The Dubai Diaries
My life as a flight attendant in the Middle East!

September Roster

I’m sure I said the same last month, but where on earth has this year gone?! It’s just flown by, and it’ll be Christmas before we know it!

But before that, I’ve got some flights to do, so without further ado here is my roster for September.

  • SKT (Sialkot, Pakistan – turnaround)
  • MEL – AKL (Melbourne, Australia – Auckland, New Zealand & then back to Melbourne)
  • FCO (Rome, Italy)
  • HKT (Phuket, Thailand)
  • DOH (Doha, Qatar – turnaround)
  • SYD (Sydney, Australia)

Two quick turnarounds, although maybe someone will be kind enough to take the first one and give me a day off?! Unlikely but you never know! 😀

The MEL – AKL trip is over 6 days and even though I usually don’t like long multi sector trips I’m very happy with this one as I’ll get to see my cousin Sarah who lives in Melbourne. I’m also hoping she’ll be able to accompany me on the layover to Auckland, which should be fun.

Then I’m heading back to Rome, one of my favourite cities in Italy, where I’ll be indulging in plenty of pasta and gelato!

After that I’m lucky enough to have been rostered a 48 hour layover in Phuket! Normally almost all of our layovers (other than west coast US) are just 24 hours, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that on my roster.

Then another quick turnaround to Doha – this is one of the shortest flights we have at around 50 minutes each way, so it’s a quick afternoon’s work back in time for dinner!

At the end of the month I’ll be heading off to Sydney, a direct flight there and back with a 30 hour layover. I was rostered a London but swapped with my friend Sally so she could have some extra days off after her leave and I can see my grandparents who I haven’t seen in far too long. Win-win situation!

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! 🙂

Amsterdam in the sunshine

If you read my August roster post, you would have seen that I was rostered to fly to LHR this month. Since I went home for 5 days at the end of June, and the timings of the Heathrow flight weren’t ideal to go home, when I was sent a swap for Amsterdam, I decided to accept it! It also meant I could have a lie-in before the flight… 😉

We landed into Amsterdam early evening, and were greeted by the most beautiful sunset. I felt like we deserved it after a very hectic full flight!

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Once we got to the hotel a group of us met downstairs in the restaurant for dinner, and discussed plans for the next day. I’ve been to Amsterdam plenty of times (including before working for Emirates) so I wasn’t particularly fussed about doing much. However the weather forecast looked great and it’s a shame not to enjoy European summer whilst it lasts, so we made plans to head to the city in the morning.

6 of us took the train into the city, and after a short ride were ready to do some exploring! Out of all of the others, I think there was only 1 other person who’d been before, so as you can imagine everyone was stopping to take pictures every few metres. Myself and one of the lovely girls from economy, Sarah (who also reads my blog – yay!) split off and made our way through the windy streets.

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Wat Pho & The Grand Palace, Bangkok

I’ve been to Bangkok almost 10 times since I started flying, yet somehow I’ve just never gotten round to visiting any of the temples there! Whilst I’ve visited the incredible Chatuchak Weekend Market (which is over 35 acres in size) and tried my hand at cooking some delicious Thai dishes, I decided it was probably about time I go and see what Thailand is really all about.

Since we landed early evening, a group of us headed to dinner at a lovely little restaurant just a few minutes walk from the hotel – every crew knows it and inside was another group of crew who were on their first leg of the 9-day Bangkok – Sydney – Christchurch trip. After a delicious (but very spicy!) dinner accompanied by a fresh coconut and finished with mango sticky rice of course, it was time to call it a night.

A couple of the girls from economy planned to head to the temples in the morning, so I asked if I could join. We met the next morning armed with a map and some Thai Baht, ready to explore.

A quick tuk tuk ride later we were at the Chao Phraya river, from where we would sail on down towards Wat Pho, also known as the Temple of The Reclining Buddha.

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After negotiating with the man selling the boat tickets (and I’m certain we were ripped off, but no amount of bargaining would get him to lower the price!) we had our own little boat to take us up the river.

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Cycling Central Park, New York!

One of my latest trips took me to the wonderful city of New York, in the good old USA! I still can’t decide if I love NYC or am not too bothered about the city, but since it was just a 24 layover this time I wanted to make the most of my time there.

The weather forecast was looking great – a “cool” 33 degrees, compared to an average of 47 in Dubai that’s the perfect temperature! We departed Dubai around 2 in the morning, so not the best time to be awake. Luckily that meant our passengers were just as tired as we were, and the majority of them slept for a large portion of the flight. After 14 hours (with a 2,5 hour break to sleep in the crew bunks) we finally touched down in JFK, ready for some exploring!

Due to the time difference it was still morning, but by the time we navigated the terrible traffic in the city it was around lunchtime when we finally arrived at the hotel. Myself and one of the other business class crew, Bradley, decided to hire biked and cycle around Central Park.

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The weather was perfect, although I perhaps should have thought to bring some suncream! We found a place offering bikes for 20 dollars for the day, so were soon sorted out with a ride.

There is a huge bike path that’s as big as a road that goes all around the park, so we followed along with the crowd and cycled wherever we liked the look of.

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August Roster & Some Exciting News

My roster for August has just been published, so I thought I’d share it with you guys as I usually do!

I don’t have any new destinations next month, however I’m happy as I got a couple of flights that I bid for. Even though I’m actually at the bottom of the bidding seniority, somehow it seemed to work in my favour!

So in August I’ll be flying to:

  • LGW (London Gatwick)
  • HKG (Hong Kong)
  • BKK (Bangkok)
  • ZRH (Zurich)
  • LHR (London Heathrow)
  • HKG (Hong Kong)
  • LHE (Lahore – turnaround)
  • BKK – HKG – BKK (Bangkok, shuttle to Hong Kong and back, then back to Bangkok)

I requested Bangkok so I could get a good massage – yes, that’s what my life has come to, bidding for flights just so I can get a massage! 😉 I also asked for Hong Kong so I could catch up with my lovely friend and ex-flatmate Kirsty, who I haven’t seen in a while. I actually can’t remember what else I bid for, but it’s a pretty standard roster for me with good flying hours (and only one turnaround!).

In other exciting news … I’m moving up to First Class! I had my assessment yesterday and received an email this morning letting me know that I’d passed! Hopefully I won’t have to wait too long for my training and then I’ll be working in first class instead of business 🙂

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P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! 🙂