Monday, February 26, 2007

March 07 Roster (Updated 01/03)

My roster for March:

03MAR DUBAI - DUSSELDORF
04MAR DUSSELDORF - DUBAI (ARR 05MAR)
08MAR DUBAI - NEW YORK
09MAR NEW YORK - DUBAI (ARR 10MAR)
14MAR LEAVE
15MAR LEAVE
16MAR LEAVE
17MAR LEAVE
18MAR LEAVE
19MAR LEAVE
20MAR LEAVE
21MAR LEAVE
22MAR LEAVE
23MAR LEAVE
24MAR LEAVE
25MAR LEAVE
26MAR LEAVE
28MAR DUBAI - MANCHESTER
29MAR MANCHESTER - DUBAI (ARR 30MAR)

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Business Class, The Only Way To Fly

On my last trip, Sydney and Christchurch, due to a shortage of crew in Business Class I was asked if I would like to work in that cabin. It was great only having 42 passengers instead of the 300+ that I'm used to. Everything was served on fine china and I had to use each passengers name every time I spoke to them. The most tricky part was learning all the wine names! The crew bonded really well on this trip. We all wanted to do the same things so it made decisions really easy. I managed to see my brother Matt in Sydney too. I though New Zealand was amazing. The people are really friendly and the scenery is breathtaking. Below is the whole trip in photos...
Me and Joumana (Lebanon) sitting in our jumpseats (cabin crew seats) in the Business Class galley.
Tobias Sears, Business Class Cabin Crew!
The Sydney Tower. They give Emirates crew free entry!
The next few pictures are the view from the top. You can see Sydney International Airport in the background of this one.
Sydney Harbour.
The Naval Base where my brother Matt is based.
The Harbour Bridge from above.
The Hilton Sydney where we stay.
The traditional 'Crew in front of Harbour Bridge' shot. L-R Me, Raschel (Philippines), Nadia (Scotland) and Zeneil (India).
Luna Park, the theme park in Sydney.
We all went on the Wild Mouse.
The Holiday Inn hotel in Christchurch.
The view from room 811.
The 'Christchurch Cone'. No idea what it's there for!
In the centre of the main shopping street are these wavy 'beds'. There were people asleep on them during the middle of the day as we walked past. Here's a picture of me and Nadia trying them out for size.
The gang on the bus we took to the cable car in Christchurch. L-R Me, Raschel, Donna (Philippines), Nadia and JD (Pakistan).
Zeneil, Donna, Nadia, Me, Raschel and Joumana relaxing on the grass before we catch the cable car.
View from the cable car station at the top of the hill.
Going back down on the cable car.
Dinner in Christchurch with the crew. L-R Donna, Joumana, Zeneil, Nadia, Me, Captain Flaminio (Italy), Raschel, Dave (Australia), JD, Rasia (Pakistan), Purser Qaiser (Pakistan) and First Officer Gordon (Canada).
We went on a horse trek in Christchurch.
Me and my horse, Libby.
Riding Libby.
When we got back to Sydney we went to Coogee beach. Here's Dave and Joumana with my brother Matt.
The QE2 was in Sydney at the same time as we were!
The crew in our Pyjamas. As we do a nonstop 14 hour flight from Dubai to Sydney there are beds in the cargo hold for the crew to have a 3 hour sleep. The 2 girls at the front of the picture are Christanty (Indonesia) and Martina (India). Martina was also on my first trip to Melbourne.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Tee Oder Kaffee Für Sie?

Guten Tag and happy Valentine's Day! Frankfurt was a good trip for refreshing my foreign language skills. All the German I learnt at school came flooding back to me during the flights and by the end I was speaking fluently to most of the passengers. I even had a conversation with a 4 year old German girl about where she lived! I was shocked when I received my hotel bill yesterday. I managed to spend €61 (about £40/AU$102) in the bar! The most I have ever spent drinking while away on a trip. I had a fun time with the crew doing it though!
The Frankfurt TV Tower.
The RadissonSAS hotel where we stayed. It only opened 2 months ago.
I went for a ride to central Frankfurt on the tram.
We had a nervous passenger on board so to take her mind off the flight we took some silly photos of her and her friends with us, in the rear galley of the aircraft. She's the one in the Emirates hat. The other crew are Abdulla (United Arab Emirates), Mira (Sweden) and at the front is Sundera (Malaysia).
Central Frankfurt. Not much to look at and not much to do!
View of Frankfurt city from the 14th floor of the hotel.
More of Frankfurt. The hills in the background look like they could be in the UK.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Jo-burg

Johannesburg is so far the most relaxing layover trip I've had. The flight down to South Africa had 50 empty seats in economy which makes the service a lot easier. When we arrived I was so tired as I hadn't managed to sleep the night before. At the hotel I had a nice 5 hours sleep before going out with the crew for dinner. We went to the 'Bull Run' restuarant which is a regular haunt of the crew when in Jo-burg. The steak I had was enormous and the prices were so cheap! It cost only 100 Rand which is approximately £5 or AU$18 for a 500g ribeye, a cocktail and a glass of wine. The next day I just watched movies in my room until it was time to get dressed and meet the rest of the crew to travel back to the airport. The flight back was uneventful until 20 minutes before landing when the Captain came on the PA and announce due to a big storm over Dubai we may have to divert the aircraft! Lucky the weather cleared up just in time before our fuel got too low and we were able to land. Now I've got 4 days in Dubai to catch up with my friends. The only problem is trying to get us all in the country at the same time!
Johannesburg International Airport have a very friendly welcome sign above the entrance doors for vistors!
The hotel we use in Johannesburg. The rooms are massive and so are the lovely baths!
The shopping mall that houses the Bull Run restaurant. This view is from my window.

The 500g ribeye steak I had was delicious!