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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January Roster

Just like that, 2020 is upon us! The past year flew by so quickly, and I feel like sometimes I just live waiting for the roster each month.

Whilst I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions as such, I will try my hardest to make the most of all of my layovers, and get out and explore as much as possible!

As for this month’s roster, here goes:

  • LIS – Lisbon, Portugal
  • PEK – Beijing, China
  • SYD – CHC – Sydney, Australia & Christchurch, New Zealand
  • KUL – Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
  • JED – Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (turnaround)
  • ARN – Stockholm, Sweden

Sadly I didn’t get a single one of my bids, but I did have my top bid month in December, so wasn’t expecting too much. Not my favourite roster I’ve ever had, but it could be worse!

I started the month (and year!) off with a flight to Lisbon – although it was quiet it was very long at just over 8 hours there. Having been to Lisbon on holiday previously, I had a quiet layover with a bit of browsing round the shops, although it was super busy with post-Christmas shoppers.

Next up is Beijing – a destination I haven’t visited in a while. I tried to swap this flight but with no success, so I’ll see what the rest of the crew fancy doing when I’m there. 

Following on from that is a multi-sector trip to Sydney and Christchurch. I also tried to swap this one as I’ve only just been to Sydney, and I’d rather do shorter flights, but there are so many swap legalities that it was impossible. Hopefully the smoke from the awful bushfires doesn’t get any worse. 

After my multi-sector down under, it’s back to Asia, with a trip to Kuala Lumpur. It’s actually been a year since I last visited, but the timing of this flight is not ideal – we fly through the night from Dubai and get there early morning.

Then I have a quick turnaround to Jeddah and back, let’s hope it’s uneventful. Once again not great timing – leaving Dubai at midnight and getting back at 8am.

My last flight of the month is to Stockholm, the one I’m looking forward to the most! I’m really hoping for some snow, as I haven’t been anywhere with snow yet this winter.

And that’s it for January 2020… I wonder where else this year will take me!

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

London, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai – this month’s destinations!


The last time I posted (was that really 10 days ago already?!) my friends had just left Dubai and I had a flight to London. That was pretty uneventful; it’s an easy night flight and the hotel beds are to die for! I made the obligatory trip to Primark and stocked up on a few maxi skirts and dresses (essential in Dubai!) and of course, plenty of work tights.

Back in Dubai I had 2 days off, and to be honest I can’t remember what I did – probably lots of sunbathing and eating! That seems to be what I do best at the moment! 😀

After that I was back to Kuala Lumpur for the second time this month. We arrive at the hotel just in time for the start of happy hour, so of course a few of us made out way down to the pool and tried a couple of the buy one get free cocktails in the sun before dinner. A group of us took the metro two stops to the street restaurant area and all shared lots of delicious food!

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After dinner a couple of us stopped off at the market area and I got a new watch for work. The next morning a few of the girls were going to the caves and I had originally planned to go with them but I ended up sleeping in and then going to gym. Before the wake up call in the afternoon I decided to go to the Petronas Towers and have a browse around in the shopping mall inside. I also got some chicken satay for lunch overlooking some lovely fountains!

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After KL I had 2 days off again and then another trip to London. I was flying with Jess, one of my batch mates, which was great 🙂 Once we arrived at the hotel we decided to go straight out and go to Primark and also go for a big food shop at Asda! I stocked up on lots of bacon, sausages, crumpets, English muffins and wine! 😀

Once I arrived back in Dubai in the evening I got the bus home, showered and got ready as quick as I could and headed straight out to the Shangri La to meet all of the girls! I think this was the first time since training college that all of us were together! We had a really great evening and it was so lovely catching up with everyone together!

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On Sunday my friend Bruno invited me and a couple of his friends round for dinner – roast pork! It was so delicious and definitely just what I needed, washed down with a few glasses of wine and some cocktails!

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Yesterday Sally and I spent the day relaxing at Emirates Towers pool (free entrance for FACE card users, yes!) and getting a bit of sun. Even though it wasn’t the hottest day ever in Dubai, it was a refreshing change to have a bit of a breeze and some clouds! I still managed to top up my tan slightly!

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Thursday early morning I’m back off to Kuala Lumpur again, and then the May roster will have come out, which is very exciting, I can’t wait to find out which new destinations I’ll be going to! 🙂

Back again!


So I have just had a nice 12 hour catch up on sleep after my last couple of flights – I got back from Chennai, India last night!
I was rostered for this flight with one of my lovely batchmates, Cully, and as she lives near me we got on the bus together to go to HQ before the flight. We were sitting waiting for the gates to open when I got a call, telling me that the aircraft configuration had changed and they wouldn’t be needing me, so were putting me on airport standby for four hours! I wasn’t really that bothered, so I went and had a coffee and waited for my standby to start. Once I signed in and sat down, I got called literally straight away for a flight. Turns out they had put me back on the same Chennai flight!
Luckily on the way there it was only 2/3 full, so was not too bad at all. On the way back the plane was completely full, so we were rushed off our feet! There seemed to be at least 10 call bells going off at once at all times, and there was always something to do! During the meal service we ran out of the vegetarian option and the passengers at the back who didn’t have a choice were getting quite angry at us! 
Luckily the crew were awesome and we all worked well together and had fun!

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Chennai Airport from the back of the plane!

Before my turnaround to India I had something much more exciting…Kuala Lumpur! The flight there was pretty busy and demanding, and every other passenger wanted pot noodles instead of the meal service, but I didn’t really mind as I couldn’t wait to get to Malaysia! Once we arrived we got the bus to the hotel (which was beautiful!!), checked in, had a quick shower and met downstairs for dinner. By this time it was about 11:30 already, but about 8 of us took taxis to an area full of street restaurants and chose one. I had some pad thai which was pretty tasty, and everyone else tried some other kind of Asian dish! 
After dinner we had a walk along the street and headed back to the hotel. The next day Cully and I met up for breakfast…and yes, I did abuse the buffet and eat as much as possible! 
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After breakfast we met up with 2 of the other girls and headed out to Chinatown to do some shopping! We had originally planned to go to the Batu Caves, but decided we were too tired and wanted to do some shopping instead! 
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All of us managed to buy something – bags, scarves, watches etc! I bought a gorgeous blue Celine bag! (Unfortunately not the real thing…but who can tell! :D). After shopping we went back to the hotel to put our stuff away, and walked to see the Petronas Towers. They used to be the tallest buildings in the world and are very impressive, especially at night when they are all lit up! We didn’t go up, but we did take some obligatory tourist pictures in front of them!
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We wanted to get a massage before going home; one of the girls decided to stay at the hotel, so we walked to a Thai massage place and went for the 90 minute full body massage!! It was quite nice, but Cully’s lady kept burping which we could all hear through the walls! We also got asked if we wanted “special special”….which we still aren’t quite sure of the meaning of, but we definitely did not want it!
Coming out of the massage place it started to absolutely pour, so we got soaked getting in a taxi back to the hotel! It was only about a 5 minute walk but we would have got so wet walking back that we had to get a taxi! The driver however had no clue where he was going and we had to get out halfway through, cross the road and get a different taxi!

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Once back in the hotel I went to bed to have a nice few hours sleep before the flight home. I ordered some room service and had it in bed before getting ready to fly back home to Dubai!

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Room service in bed….club sandwich is always a good choice!

Now I have 3 days off (although it is 2pm already and I’m not dressed yet…so today doesn’t really count!) and then I will be off to Zurich! Have to say I’m very excited to be back in Europe and possibly see some snow! I’m not sure if I brought any winter clothes with me when moving here so I might have to wear lots and lots of layers!

Next months roster came out yesterday as well ….and it’s amazing!!! I only have one turnaround to Karachi at the end of the month, and I’ve got a trip to Singapore – Melbourne – Singapore, Milan, Shanghai (2 day layover!), Munich and Dublin! Especially excited about the Melbourne, as my cousin has just moved there for uni so I’ll be meeting up with her as soon as I get there!

Now time to get dressed and pop over to headquarters to get a few things sorted out, and then enjoy my days off!