01 septembre 2007
The end....
Saturday... My internship is finished... It's sad. It was a really good experience. I met a lot of very interesting people. I was able to take a few pictures which I'll put online in my next post.
In the meantime, I had a very very busy week! I worked every day which is very rare because it is a very tirering job for your body as well as your head : the noise and the differences in pressure. Take a bottle of water. Keep it shut and open check it once you've reached your cruising altitude... That's what your body looks like too...
Well, next step is getting hired... Most important one...
Will all keep you posted.
I hope you enjoyed spending this month "with" me.
Bye bye and see you soon...
In the meantime, I had a very very busy week! I worked every day which is very rare because it is a very tirering job for your body as well as your head : the noise and the differences in pressure. Take a bottle of water. Keep it shut and open check it once you've reached your cruising altitude... That's what your body looks like too...
Well, next step is getting hired... Most important one...
Will all keep you posted.
I hope you enjoyed spending this month "with" me.
Bye bye and see you soon...
27 août 2007
Bejaia from Roissy ?!?!
It's last night, it's about 10:15pm and I'm about to go to bed (I have to wake up at 3 because I have an early flight from Orly Airport to Bejaia). I receive a phone call. Who's calling me at this hour??? I recognize the phone number. It's The Company : Aigle Azur. Here's a summary of our conversation : they're sorry blablabla, but the flight tomorrow morning (actually, in 8 hours) will not be leaving from Orly but from Charles de Gaulle Roissy Airport...! I have to park my car in the "Fret zone n°7". Where's that???
Then, I had to go online, find where this Zone 7 is... The whole thing took me an hour, which means an hour less of sleep... Usually I wouldn't mind, but since I was only going to sleep for three hours, it did matter!
Finally I was able to find it and go to bed...for a few hours...
Alarm clock!!! DRINGGGGGGGGG DRRRRRRRRRRING DDDDDDDDDDDDDDRING!!!!!!!
I hate it. I don't want to wake up, I wanna keep dreaming. Of what? I don't know, as long as I'm dreaming!
I got to that far, far place near Roissy. It was fun taking off from that airport, since it is so big. The CC had a few worries because being an trainee, I'm not supposed to take off from Roissy because we don't have the authorizations. But we were able to go around that small problem and I eventually took off from the cockpit.
Going to Bejaia was FRI, no passengers so I had some breakfast and then rested a bit.
Going back to Paris was full : 214 passengers on this Airbus A321! It was tirering.
Then, as we landed, in ORLY, we had to take a special shuttle to Roissy. For those of you not familiar with the Ile de France (Paris suburban area), it is opposite, with Paris in between. It took us a little bit over an hour (rush hour of course!) but we finally made it.
Now, I'm back home, I haven't eaten since this morning when I had my breakfast and I'm starving!
Tomorrow morning, another early flight to Algiers. I hope I won't get any phone calls tonight...
Oh, almost forgot to mention : temperature in Bejaia was 100°F (38°C) therefore we had an over weight problem (the weight of the hot air) so we took off thirty minutes late.
Then, I had to go online, find where this Zone 7 is... The whole thing took me an hour, which means an hour less of sleep... Usually I wouldn't mind, but since I was only going to sleep for three hours, it did matter!
Finally I was able to find it and go to bed...for a few hours...
Alarm clock!!! DRINGGGGGGGGG DRRRRRRRRRRING DDDDDDDDDDDDDDRING!!!!!!!
I hate it. I don't want to wake up, I wanna keep dreaming. Of what? I don't know, as long as I'm dreaming!
I got to that far, far place near Roissy. It was fun taking off from that airport, since it is so big. The CC had a few worries because being an trainee, I'm not supposed to take off from Roissy because we don't have the authorizations. But we were able to go around that small problem and I eventually took off from the cockpit.
Going to Bejaia was FRI, no passengers so I had some breakfast and then rested a bit.
Going back to Paris was full : 214 passengers on this Airbus A321! It was tirering.
Then, as we landed, in ORLY, we had to take a special shuttle to Roissy. For those of you not familiar with the Ile de France (Paris suburban area), it is opposite, with Paris in between. It took us a little bit over an hour (rush hour of course!) but we finally made it.
Now, I'm back home, I haven't eaten since this morning when I had my breakfast and I'm starving!
Tomorrow morning, another early flight to Algiers. I hope I won't get any phone calls tonight...
Oh, almost forgot to mention : temperature in Bejaia was 100°F (38°C) therefore we had an over weight problem (the weight of the hot air) so we took off thirty minutes late.
26 août 2007
Rabat, Marocco
Second stage in Marocco. Today, Rabat. Not very touristy, mostly inhabitants or people who visit relatives go there.
It's with a beautiful sun that I woke up this Saturday morning (around 11 o'clock). A shower and a breakfast later, I'm in my car driving to Orly Airport, both windows opened, music blasting Akon's last hit. Oh, I forgot to mention the required wear of sunglasses... Either you have the look or you don't... ;-) Hey, it's been awhile since we've had sun, so I enjoy every second of it!
Orly to Rabat was calm, very calm : 60 passengers (out of 174 seats - Airbus A320) and 2h45 flight time. I even had enough time to eat my "lunch/dinner" seated which is very rare. Even though, we managed to land with a thirty minute delay. Go figure!
Going back was much more crowded : 186 heads = 174 passengers plus 12 babies = full, full, full! Annoying passengers. Didn't stop b*tching!
First, I had my first "Ici le poste de pilotage, PNC attachés !" which is an emergency phraseology that tells us that we must stop whatever we are doing and take seat and buckle up. I'm glad I did ! It wasn't the same type of turbulences than our flight to Tanger, because there it was mostly air pockets, so not sickening at all (for me at least - had to hand out a few barf bags...) but impressive and dangerous because we jumped a bit... Was fun though. We had a passengers who came to see us to ask if we were about to die... Should've done the cross sign and started praying in the middle of the cabin... That would've done the trick! Then, a collegue asked a womam passenger to stay seated, to which she answered : "I'm used to flying". What can you say to such stupidity? Then, I almost had the same thing : I told a passenger to stay seated and then he turned to me and said : "if you can walk around, then so can I". Now, I have a question : when people fly, do they leave their brain at home...? Also, we had a "problem" with a mother : a collegue asked her to attach her kid and she answered "he doesn't want to". My collegue should've said "well, if there's a big air pocket, and if he stays glued on the ceiling, then you won't be able to say that you didn't see it coming". Later, I came back as we were about to land to check the seatbelts and asked, once again that this same lady attach her kid "but he's sleeping" she dares answer me! I just wanted to slap her.
Finally, same range of stupid complaints : we'd just been told we could continue the service but passengers had to stay seated because there were more turbulences to come, and a passenger, pretty angry calls me :
"-Where are we?
-Somewhere above Spain?!?!
-I've never seen that : we don't have any infos on where we are. It's inexcusable." and he kept going for a couple of minutes. I tried explaining him that both our pilots were more busy flying the plane and avoid air pockets as much as possible, than openning Lonely Planet and giving a lecture. I notified my CC and she immediately went to see him and with a calm, steady voice, and one hell of a look, she told him, as politely as can be and as courteous as possible : "Sir, we have pilots aboard, not guides!" We never heard him again...
I have to admit that this last flight was heard, both physically and mentally, but luckely we had a really good crew and were able to maintain our sense of humour not matter what.
Next flight is tomorrow (Monday) with Bejaia, Algeria at 5:45... am of course, otherwise it wouldn't be as much fun would it?
It's with a beautiful sun that I woke up this Saturday morning (around 11 o'clock). A shower and a breakfast later, I'm in my car driving to Orly Airport, both windows opened, music blasting Akon's last hit. Oh, I forgot to mention the required wear of sunglasses... Either you have the look or you don't... ;-) Hey, it's been awhile since we've had sun, so I enjoy every second of it!
Orly to Rabat was calm, very calm : 60 passengers (out of 174 seats - Airbus A320) and 2h45 flight time. I even had enough time to eat my "lunch/dinner" seated which is very rare. Even though, we managed to land with a thirty minute delay. Go figure!
Going back was much more crowded : 186 heads = 174 passengers plus 12 babies = full, full, full! Annoying passengers. Didn't stop b*tching!
First, I had my first "Ici le poste de pilotage, PNC attachés !" which is an emergency phraseology that tells us that we must stop whatever we are doing and take seat and buckle up. I'm glad I did ! It wasn't the same type of turbulences than our flight to Tanger, because there it was mostly air pockets, so not sickening at all (for me at least - had to hand out a few barf bags...) but impressive and dangerous because we jumped a bit... Was fun though. We had a passengers who came to see us to ask if we were about to die... Should've done the cross sign and started praying in the middle of the cabin... That would've done the trick! Then, a collegue asked a womam passenger to stay seated, to which she answered : "I'm used to flying". What can you say to such stupidity? Then, I almost had the same thing : I told a passenger to stay seated and then he turned to me and said : "if you can walk around, then so can I". Now, I have a question : when people fly, do they leave their brain at home...? Also, we had a "problem" with a mother : a collegue asked her to attach her kid and she answered "he doesn't want to". My collegue should've said "well, if there's a big air pocket, and if he stays glued on the ceiling, then you won't be able to say that you didn't see it coming". Later, I came back as we were about to land to check the seatbelts and asked, once again that this same lady attach her kid "but he's sleeping" she dares answer me! I just wanted to slap her.
Finally, same range of stupid complaints : we'd just been told we could continue the service but passengers had to stay seated because there were more turbulences to come, and a passenger, pretty angry calls me :
"-Where are we?
-Somewhere above Spain?!?!
-I've never seen that : we don't have any infos on where we are. It's inexcusable." and he kept going for a couple of minutes. I tried explaining him that both our pilots were more busy flying the plane and avoid air pockets as much as possible, than openning Lonely Planet and giving a lecture. I notified my CC and she immediately went to see him and with a calm, steady voice, and one hell of a look, she told him, as politely as can be and as courteous as possible : "Sir, we have pilots aboard, not guides!" We never heard him again...
I have to admit that this last flight was heard, both physically and mentally, but luckely we had a really good crew and were able to maintain our sense of humour not matter what.
Next flight is tomorrow (Monday) with Bejaia, Algeria at 5:45... am of course, otherwise it wouldn't be as much fun would it?
25 août 2007
Tanger, Marocco
Hi there,
I'm not going to write a book about this last trip for a couple of reasons : firstly, I must go to the airport in half an hour, and secondly because there isn't much to say.
This was my first flight to Marocco. Tanger, a city near the water (I think...). We flew in an Airbus A320 with only 45 passengers going there, but full on the way back (174 passengers). Taking off from Paris Orly was a pain : a lot of rain and a very bad weather, but landing in Tanger was even worse : beatiful clear blue sky, 29°C (84°F) but 60mph winds !!! We landed with a 30 minute delay because the winds were too strong. I almost threw up. I was kinda sick ! It was awful ! I thought it would never end !!! Luckely we made it... alive, and weere able to leave Tanger an hour later because the winds had weakened.
I'm about to leave to go to Rabat, another city in Marocco, and then I'm going to have a crazy week as of Monday. Here's my schedule :
Monday : Bejaia (Algeria)
Tuesday : Alger (Algeria)
Wednesday : Bejaia (Algeria)
Thursday : Alger (Algeria)
Friday : Oran (Algeria)
And then I'm done with my internship...
Will write more tomorrow (Sunday).
Byebye now ;-)
I'm not going to write a book about this last trip for a couple of reasons : firstly, I must go to the airport in half an hour, and secondly because there isn't much to say.
This was my first flight to Marocco. Tanger, a city near the water (I think...). We flew in an Airbus A320 with only 45 passengers going there, but full on the way back (174 passengers). Taking off from Paris Orly was a pain : a lot of rain and a very bad weather, but landing in Tanger was even worse : beatiful clear blue sky, 29°C (84°F) but 60mph winds !!! We landed with a 30 minute delay because the winds were too strong. I almost threw up. I was kinda sick ! It was awful ! I thought it would never end !!! Luckely we made it... alive, and weere able to leave Tanger an hour later because the winds had weakened.
I'm about to leave to go to Rabat, another city in Marocco, and then I'm going to have a crazy week as of Monday. Here's my schedule :
Monday : Bejaia (Algeria)
Tuesday : Alger (Algeria)
Wednesday : Bejaia (Algeria)
Thursday : Alger (Algeria)
Friday : Oran (Algeria)
And then I'm done with my internship...
Will write more tomorrow (Sunday).
Byebye now ;-)
22 août 2007
Oran bis
This is a picture of our plane last night as I was waiting for the passengers. I apologize for the poor quality but it was taken with my phone...
FRI to Oran
Good morning,
Last night, I had my first FRI flight. FRI meaning no passengers. We took off from Paris at 10:40pm Local Time and arrived at Oran, Algeria a couple of hours later. We did not have any passengers because it was an additional flight, so we go there with nobody and then come back full. In between we spent more than three hours on the tarmac, between 1am and 4am. I was able to sleep for fifteen minutes... better than nothing! It was fun with no passengers. We chatted, our CC was totally crazy! He took the public address (PA) and I guess he thought he was in a karaoke contest or something because he went on for quite a while... I landed in Oran in the cockpit which is always amazing, especially on an A321 because it is really big! Passengers started to board at 3:00. 228 passengers!!! (214 passengers on the 214 seats plus 14 babies).
We landed in Paris at 6:20, totally exhausted! I thought it would be harder, but once you start moving around and once you start the service, there's no time for you to be tired, but as soon as all passengers had exited the aircraft, I felt fatigue kicking in. I drove home and jumped into Morpheus's arms!
Must sleep because tomorrow I'm off to Tanger, Marocco.
Last night, I had my first FRI flight. FRI meaning no passengers. We took off from Paris at 10:40pm Local Time and arrived at Oran, Algeria a couple of hours later. We did not have any passengers because it was an additional flight, so we go there with nobody and then come back full. In between we spent more than three hours on the tarmac, between 1am and 4am. I was able to sleep for fifteen minutes... better than nothing! It was fun with no passengers. We chatted, our CC was totally crazy! He took the public address (PA) and I guess he thought he was in a karaoke contest or something because he went on for quite a while... I landed in Oran in the cockpit which is always amazing, especially on an A321 because it is really big! Passengers started to board at 3:00. 228 passengers!!! (214 passengers on the 214 seats plus 14 babies).
We landed in Paris at 6:20, totally exhausted! I thought it would be harder, but once you start moving around and once you start the service, there's no time for you to be tired, but as soon as all passengers had exited the aircraft, I felt fatigue kicking in. I drove home and jumped into Morpheus's arms!
Must sleep because tomorrow I'm off to Tanger, Marocco.
19 août 2007
Air France Flight Attendants
This is a new video, much shorter than the one I sent a few days ago, that follows thoroughly flight attendants, from the moment they enter the Air France parking lot at Roissy Charles de Gaulle, to their boarding the plane. It is pretty interesting for those of you who want to know what happens pre-take off.
The video can be viewed by everybody : no language spoken.
The video can be viewed by everybody : no language spoken.
17 août 2007
Alger, Algeria
This is a picture I took of our plane, getting off...
Hi everybody,
I apologize for the account I'm about to tell you, or if it isn't very understandable, but I'm really tired and I've had a really long day, so...
Alger, capital city of Algeria... More than four million inhabitants. Aigle Azur flies there daily.
We flew there in an Airbus A321. Max capacity : 209 passengers.
Paris to Alger : 58 passengers.
Alger to Paris : 208 passengers, so no need to say that we were full full full on the way back!
This flight was my fifth one, and probably the best one. I saw almost everything and have been through a lot...
Firstly, I had my first "DPAT" : transfer of prisoner. We had just arrived in the plane (early, very early, at 6:30) when a policeman showed up and asked to talk to the captain. Shortly after we were told by the Public Address that we would have a DPAT. All passengers embark from the front, but they had opened the rear door especially to have him embark. Cuffed and surrounded by a couple of cops, he sat on the last row, along with "his" two cops.
We served breakfast to all 58 passengers. At the end, I didn't have anymore glasses, so I went to the galley to get some from the upper compartment, and SURPRISE : when I opened it I was attacked by a glass full of water. I was soaked! Of course, all four flight attendants they were cracking up!
Then typically local colour : when we landed in Alger, our local rep bargained some "essential body oil" : 4€/bottle. It rocks! I had a blast watching her.
Then, on the way back while one of the stewardesses was doing the security demonstrations, one of the steward in the galley stuck dry ice in his pants with his fly open, so she had a lot of problem to stay focused.
Here are two pictures of what dry ice does...
so picture this much smoke coming out of a zipper...
Unfortunately, the flight did not end as good as it had started : we landed on time but spent forty minutes on taxi, waiting for an empty parking spot...
Got back home and am now ready to go to bed...
Next flight will be next Tuesday and I will be going again to Oran. In the meantime, I'm just going to rest, take care of myself and spend as much time as possible with Melanie...
Hi everybody,
I apologize for the account I'm about to tell you, or if it isn't very understandable, but I'm really tired and I've had a really long day, so...
Alger, capital city of Algeria... More than four million inhabitants. Aigle Azur flies there daily.
We flew there in an Airbus A321. Max capacity : 209 passengers.
Paris to Alger : 58 passengers.
Alger to Paris : 208 passengers, so no need to say that we were full full full on the way back!
This flight was my fifth one, and probably the best one. I saw almost everything and have been through a lot...
Firstly, I had my first "DPAT" : transfer of prisoner. We had just arrived in the plane (early, very early, at 6:30) when a policeman showed up and asked to talk to the captain. Shortly after we were told by the Public Address that we would have a DPAT. All passengers embark from the front, but they had opened the rear door especially to have him embark. Cuffed and surrounded by a couple of cops, he sat on the last row, along with "his" two cops.
We served breakfast to all 58 passengers. At the end, I didn't have anymore glasses, so I went to the galley to get some from the upper compartment, and SURPRISE : when I opened it I was attacked by a glass full of water. I was soaked! Of course, all four flight attendants they were cracking up!
Then typically local colour : when we landed in Alger, our local rep bargained some "essential body oil" : 4€/bottle. It rocks! I had a blast watching her.
Then, on the way back while one of the stewardesses was doing the security demonstrations, one of the steward in the galley stuck dry ice in his pants with his fly open, so she had a lot of problem to stay focused.
Here are two pictures of what dry ice does...
so picture this much smoke coming out of a zipper...
Unfortunately, the flight did not end as good as it had started : we landed on time but spent forty minutes on taxi, waiting for an empty parking spot...
Got back home and am now ready to go to bed...
Next flight will be next Tuesday and I will be going again to Oran. In the meantime, I'm just going to rest, take care of myself and spend as much time as possible with Melanie...
Toute ma vie j'ai rêvé...
This is a short movie about a flight attendant who has just been hired, and the crew makes his first flight a living hell...
It's a blast ! The movie is in French though...
I know it's quite long (23 minutes) but it's really worth it !
Feel free to leave your comments...
It's a blast ! The movie is in French though...
I know it's quite long (23 minutes) but it's really worth it !
Feel free to leave your comments...
16 août 2007
Bejaia, Algeria
Nice little big plane...
Yesterday's flight was to go to Bejaia, a minor city on the Algerian coast. Its flights are known to be very hard and very tirering since its passengers are people who are not used to travelling, and are therefore very demanding. Also, the flight only lasts a couple of hours, so if you substract the time for take off and descent prior to landing, it only leaves us about 1h20 to serve them a hot meal, clear their trays and do the duty free sales...for a completely full Airbus A321 : 209 passengers!
When I arrived at the briefing room and introduced myself to my cabin chief, first thing she told me was : "Tu vas en chier !" meaning it's going to be hell!. Nice introduction, so there I was, 100% reassured about this coming flight...
Indeed, it was hell. Plane was full, passengers were stressed out, therefore crew was stressed out...! Luckely we had a good crew. It's funny during the one hour stopover in Bejaia as we are waiting for our new passengers, the crew always jokes around. It's a very nice working environment.
Nothing worth telling happened on the way back except that were all getting tired.
My next flight is tomorrow morning and I will be going to Alger, the capital city of Algeria.
13 août 2007
Biskra, Algeria
Airbus A319 that I took to go to the middle of nowherenessland...
Somewhere in the middle of the Algerian desert there is, in between two sand dunes and a few palm trees, an "airport". That's where I was yesterday.
After a nice long night of sleep (nearly thirteen hours) I can tell you more about my third flight. I slept so much because yesterday I had to wake up at 2:50am. Another one of those early wake-ups. I'm almost going to get used to waking up so early. Headed to the airport at 4... It only took me thirty minutes to get there, so there I was, at 4:30, parked and all ready to go... I sat in my car for more or less twenty minutes then decided to go to our briefing room. Remember that it is a Sunday morning. Obviously it was totally empty! To have access to the room, one must enter a code. Only doing an internship, Human Ressources decided we didn't need to know the code, so I waited for another fifteen minutes for somebody to come and open the door...
This morning's flight was an Airbus A319. Max capacity is 144 passengers. Going there we only had 35 passengers, so it was particularly quiet, especially since it was so early. We served them breakfast which only took a couple of minutes then I sat in the fore galley reading the newspaper. The trip back was more crowded, we took in 125 passengers, but it was still fairly easy. After having been on a A321 with 200 plus passengers, the rest is easy! We even landede in Paris ten minutes ahead of schedule which is rarely enough to be underlined!!!
Next flight is Wednesday and I will be going to Bejaia, Algeria. Don't bother asking where it is 'cause I don't have a clue. Then God invented Google and since then, we can find everything everywhere... (that's actually a good line for an ad... ;-)
Goodbye, and thank you for flying with me
09 août 2007
Oran
Yesterday, I flew in this plane... Airbus 321.
Today I feel more rested to talk about my second flight.
It started wrong... My meeting was at 1, so I'd planned an hour and a half to get there. It didn't turn out to be enough. First, the "peripherique" (a "highway" that goes around Paris) was totally jammed. It took me more than an hour to cross it (Porte de Clichy down to Porte d'Orleans - you can GoogleMap it). Then, as I was entering the A6 highway, I noticed they'd just started working on it : from four lines, it was reduced to one, so imagine the trouble! I finally got there fifteen minutes late. Fortunately my briefing hadn't started yet. Nothing noticeable except that we took off thirty minutes late because the passengers were boarding too slowly. Picture this : take a suitcase, so big it could fit both my parents, my sister and me, and also Emma. Now, try to make it fit in a small luggage compartment... Yup, you're right, it is barely possible. Now, multiply this huge suitcase by the number of passengers : 202. Now it is totally impossible to make everything fit. By the way, I don't know if I told you but to become a flight attendant, I also majored in Tetris...
The only major difference with this flight compared to Athens was the length of the trip, a little bit over two hours, and therefore we were always running around, always something to do!
I was able to land in the cockpit which was beautiful : we landed in Paris around 10pm and so we could very well see the Eiffel Tower and all Paris lit up. It was really nice.
Got home at 11:30. Long day!
Next flight is Sunday with Biskra, somewhere in the middle of the Algerian desert...
08 août 2007
Too late to talk about Oran
Just got back from Oran, Algeria : we were delayed one hour.
Am exhausted : it's 11:30pm in Paris and I must go to bed. I will write about my flight tomorrow, but in the meantime, good night :-)
Am exhausted : it's 11:30pm in Paris and I must go to bed. I will write about my flight tomorrow, but in the meantime, good night :-)
04 août 2007
Athens
The plane I was in...
"Welcome aboard flight ZI 501 to Athens. This flight will last approximately two hours and 50 minutes and our estimated time of arrival is 11:14 local time. Temperature in Athens is currently 29°C. Enjoy your flight"!
WILD!!!
First day... This morning I woke up at 2:30. Surprisingly enough, it was easy waking up. As I opened my eyes, the first dose of adrenalin hit me and therefore kept me from going back to sleep. It weird how, when you get sleep deprived (indeed, only three hours last night), everything you do when you wake up is like an automatism. Shaving, getting dressed, even getting my bowl of cereal ready... an automatism. No need to think, no need to focus, only need to feed this young steward. I left home at 3:30. Believe me, streets were empty! I drove to the South Terminal of the Paris-Orly Airport. There, I parked my car in a flight-attendant-parking-only and entered the terminal at only 4:15. It had only taken me 45 minutes to cross Paris and drive 30 kilometers south. Behind the Air Algeria counter there is a small - almost hidden - door. Behind that door, there is an elevator which I took to the 3rd floor. There is our briefing room. I was really early, so I drank a cup of coffee and chatted with some other flight attendants until my crew arrived.
I was surprised how informal it is. Everybody's very well dressed in our uniform, ties and jackets, for men, and lady's suits, well, for ladies. First of all, everybody kisses everybody! When I was in the shuttle driving between our parking lot and the Terminal, some stewardess came to me and did "the bise". I was pretty surprised. Immediately we started talking saying "tu" to one another, as if we knew eachother. Many different companies take off from the South Terminal, but we can tell who works where with our company badge. She was headed to Tenerife, a city off the Canary Islands. Then, second surprise, everybody looked so relaxed!
We had our briefing when you go over the number of passengers (PAX), the type of service (Breakfast-BF, snack-CF or dinner-DF), the duration of the flight and each of the flight attendants' position abord the aircraft : whether you are up front, or in the back, in the galley. This briefing was held with our two pilots who, along with the six of us flight attendants, made a crew of 8 (PEQ8).
We then headed to our plane and so crossed the entire terminal, everybody's eyes were on us. For the first time of my life I went through customs without showing my passport, and it took us less than five minutes! We finally arrived to our plane and started working. ETD was in an hour. Each time a flight attendant gets on a plane, he/she has to check a number of things : security check (life jackets, fire extinguishers, oxygen bottles...) and a commercial check (count the number of meals we have to make sure every passenger will have food. This hour went by really quickly. I was, once more, surprised that the "chef de cabine" (cabin crew leader) was smoking, inside the plane, though no passengers had arrived yet. Then passengers started coming in : "Good morning Sir, good morning Ma'am, welcome aboard", multiplied by 174! I was able to take off from the cockpit. It's really cool. Then I headed back to the galley in the back where we had our breakfast. The chef de cabine was in front with another senior stewardess and I was in the back along with another trainee and two stewardesses. The seat belt sign was still on so that we could have our breakfast calmly, without being disturbed by 22B who wants a blanket, or 14F who would like a glass of water... Then, we did the first service, breakfast, "en grande pompe", meaning two trolleys start at opposite ends of the cabin and meet in the middle, along with "coffee, tea, hot chocolate?". We cleared them, walked a little bit in the cabin to pretend we care, and then sat back down in the galley. I was also able to land in the cockpit which was really amazing. My dream was finally become a reality, my reality!
We only spent an hour in Athens, then back to Paris. Flight home was the same except that we served lunch (DF). Easy cabin, nice passengers, though leaving the place where they'd spent their holidays to come back to Paris' greyness.
I really enjoyed my first flight. Today, I was finally able to fly, eventhough it only lasted six hours and twenty-two minutes. I am now exhausted. It is very tirering. You have to be very fast yet not stressful. Hard challenge!
My next flight is Wednesday, I will be going to Oran, Algeria.
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it.
03 août 2007
Is that what you call early...????
2:30... AM of course!
Tomorrow morning for my first flight I'm going to have to wake at 2:30 in the morning.
Can I work with a cafeine IV? I hope I have enough alarm clocks... I will need quite a few to open my eyes and get up...
Arghhh.
Wish me luck!
Cheers
Tomorrow morning for my first flight I'm going to have to wake at 2:30 in the morning.
Can I work with a cafeine IV? I hope I have enough alarm clocks... I will need quite a few to open my eyes and get up...
Arghhh.
Wish me luck!
Cheers
01 août 2007
Internship...
Hey,
So, update... Aigle Azur (http://www.aigle-azur.fr/) has accepted that I do my internship with them. As I told you a few months ago, in order for me to pass and therefore receive my diploma, I must fly 60 hours to be "trained".
My first flight is Saturday 4th. I will go to Athens, stay an hour and then fly back to Paris.
This internship will last approximately a month, so throughout the month of August I will write my thoughts, views, opinions and experience about my new job, as some of you are, I'm sure, interested in knowing the life of a young flight attendant.
I hope you will enjoy reading this journal as much as I am writing it.
Also, please feel free to write comments.
And most importantly, WELCOME ABOARD :-)
12 avril 2007
New-York
Des vacances bien meritees a New York, et nous voici de retour dans la grisaille parisienne...
02 février 2007
Non respect des mesures de securite...
15 PAX alors que la capacite maximale indiquee est de 12... Bonjour le naufrage... ;-)
24 janvier 2007
Ca galere...
Petit rappel : lorsque je fais monter mon PAX, je ne dois pas tomber avec lui dans le canot...
...et je dois reussir a en sortir... ;-)
...et je dois reussir a en sortir... ;-)
11 janvier 2007
ENFIN !
C'est bon, les resultats sont tombes... C'est bon pour moi !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Et vous ? Mettez un commentaire avec votre resultat et RDV a la Croix Rouge pour le champagne...:-)
Et vous ? Mettez un commentaire avec votre resultat et RDV a la Croix Rouge pour le champagne...:-)
25 décembre 2006
Joyeux Noel
Joyeux Noël à tous et à toutes. J'espère que vous avez tous été gatés. Si ce n'est pas le cas, c'est que vous ne le méritiez pas... ;-)
Bisous et à bientôt
15 décembre 2006
Dur dur...
C'est dur de garder les yeux ouverts apres la piscine a 6h30 a l'autre bout de Paname City...! Pris en flag Jocelyn ;-) Ca ne t'interesse pas ce que Dominique explique sur la balise Garett ???
Tu peux le faire...
On serre les sangles du bas vers le haut, deux par deux, coudes colles au corps...:)
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