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

March Roster

Finally, my reserve month is over! It felt like a much longer month than usual, and I was kept busy with lots of flights.

If you didn’t manage to keep up on Instagram, I went to Warsaw, Jeddah (x2), London Gatwick, Dallas, Johannesburg and Bombay. I also had 2 airport standbys where I didn’t get used. All in all plenty to keep me busy, although I have to say most of my layovers were spent relaxing, eating and going to the gym! 

Next month I have some nice flights, and will be heading off to:

  • MLE – Male, Maldives (turnaround)
  • BKK – Bangkok, Thailand
  • KRT – Khartoum, Sudan (turnaround)
  • BP – Business Promotions Event
  • LHR – London Heathrow, UK
  • VIE – Vienna, Austria
  • HKG x2 – Hong Kong

Both the Male and Khartoum turnarounds are quite long days (around 4 hours each way) so although sadly I don’t get to stay in the Maldives, it will be plenty of flying hours.

Funnily enough I’ve been bidding for Bangkok for months with no luck, and now when I didn’t bid for it, I got one! I’m already looking forward to some Pad Thai and a massage.

Then I have a BP event, which I’m still waiting to hear the details about.

Up next is a Heathrow, which I would love to swap for a Stansted to be able to go home, but I’m not holding out too much hope for that one!

Following on from Heathrow is Vienna! Again, a flight that I didn’t bid for but am always happy to see on my roster. 

Last up are two flights to Hong Kong, one of my favourite destinations and one that I did bid for. My lovely friend and old flatmate Kirsty is due to give birth very soon, so I’ll be able to meet her baby which I’m very excited about!

I also have 4 days off towards the end of the month, and am trying to plan a little trip away somewhere not too far from Dubai. Any suggestions?!

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

A Rodeo in Fort Worth, Texas

A home standby from 9pm – 5am meant I was refreshing my roster all day, hoping that a nice flight would appear. 9pm on the dot, after having unsuccessfully tried to sleep for a few hours, DFW appeared! I have to say, I was expecting to get a long flight as I’d had two days off prior (the legal requirement for us to get a ULR – ultra long range – flight), but I didn’t expect it to be Dallas, as I have one rostered in 2 weeks time!

Never mind, I quickly got up and packed my suitcase, waiting for crew control to ring and confirm the flight.

Departure time was scheduled for 2:50am, so the least I could hope for was that my passengers would go straight to sleep. Luckily I was also finally back to working in first class!

Flight time was a long 15 hours and 20 minutes, and as I was first to go on break, it felt like the longest 15 hours ever! 

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February Roster

Welcome back to another roster post! It’s a short one this month, as not only is February a shorter month, but I’m still on reserve up until the 11th.

If you saw my January roster post you’ll know I started my month of reserve on the 11th, and so far it’s been very quiet. I’ve had a couple of airport standbys where I didn’t get used, a layover in Warsaw and two turnarounds to Jeddah and back.

As you can imagine, I’m itching to get out of Dubai! I’ve still got two weeks left of reserve so I’m really hoping for a layover or two. It’s pretty hard to make any plans as you usually don’t know where you’ll be the next day until 6pm, so even things like food shopping is tricky!

Once I finish my reserve I’ve only got three rostered flights in February, and these are:

  • DFW – Dallas Fort Worth, USA
  • FRA – Frankfurt, Germany
  • MUC – Munich, Germany

Sadly nothing that I bid for, but at least they are layovers, and with the Dallas I’ll have plenty of flying hours!

Since I’m the language speaker for the German flights, I can’t swap either of those. My brother used to live in Munich but moved to Lithuania a few months ago for his pilot training, so I’m not sure what I’ll do on either of those layovers yet!

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

Bangkok, Thailand – Bang Kachao, An Island Escape in the City


I have been to Bangkok so many times over the past 6 years with Emirates, and it’s a destination I’m always happy to return to. Delicious Thai food, amazing cheap massages, and a short-ish flight makes it a popular destination for almost everyone!

However, as with every destination that you’ve been to more times than you can count, you end up getting into your routine there. (See above – Thai food and a great massage!). So when I was there recently and one of our crew suggested visiting a small island in the city for a day out, I jumped at the chance!

Bang Kachao, known as “Bangkok’s Green Lung” is the perfect escape from the busy city – a forested island with cycling trails, cafés and a nature park just waiting to be explored.

We took a taxi from our hotel to the river and jumped on a tiny boat to take us across to the island. The boat cost about 10 Baht each!

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Sleepless in Seattle


It was my third time flying back to Seattle, a city that I love visiting. As usual it was a fairly long flight from Dubai, and despite a full cabin in first class, we weren’t kept too busy.

I was able to admire some of the beautiful scenery out of the window along the way, definitely one of my favourite things about these long US flights!

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