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

Reserve month is over!

I survived my reserve month! As you may know I was scheduled reserve in January (and the beginning of February), which means you are pretty much on standby every day until you check your roster at 6pm. Then you’ll know if the next day is going to be a day off, a flight, or a standby duty. I was pretty much only rostered standby duties and put on a flight from there.

My first day of reserve I had airport standby, and before I even arrived I could see a turnaround to Bombay on my roster! Other than that quick overnight turnaround I was only rostered layovers, so I got pretty lucky really!

I ended up in:

  • Madrid
  • Melbourne – Auckland
  • Beijing
  • Boston

I guess now I’m writing it down that doesn’t seem like many flights, but the trip to Melbourne and Auckland is a 6 day trip so that took up a nice chunk of my roster.

Before that I’d had a few days off, and somehow I managed to get a rather nasty bout of food poisoning! I’m not sure what it was from but I had to call sick for 3 days, and I try not to call sick if I can avoid it. However this time I definitely needed some time to recover!

My trip to Beijing was pretty uneventful, although it was a 30 hour layover it was absolutely freezing (-1 degree!) and I had been on airport standby when I was put on it. It’s very hard to pack for airport standby as you could end up anywhere! Especially this time of year where it’s winter in most places, you need to pack for any type of weather and any length of trip. Luckily I’d packed a coat and I’ve been to see the Great Wall before so it’s not like I was missing out.

Boston was a nice surprise, as I’d never been there before. If you didn’t catch it, my last post was all about my snowy layover there!

After all that my reserve month was over! I got pretty lucky with my flights to be honest, and some good flying hours which means my salary won’t be suffering either, haha!

I then had a trip to Houston, where we visited a great Mexican restaurant, and did some shopping at the giant mall there. (As if we can’t get enough shopping in Dubai!)

After my trip to Houston, my best friend Lucy came to visit me in Dubai! This was the first time she’d been to Dubai, so we made sure to visit all of the usual attractions, and then spent a couple of days relaxing in a lovely hotel in Fujairah. Now I’ve got a couple more days off to relax at home before it’s back to work for me!

 

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! ðŸ™‚

January Roster

Hi guys!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas & New Year. I certainly did; I spent my Christmas in Mauritius which was absolutely lovely, and I will post some pictures up on here asap.

I usually post my roster at the end of the month, but since I was so busy with Christmas and then flying straight after my leave, I just haven’t got round to it.

This month I’ve already done my first flight – a trip to LHR. I had a lovely layover at my parent’s house, where mum cooked a delicious roast dinner!

My next flight is to WAW – Warsaw in Poland. I’m very excited as it’s somewhere I’ve never been before and I love exploring new destinations. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to put some pictures up on here! If you have any tips or must-do’s, please do share.

And after that…I’m on reserve!

Finally after over 3 years in the company it’s caught up with me and I’ll be checking my roster everyday at 6pm to see where I’ll end up the next day.

Somehow I’ve managed to avoid getting reserve the whole time I’ve been here (usually by scheduling my leave during my supposed reserve month) but the bidding system has changed which means it’s my turn to play the waiting game all month. It’ll be interesting to see where I end up; I’m hoping for at least one long-haul flight to get my hours up and hopefully a couple of nice layovers!

So that’s it I’m afraid – not a very exciting roster this month, but you never know, I could end up in a totally new destination 🙂

P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! ðŸ™‚