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

Flying a Boeing Sim in Dubai!

A few months ago, I was very kindly invited by TFT Aero to come down to their simulator and experience flying, as a pilot! I’ve been cabin crew for almost 9 years now, so I’m fairly familiar with the cockpit, however I’ve never actually tried flying the plane myself.

As you can imagine, I was super excited to try flying… and let me tell you, it’s not as easy as it looks! TFT Aero have a Boeing 737 Sim, so whilst it’s a different aircraft to the 777’s we have at Emirates, the cockpit is similar. Don’t ask me for any technical details though as I’m definitely no expert!

I was invited to bring a friend, so I took along my friend Sally to experience the Sim. She loved it just as much as I did!

Once we arrived at the simulator in JBR, the pilots welcomed us and showed us to the Sim, which they’d built completely themselves. Extremely impressive!

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Starting service


Last Thursday saw the start of our Service training. This is probably the most important part customer wise, as it is what our passengers see and give us feedback on. We have been given another workbook (as we do for each part of training) which is the thickest one so far, so this should be a fun 10 days!

On Thursday we started learning about what is in all of the cupboards and stowages onboard. As a passenger you don’t even realise the amount of hidden away cupboards and storage places, and I never would have guessed that an airplane has half the amount of things on board that it does! There is a ton of paperwork and forms that can be filled out in different situations, and then lots of spares of pretty much everything imaginable. We have an amenities container, which even has things like baby nappies and bottles in it! Our trainers also showed us a little packet of powder which turns to jelly when poured on wet substances, so that will be useful when we have to clear up vomit…have to say I’m not looking forward to that, haha!

Today we started learning how to do the actual service, so we were in the sim for a while doing practicals. We learnt about the welcome services the airline has – this is basically things such as offering hot towels, toys for children, menus and landing cards, that kind of thing. On Thursday we will be doing our first mock-up flight in the sim, so that will be 4 hours; serving real food and drinks etc!

At the end of the day today we went into a room called a Majlis – which is like an Arabic living/sitting area. In there we played a game with the other batch that is on the evening shifts, getting to know a bit more about the Arabic culture and Islam. It was pretty fun and we even got to go home early, yay!

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This weekend was pretty fun; Friday was spent lazing by the pool and getting our nails done! In the evening Michelle, Sally, Peter and I went to Barasti for a few hours which was really fun, we also ended up hanging out with Basshunter who just happened to be there with a friend! On Saturday we had another lovely day by the pool, I even managed to get a bit of a tan!

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Now it’s back to learning hundreds of airport codes (which I need to know for this week’s exam, what fun…) and all about drinks served onboard in preparation for tomorrow!

Something I totally forgot to mention but which was definitely the highlight of my week….I got my first roster!!! The first 10 days are standby, so I’m not sure where my first flight will be to, but towards the end of the month I’ll be flying to Kuala Lumpur, Chennai (India – relatively short flight so it’s only a turnaround) and Zurich! SO EXCITING! 😀

SEP Training has started!


The SEP Training (Safety and Emergency Procedures) has started! This, along with GMT (Group Medical Training) is supposedly the hardest part of our 7 weeks of training, and I can see why! It’s a lot to do, with theory and practials all day. Our batch has been put on the late shift, so we have training college from 3:30pm to 11:30 at night! We also get given homework to do – we have a thick workbook which is gradually being filled out and revision to do each day. This means either staying up after getting home at midnight or getting up early the next morning to do it before class.

Yesterday was our first time in the simulator….and it was so fun! We took a trip to Doha (not really, but that was where the flight simulation was going) and experienced some turbulence. We had all learnt the day before what to do during light, moderate and severe turbulence, and in groups we took turns acting out different scenarios.

The whole time the trainers were making notes about us and writing down anything anyone did wrong, so everyone felt quite a bit of pressure to do well. Luckliy we all passed the simulator practicals, but we still have a lot more to go. This is literally just the beginning of training! We will start having theory tests from next week as well, and need a pass grade of at least 80% or else we will have to repeat the week!

Something else that happened this week….it was Christmas!! Our trainers gave us the day off (which unfortunately means that we have to go in on Saturday to make up for it) and a group of us arranged to go to the beach. On Christmas Eve we all decided to go out in the evening, and a few of us who live in the same area met up before to get a taxi together. We had such a fun night! It also ended pretty differently to any Christmas Eve/day I’ve had so far…with the taxi driver taking us to a McDonald’s drive-through on our way home! I have to say, I never thought that I would be eating a McChicken on Christmas Day!

The next morning (Christmas Day!) we all met up to go the beach and spent the afternoon sunbathing. We wanted to go for a swim in the sea as well, but after putting 1 toe in decided it was too cold! Afterwards of course we had to go and have Christmas Dinner, so we wandered along Jumierah Road (at least that’s what I think it was called!) until we found a restaurant that looked nice. I ordered chicken, lamb and beef skewers with wild rice and grilled vegetables – definitely not the normal roast turkey but still pretty tasty!

We also had our uniforms fitted the other day, which was pretty exciting! They gave me a skirt which was about 3 sizes too big, but refused to even let me try on a smaller one, so once we get our uniforms I’ll have to see just how much too big it will be! The rest all fitted fine though, so I’m really looking forward to getting our uniform (especially the hat!) and suitcases in a couple of weeks. I’ve also heard that we get our roster with our first supy flights (= supernumerary flights are where we are considered an “extra” onboard, so we can get to know how everything works in real life!) at the same time, so I’m really looking forward to finding out where my first layover will be! I’m hoping for an exotic destination somewhere hot, by the beach!

Now it’s time to get back to some more revision – at the moment I’m learning about Pre-Flight Checks. This basically means checking all the emergency equipment is available and in the correct place on board. We will all be asked questions on it tomorrow in our 15 minute brief at the beginning of the session, and then I think we are going to do decompression (loss of pressure in the cabin) in the simulator tomorrow – should be fun!

I can’t wait until we get our residency visas (hopefully in about 3 weeks time!) so we can finally get wifi in our flat – it’s so annoying having to come to the internet cafe any time I want to get on the computer!