the stairs and flashing everyone last year and how you do miss it ever so badly.
I had the misfortune of missing my bother’s 21st this year and while I sent a pretty decent present to make up for it, I felt quite saddened that I had missed a cornerstone in a family member’s life like that. And I have to reconcile with myself that it’s likely going to happen often.
While I can arrange my annual leave around things like weddings, funerals and Bat mitzvahs – the big three – a lot of the smaller things are going to fall through the cracks, and occasionally you’ll only have photo shopping yourself into pictures of these events to ease the despondency of missing it.
Friends moving on without you
I was a bit naive when I left my home country, for you see I thought I was leaving behind a paused movie of what my life was before I left, ready to hit the PLAY button whenever I was back for a visit.
But life isn’t like that, and people have their own lives to tend to when you’ve departed the stage. They’ll grow new friendships, find new relationships and become interested in new things and in the months that you’re gone you might find yourself one of those subjects they don’t have any concern for anymore.
It’s painful but its natural; after all you’ll be changing as a person as well. Sometimes you change into individuals who aren’t as compatible as they used to be.
Still, there are worse things in life than smaller and more intimate circles of friendships.
Always wandering about in unfamiliar land
Going through the jungle lands of Colombo or traversing the urban sprawl of Brussels with no English sign posts in sight can be exhilarating and give you a true sense of “adventure” – but with it happening every week your google maps app takes a bit of a bruising.
Typically a good portion of a layover into a new city is me and the crew wandering around totally lost because who has the skills to read a physical map these days and we don’t always have a WiFi spot available through which the gods can send us answers.
To make it more thrilling the locals don’t speak English and are looking at us with frowns because our womenfolk are wearing skirts above the knee, the men aren’t in traditional garb and we’ve stumbled into their temple parade and sampled the ceremonious meat meant as an offering to a deity whose name we can’t spell all because we thought this was the marketplace TripAdvisor had suggested, with all the delicacies looking like a try-a-sample table.
It’s stressful.
You always need to be on the lookout for cultural faux pas that you weren’t aware existed that could ruin a good layover. Sometimes you just yearn for a familiar setting where you know everyone’s name, drink preference and dog’s shoe size.
Stressful on the zzzz’s and health
To fly to Jakarta the one day and then operate an American flight two days later can often leave your internal clock giving you exasperated looks. There will be flights where you’re fighting to stop yourself from pouring coffee directly into your eyes so you can stay awake, because this “drinking it” method doesn’t seem to help.
You’ll look at the flight team wanting to meet in the lobby in an hour to go exploring and then towards your bed and back to them in an eternal dance of indecisiveness. You’ll have nights where you look up at the ceiling in your bedroom at home or in the hotel and wonder why its 4AM and you just cannot shut off your mind despite your blood stained eyes.
Melatonin – A.K.A cabin crew chewing gum – will become a good friend but also a biiiitch to work with since it can have some annoying side effects… like being drowsy all the time (and you’ll be too exhausted to appreciate the irony).
After the first two or three months of flying I think I successfully suffocated my circadian rhythm with a Holiday Inn hotel pillow which resulted in me not having an inner sleep schedule anymore. I now fall asleep whenever there is a semi-soft, mostly horizontal surface available and no passengers or supervisors to see me.
I don’t know if this is a healthy thing but it did become necessary.
You are working in an environment with recycled air and various people from countries all over the world, many of whom are not always in perfect health. You are going to fall sick a few times but your immune system is either going to rise up more powerful than before, or you are going to die.
Okay, you won’t die, and the fact we get free medical coverage that pays for all the vaccines and pain pills we could ever want is a bonus, but it does suck when you do occasionally fall prey to the pathogens, because this schedule and environment is not too conducive to a prompt recovery.
But you and your body do learn. It’s a hard lesson – one that likes to still use the spanking paddle despite modern corporal punishment laws – but you do grow from it.
Trapped on a vibrating tube of Metal with nowhere to run
I have had moments on board 15 hour long flights that I’ve looked around at my slightly claustrophobic surroundings and gone “I do not want to be on this ride anymore, the line was not worth it.”
There will be difficult days, where customers are being snobby, fellow colleagues aren’t pulling their weight, and everything service-wise that can go wrong will go terribly wrong and you just aren’t feeling like working the grind that day.
This happens in every job in the world. But in this job the ground also likes to randomly move about roughly, and you’re trapped with no chance at escaping your problems.
Need a smoke break or just want a quick breath of fresh air outside to stabilize? Well tough Tatas’, those kill you now.
There’s also that continuous feeling that if something by chance does go very wrong (which is quite unlikely but can still happen at any time) then people are going to be looking at you to solve it and get them safely from point A to point B.
Forget about making the perfect coffee, 85% of your training is what to do in an emergency, and it’s a terrible time to draw blanks in that moment.
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So there you have it, these are the delights that keep me inspired to work this job, and the horrors that keep me up at night (and looking over sleepily at the melatonin bottle).
For me personally the pros outweigh the cons but I know it’s not always like that for everyone, which is why the majority of people who come into this career are doing it only on a temporary basis, but also I have seen supervisors and managers who have been in this game for over 10+ years and they still have a smile on their face during every briefing room round of introductions.
Whether one gets that from inner peace for working in a job you love or the company pays for the necessary cosmetics to look like it does, I’m not sure.
But until the adventure loses its sweetness I’m here to find out.
To any cabin crew reading this, have I left anything out? Got your own pros and cons to share? Let me know by commenting bellow.
