July Roster

Once again it’s time for another roster post. I finally finished my reserve month and if you were following along on Instagram you might have seen which flights I got – Milan, London Heathrow, Jeddah, Hong Kong, Casablanca, and finally a Chennai turnaround.

There’s not been too much to blog about as I didn’t do much worthy of pictures, so I don’t have too much to tell! In Milan I headed back to the same restaurant that I went to the week before, and in London I popped into town to do a bit of shopping and pick up some groceries.

Pasta with courgette & courgette flowers in Milan, Italy

London was fairly uneventful until the way back, where we had some problems with the aircraft just as we were about to take off, so had to taxi back to stand, hang around onboard for a while, and finally ended up sending all our passengers on another flight and deadheading back to Dubai! In case you’re not familiar with the term, deadheading just means when you travel as a passenger instead of working the flight!

I was so pleased to get pulled out for Hong Kong as my friend Kirsty has just had her baby, Theo, and I finally got to meet him when he was just 2 weeks old! I also managed to squeeze in a trip to my favourite Din Tai Fung, which is luckily just a few minutes walk from our hotel in Causeway Bay.

Xiao long bao, green beans with pork, and a new favourite – spicy wontons!

After Hong Kong I ended up with over a week off, with a couple of airport standbys where I didn’t get used. These are pretty boring, as you have to go in uniform, with your suitcase packed, and sit for four hours along with everyone else who is on standby! I managed to finish one book and get through a few YouTube videos those days!

After that was a trip to Casablanca, which you can read about here. Just when I thought my reserve was finished, I got one last turnaround to Chennai, India. I also had a rostered turnaround to Nairobi, which is a very long day, and then 5 days off, which I’m spending at home with my family.

So that brings me to my July roster, which has just been published!

I’ll be heading to:

  • JFK – New York, USA
  • BKK – HKG – Bangkok, Thailand (Layover) & Hong Kong (Turnaround)
  • MHD – Mashhad, Iran (Turnaround)
  • HYD – Hyderabad, India (Turnaround)
  • Leave
  • DUS – Düsseldorf, Germany
  • LED – St Petersburg, Russia

The only flight that I got that I asked for was St Petersburg, and somehow I’ve been rostered to fly with my good friend Sebastian!

Considering that this was my “second top” (i.e. the second highest bidding seniority month!) I’m not too impressed. I asked for Fort Lauderdale and instead got two 24 hour layovers in JFK and IAD! Luckily I managed to swap the IAD (Washington DC) for BKK-HKG, which I’m very happy about. Although I haven’t visited Washington yet, having two US flights in a row is too much, and I have been bidding (unsuccessfully!) for Bangkok for months. On this specific trip you have a 24 hour layover in BKK, then fly to HKG and back in the same day, then have another 24 hour layover in BKK. I can’t wait for a massage and some yummy Thai food! 🙂

Two night time turnarounds in a row before my leave, which I’ll be using to head back to Austria for the wedding of my friends Iris and Claudio. I can’t wait!

Then on to Düsseldorf, though fingers crossed I can swap that for a Munich to go and see my brother Matt and his girlfriend Miriam. The crew hotel in Munich is much nicer than in Düsseldorf though, so I wouldn’t be surprised if my swaps get rejected purely for that kind of reason! We will see 😉

Lastly, St Petersburg, which as I said I bid for, as it’s somewhere that I’ve never been and I’m really looking forward to exploring. Any tips would be much appreciated, especially if you have any nice restaurant recommendations for dinner!

Please do let me know if there’s anything you would like to read about on here; as you can see I’ve been fairly slack on the blogging this month as I haven’t been up to too much on my layovers!

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

8 Comments

  1. Louise
    June 21, 2017 / 2:28 am

    Hi Rachel,
    How soon after your roster is published can you do swaps and is there a limit to when you must have swapped by? You wouldn’t be able to swap a flight a couple of days before departure would you?
    BKK is one of my favourite cities. I am soon to be crew but not for EK! UK based

    • thedubaidiaries
      Author
      June 29, 2017 / 8:47 pm

      Hi Louise! You can swap pretty much as soon as the roster is published, although right after it’s out the system is very slow as everyone is trying to swap. You can actually send a swap 48 hours before departure and accept a swap up to 24 hours before so you could definitely have a last minute change on your roster! 🙂 Good luck for when you start your crew training! 🙂

  2. keetdog
    June 20, 2017 / 7:58 pm

    Hi Rachel

    I really enjoy your blog, thank you for writing and sharing. EK cabin crew is one of my dream jobs and it’s always great to hear and learn more about the job.

    Would you consider a blog post about roughly how many EK destinations you have flown to so far, and maybe a ‘bucket list’ of destinations you haven’t flown to yet and would be keen to visit? Just a thought 🙂

    In St Petersburg I would recommend visiting the Church on Spilled Blood, St Isaac’s Cathedral, and the Hermitage Museum, if you have time. St Petersburg is a wonderful city, I hope you enjoy it

    • thedubaidiaries
      Author
      June 29, 2017 / 8:46 pm

      Hi there! Thanks so much for reading, I’m so happy to hear you enjoy my blog 🙂 I can definitely do a bucket list post, I actually have a notebook with a list of all the destinations and slowly I’m ticking them off!
      Thanks for the great tips for St Petersburg, I will definitely try and check all of those out! 🙂

  3. Joanne Henderson
    June 20, 2017 / 12:28 pm

    I know blogs can be lacking in feedback so just wanted to say thanks for the fab job you do, I love reading all about where you’ve been, where you are going and what you think of the places. Good job xx

    • thedubaidiaries
      Author
      June 29, 2017 / 8:45 pm

      Thank you so much Joanne, that’s a lovely comment to receive 🙂 xx

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