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

February Roster

Another month, another roster! January is already flying by, and it’s been a fairly uneventful month so far. I did say I would try to make the most of my layovers, but most of them have been spent alternating between sleeping, working out and drinking lots of coffee!

Let’s see where next month will take me:

  • STN – London Stansted, UK
  • VIE – Vienna, Austria
  • BHX – Birmingham, UK
  • KHI – Karachi, Pakistan (turnaround)
  • FRA – Frankfurt, Germany
  • MLE – Male, Maldives (turnaround)
  • RUH – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (turnaround)
  • KUL – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • BP – Business Promotion
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First up is a trip home, which I’m very happy about! The only one of my bids that I got, and although I would have loved 2 Stansteds, I’m still grateful I get to go home and see my parents.

Following on from that is a flight to Vienna – I did bid for this in December to go and see the Christmas markets, but perhaps this time there will be some snow.

Straight after is Birmingham, which I’ve only visited once. I have been to Stratford-upon-Avon which is nearby; a beautiful quaint English town which happens to be the birthplace of Shakespeare! Highly recommended for a day trip.

Next up will be a turnaround to Karachi and back. I haven’t done this flight in a while as it is two-class, i.e. no first class, so I wasn’t rostered it while I was working in first class.

Then I have a flight to Frankfurt, which I have visited plenty of times in the past. I’m not sure what I’ll do there, as I expect it’ll be pretty chilly!

I’ve then been rostered two more turnarounds, to Male and Riyadh. Male is one of the longest turnarounds we have and it’s a pretty tiring one, as you fly through the night. The pilots also get to stay in the Maldives for 24 hours while we just go there and back! 

My last flight of February will be to Kuala Lumpur. I was actually rostered this flight in January as well, however swapped it for a quick trip to Milan. So I’m hoping for a nice flight to KL next month with some delicious street food! Someone has sent me a swap for Phnom Penh – which one would you take?

Lastly is a business promotion event – I haven’t done one of these since I started the cabin supervisor pool, so I’m very excited! I should find out soon which event I’ll be representing the company at.

So even though February is the shortest month of the year, somehow I have a very busy roster with 8 flights and a BP event! Let’s hope it’s a good one 🙂

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May Roster


I feel like the months are rolling round quicker than ever, and just as spring has hit, it seems summer is only just around the corner!

I’m already imagining sitting outside in the beautiful May sunshine sipping on an aperol spritz and reading a good book…just perhaps not in Dubai where the temperatures are already in the 30’s at the end of April! So let’s see where I’ll be heading next month, of course this could always change last minute as I send or accept swaps for any of these flights.

  • MNL
  • BOM
  • FRA
  • BRU
  • MEL – AKL
  • LHR

Now let me dissect that a little bit – first up is a 30 hour layover in Manila, in the Philippines. I’m not sure if I’ll keep this flight as the area we stay is quite far from the airport and the city, which means it can take hours to get anywhere as the traffic is insane. I’ve been once before but I didn’t get up to too much!

Then is a quick daytime turnaround to Bombay, India, which is luckily my only turnaround flight in May. After that I have 24 hours in Frankfurt, which I’ve visited a few times. As a German speaker I usually get at least one German destination a month, and these flights are quite hard to swap when you’re the “official” language speaker.

After my Frankfurt and before my next flight I have a lovely string of days where my boyfriend and I are hoping to get away on a little holiday somewhere. We’re thinking of perhaps heading to Lisbon, unless you guys have any other suggestions? Then I’m off to Brussels, which is a first with Emirates, although I visited a few years ago when I went interrailing with my best friend Lucy. Perhaps I can squeeze in a visit to Bruges, as I’ve heard it’s a much nicer city than Brussels itself!

Next up is a 6 day trip to Melbourne and Auckland. If you’re a regular reader of my blog you’ll know I’m not a huge fan of these long multi-sector trips, as they’re exhausting and you tend to be completely jet lagged by the end! So fingers crossed I can swap that trip for something a little bit shorter.

Last but not least, how could a month go by without a trip to London Heathrow! Recently LHR has been appearing regularly on my roster, so it was no surprise to see it again.

There you have it, another month has flown by and tonight I’m off to Singapore, where I’m looking forward to eating some delicious Asian food and hopefully lapping up some sunshine by the pool (that’s if the thunderstorms stay away!). I’ve got a new book to take with me which I’ve just started, called “The Girl On The Train” which is already gripping and I’m only a couple of chapters in.

Hope you enjoyed seeing my roster for May, and as always feel free to leave any questions or comments down below!

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Discovering Frankfurt


Frankfurt is a city that I never really thought twice about. I’ve actually flown there a couple of times, but since we used to stay in a hotel away from the city, most of the crew would just meet for drinks in the hotel and have a relaxing layover. However, since our new crew hotel is now only a 20 minute walk from the city centre, I decided to give it a visit!

If you saw my July roster post you would have seen that I was meant to be flying to Guangzhou. Well, I checked my roster a couple of days before and it had suddenly changed to Frankfurt! No complaints on my side; although Guangzhou would have been a new city to tick off the list, it’s not somewhere I’m particularly fussed about visiting.

The flight over to Frankfurt was nice and short, around 6 hours, although it was a 3am departure which meant lots of coffee was needed! Once we arrived I had a good nap, then got myself ready to do some exploring.

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Getting into bed as the sun is rising – that’s cabin crew life for you!

After a scorching walk into the city (35 degrees no less, I almost felt like I was back in Dubai but without the air-con!) it was time to hit the shops.

The central street in Frankfurt is called the Zeil, and has everything you could ever need! I was on a mission to find shoes to go with my dress for Kirsty’s wedding next month (my ex-flatmate who has now moved to Hong Kong) but it was mission unsuccessful this time.

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November Roster


So I know we’re already almost a week in to November, but I realised I haven’t put my roster up here!

I’m now officially on my second month of working in business class and I almost feel like I know what I’m doing! 😉

So here goes:

  • New York (which I’ve just done a blog post about!)
  • Singapore
  • London Gatwick
  • Munich
  • Frankfurt (I was originally rostered Beijing but somebody sent me a swap for this!)
  • Paris

All of these flights are on the A380, and I’ve also got quite a few days off in a row which is lovely!

As always feel free to leave me any comments and suggestions for future blog posts 🙂

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter @rachelwwilson for more day-to-day updates of what’s happening in my life!

Frankfurt, Madrid and next month’s roster!


First of all my apologies for the long break since my last post. I didn’t even realise it’s been over two weeks since I updated on here! At the moment I’m actually on leave, however I decided to stay in Dubai and just enjoy a bit of time relaxing and not flying anywhere for once! My last post was about my amazing trip to Seattle, and after that I had two back to back Frankfurt flights and a trip to Madrid. 

Both of the Frankfurts were very uneventful! I get German flights pretty much every month, and I kind of see them as my chance to go to a nice supermarket and stock up on fresh foods, as well as getting some quality sleeping/ TV watching in! These two trips were no different. The weather was not very nice – cold, rainy and pretty miserable, so I just did my supermarket shops and had a couple of drinks in the hotel bar with the crew.

My last trip before my leave was Madrid. I was actually very excited when I saw this on my roster, as even though I lived in Spain for 3 months I was working 6 days a week so didn’t really have the chance to see many other cities. The flight out was nice and easy, only half full and a chance to practice my Spanish, which is getting a little rusty! 😉 We arrived around lunchtime and it was 5 degrees and pouring with rain. Definitely not what my weather app had predicted! Nonetheless, a group of us decided to venture out, have a little walk around the hotel and find somewhere to have a bite to eat. We ended up in a place called “Museo del Jamon” and all ordered plenty of plates of ham, salami, chorizo and cheese to share. Very unlike me I didn’t actually take any pictures, believe it or not!
After our late lunch we hopped on the metro to the city centre. By the time we got there it was getting dark and the rain was not stopping at all. So of course we spent way too much time in the shops! 😉 I was a little disappointed as I actually wanted to do some sightseeing and walk around the city, but the weather was not really on my side. Also, none of the other crew were interested in doing anything but shopping, so I’ll have to save it for the next trip.

Once I got back from Madrid I was officially on leave! I’ve been spending lots of time with Joey, going on walks around Dubai (now that the weather is finally cool enough to actually walk around) finishing season 2 of Homeland (so good!!), catching up on lots more TV whilst Joey has been at work…you get the point! 😉  

Yesterday the most exciting part of my month happened….roster day!!! Who wants to take a guess at where I’ll be going next month. . . 

  • Toronto! And not just your average 24hr layover, I’ll be staying there for 77hrs! 3 days! 😀
  • Bangkok! Haven’t been to Bangkok since June so that should be good, I’m hoping I’ll have time to go to the Tiger Temple.
  • Sydney! A trip to Aus means I can hopefully pop down to Canberra and visit my grandparents and auntie, uncle and cousin 🙂
  • Last but not least….leave at Christmas!

So that’s it – just 3 flights next month! I’ll be going home over Christmas which is very exciting, as Joey will also be coming with me 🙂 And then the 1st of January the dreaded SEP recurrent exams :O Which will mean lots of studying over Christmas!

So there you go, a little update on my rather boring life recently! I’d also just like to say a big thanks to everyone that reads, follows, comments on my blog, etc. Cheesy as it may sound it really does make my day when I see a comment on my blog 🙂

 
P.s. If you want more regular day to day updates of what is happening in my life, follow me on Twitter and Instagram @rachelwwilson!