Sunday, March 27, 2011

Experience as a cabin crew - Part 1

Below are the experience of one of my readers who was an ex cabin crew with a major airline.

Is me again…What do you think about the dark side of being a cabin crew? I can see there’s a good response from the first post so I guess I should tell you guys more. How’s that? Well, there is a good side and a bad side. Not just cabin crew actually, anything you do there’s a pro and cons it’s all depends which path you are choosing to be your career. Everyone got his or her own preference and no one can make the decision for you.

Well, let me tell you a little bit of the good side. If you hate 9am to 5pm job and you hate to be stuck in the traffic jam, you will love this job. In a nutshell, if you like flexibility then you will enjoy cabin crew lifestyle. Cabin crew doesn’t have to work everyday and you get off days after every flight. Short flights within 7 hours like Sydney, Melbourne, shanghai and etc, you land about evening time and you fly back the next day late evening with a minimum crew rest of 24 hours. Not very long but you get some time to do some sight seeing.

On Long haul flights, you will get 3 days 2 nights at the station for example European sor USA flight that are more than 13hours of flight time. Now, if you are a person who has to sleep before 10am then, forget about being a cabin crew. You will have to sleep at odd hours, when people are enjoying their beauty sleep, you have to stay awake and sometimes you can’t sleep due to Jet lag. You are so tired but you can’t sleep.

For the girls, because of the lack of sleep, your skin become very dry and your body get dehydrated, so you need to drink plenty of water. Oh ya, MASK & LOTION are a MUST .If you can’t work under stress, your hormone will change and your face will pop out pimples. I suggest you invest in a good facial product and make up. Your face is very important for this job.

If all these are not your concern, then you will enjoy your shopping without any heavy traffic. You get to shop and eat what you like most of the time. You get to have your meals in different countries, whichever suits your preference. How COOL is that? When your friend call you and ask you for lunch or dinner, you tell them you can’t make it cause you having tea at PARIS. You don’t have to queue to pay to eat or to try your clothes in the fitting room.  You get to buy cheaper branded bag after tax.

Moreover, you get to go anywhere you want without paying air ticket once a year. That’s the best privilege for being cabin crew. If you are married, your spouse gets free tickets. If you are single, bring your parents because they get discounted ticket as well. You are entitle for 24 days of annual leave, think about it , which company give you 24 days of annual leave?

Plus you are off after your flights, so basically you get this much of salary but you only work one third in a year. One month plus and minus off days, you only work 2 weeks or more in a month. COOL huh? But then you won’t want to go out during your off days as most of the time, your legs and body will be numb and you need to rest as much as you can to catch up on your sleep. I’m sure you don’t want to look like late 30’s when you are only like early 20’s. Maintain your body, some people tend to eat a lot when they are stress. Aircraft food is very fattening ok?

Oh yea…your hair. You can see most of the crew are getting bold especially the guys as some people said that it is because of the high altitude pressure. We fly too much and excessive use of gel and hairspray which leads to hair falls. It happened to everyone including myself. My hairstylist said that it is because I used too much hair spray. But you just have to use it all the time for this job although you know it is bad for your scalp and it causes dandruff and hair fall. I personally have the same problem. My hair…GOSH! So if you love your hair u just have to do something about it.

Flying life, you don’t get to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya, Christmas and special occasion with your love ones. Those are the peak period and most of the time you will be flying unless you are lucky enough to get someone to swap flights with you. Sometimes, they will ask for TOP UP and how much they ask for is all depends how shitty your flight is.

If its long flight of cause they will love to swap with you and give you shitty flight like 3 TURNS in a row. “TURN TURN TURN TURN”….Turn means Turn around and turn around means go and come back. Basically you smell airport air only and normally crew will hate turnaround flights.

You get home sick, you miss the food in MALAYSIA so much and you can’t wait to go home. When you have to head back to work, you wish you get stay a little longer. You drag yourself to work the next day with a heavy heart. You miss your boyfriend/girlfriend, your parents, your brothers /sister and your lovely friends.

Trust me, you will tend to appreciate them more.  You became more independent eventually. You feel lonely and you get frustrated sometimes with your set of crew or your passenger. If you know how to work under pressure then it’s good, if you can’t the best way to release your stress in the aircraft. Go check toilet! It helps.

To be continue….

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