Screaming child in the skys...

Today I felt really bad.

There are some flights known for us, cabin crew, as "Frequent Flyer Flights", where 99,9% from the passengers are people who fly around with us all the time, for business purposes. Well, today I had one of those flights, and as it´s summer time, that 99,9 percentage rate tends to drope down, and one might have some other passengers on board that aren´t really business people.

So after having a really nice, quiet and uneventfull flight today (well, if you forget the crazy turbulence that almost wouldn´t allow us doing the service on board) the fasten seat belt signs went on, and I made my "Descent" announcement. I had just barely finished it, when  suddenly, completely out of the blue, someone began to scream. On 2F, an 11 year-old girl, began to utter a loud, sharp, piercing cry. I thought she was having some problems with her ears, as children usually do, so I went to her father, who was travelling with her alone, and asked if everything was alright, if his little girl needed something for her ears, should I bring her some juice or make her our famous "Mickey Mouse ears"? (which are very sucessful among kids, we just warm some galley towels and let them steam into some cardboard cups - then the kids just put them in their ears, and the warm steamed air, helps them to pressurize their little ears, well, or at least they look so funny with them glued to their heads, that they kinda forget the pain and stop crying..!). On his shabby English, the man thanked but refused it. So I went to my seat. Suddenly, once again, she began to make such loud sounds, that pretty much everyone on that airplane was now looking to the first rows. Mind you, the Embraer is our smallest airplane, neverthless it is still an accomplishment to make a passenger seating on row #28A, astonishing 20 meters far away from an already loud airplane to hear you. So I went for plan B, I brought her some stuff for her to paint, I though she would be entertained with it and stop with the loud crying. It was a really embarassing situation, because every business suit dressed men were looking at me, with their kinda "please do something about it" faces but neither plan B made her stop. It was even worse, the father had now absolutely no control in the situation, his child was now spitting and hitting him as she was screeching as loud as she possibly could. The gear went down, and now I was trying to fully concentrate myself on the final "approach" announcement, and it was so hard, I just couldn´t hear myself through the PA (public announcement), the little girl was totally blocking me out. As I was making my "30 seconds  review" for landing, the woman in front of me, sitting on 1D kept distracting me, as she was trying to avoid not only the spitting from 2F, as well as the loudness coming from the seat behing her. She kept looking at me with her "are we there yet?" face. We landed, and still - the little girl was screaming as loud as hell. It was so difficult to make the "Fairwell" announcement..

Well It was just obvious that everyone got stressed out from the situation, everyone was bored and pissed of, yet very happy to have arrived and now to leave as soon as possible that aircraft. The only thing that was now reasonable for me was to appologise myself  for the flight for those people sitting next to the girl. And so I did, as we were waiting for the gate to connect the aircraft, I appologised to the people around me for the event. While deboarding, many passengers were actually even making fun of the situation because it was so bizarre and obnoxious. And then it happenend. The father passed through me, and with a very shy face he escused himself for his daughters behaviour. I mean, he said, he was really sorry for the situation, And it just made me sad. And I felt so bad for him. I mean, it was just sad to see him, so powerless towards his daughter, and he was obviously completly knocked out from that flight, after all, he was putting up with so much more than any of us. Being confined in such a small airplane, with no possible escape, with 100 people looking at him and thinking only God knows what and traveling alone with a small restless child is certainly something that no one wishes. And it was now kinda obvious that the girl was a little bit mental disabled. And still, that father escused himself, for something which he actually couldn´t do anything for. Such politness and love strucked me. If only so many other people acted like him. It made me stop. And think.

It breaks my heart when during a flight a little girl comes to me and and with a sweet little voice asks if I´ll be flying her again back home in one week when her holiday is over. Things like that tell me I´m on the right job.

What´s that sound?

A flight is never silent - well, unless you have a double engine failure, but that´s another story. So sounds like clangs, rings, rattles and hums are a constant. Frequent  flyers are familiar with those sounds but only a few people know how to proper identify them. Perhaps this can help you face your fears on your next flight;

Before taxiing the aircraft:
The ground power supply generator hums, freight is being loaded with rumble and the cargo doors are suddenly closed with bluster. Banging comes from the galley as food and beverage carts are being dragged in while the crew is stowing them around. Engines start with a sudden roar. While taxiing the aircraft to the runway, wheels are squeaking and jaring while rumbling over bumps causing the skin of the aircraft to creak.

Take-off
Just a few seconds before take-off the landing gear is at its high performance. The aircraft takes off the ground with thump and a few seconds later after a positive climbing is checked by the pilots, the landing gear retracts with rumble and its cover cap closes. The engine becomes less noisy.

During the flight
With Dings and Dongs pilots communicate with the flight attendants (Coffee!), passengers with the flight attendants (Blanket!) and pilots with the passengers (Buckle on!). Engines roar and wind streams against the shell of the aircraft.

Final Descent
Engines become less noisy because pilots take power away. Flaps get down and in place for landing as well as the landing gear. Just before touch down, engines become silent as pilots make some last adjustments.

Landing
The landing gear touches down, brake flaps jump up and the thrust reverser starts glowering bringing the aircraft to slow down. The machine clatters while rolling over the runway marking lamps. A final Boom! indicates the aircraft reached  its final parking position. Welcome to your destination!!

Global Alliance

If you´re a flight attendant, I bet you´ll love this.
See if you can match the Airline!!

Indian lady -always lazy

Valerie - brave but scared

Mona - Fuck OFF!

Heidi - Like my jugs?

Lilly - Big smile

Vespa - Ciao belissimo!

Donna - Wha´ever minga!

Arabic lady - hey ohalehoaleho

Conchita Rosa Maria Gonzalez Gomez - Do you want a fanta?

Chantelle - I think I´m beautiful

Marcia - I love soul music

Helga - You do your seatbelt up with one click

Gloria - Fried Kangaroo?

Vanity - I wanna sex you up



Did someone haunt our flight..?!!

Flight: 4-leg flight

Aircraft: E190

Crew: 2 lovely pilots on the flight deck and 3 SFA in the cabin. Well.. make it 4!

Pax: 85 / 76 / 61 /51

Having 3 SFA scheduled for a flight is a rarity. Even more scarce is having each single cabin crew on that flight suffering from a misterious event of a wrecked mishap;

One of us killed a phone by stupidly having it dropped down. No, of course not just on the galley floor - but on the freaking toilet bowl. Nope, that´s not it. The funniest thing is just realising it after hours and endless hours of an intensive surch! Don´t even ask.

One of us totally smacked her head on the frame of the tinny little service door (3R), while being nice and helping the caterer. Even though dealing with doors is something we do every single flight she was able to do such a hugh bump exactly in the middle of her head that during service every single passenger couldn´t stop staring at her forehead. Having each single colour of the rainbow in it - from blue, to green, to red to lila - didn´t really help, neither using a mass of make-up to try to cover it up.

One of us also had an event with a door and slammed her pointing finger in it. Her finger/fingernail began to bleed and went from red to a darker violet colour. The pain was so excrutiating during flight (with the constant cabin pressurization for start and landing) that after the second leg and back on our base she had to call Crew Contact and another SFA was assigned to fly the last 2 legs.

You have now only one guess to find out which one of this wonderfull  fortunes was the one to actually happen to me!

No one likes a delayed flight..

Flight: 4-leg turned into a 3 hour delayed 2-leg flight

Aircraft: E190

Crew: 2 laid-back pilots on the flight deck and in the cabin me as a FA, 1 unexperienced SFA and 1 even more unexperienced FA.

Pax: 80 / 105


"I want a beer" - she says in a very rude way without any please or thank you.

"I´m sorry ma´am, we sold them all out. But can I offer you an excellent red or white wine instead? Or perhaps a sparkling Prosecco?" - I politely replied, hoping she would change her attitude.

"Pffff, this is unbelievable, you all suck, I can´t believe this.. Give me some water, or you don´t have that as well? Sparkling"

About 7 hours earlier:

My phone rings;

"Hi Queen Lioness, crew contact here. We have a flight for you. It´s a 4leg, check-in is in one and a half hours and you should be back before midnight. But you will fly as a junior, since we haven´t anybody else available."

Wow, I really got excited because I hadn´t been on an Embraer FA-seat for a really really long time, and for

once I wouldn´t have to prepare any flight or do any administrative pre or aft-flight work and I would have the opportunity to once again work in the AFT Galley, which I hadn´t done for quite a long time.

After putting my uniform and my make-up on, I checked once again If I had all I needed in my bag, specially my last flights money and reports because as I had some time to spare, I would take the opportunity and get to the office earlier and dispatch all that administrative stuff.

After entering the briefing room I had some difficulties finding my assigned crew, the SFA for the flight  was working as a senior for nearly one month and the junior FA, which I had never seen before, was only on  her second working month, which one full month was spent on a sick leave. Regardless both were very nice, although the SFA had a very fatigue voice and I never saw her smile even during the whole day. So much for motivating the crew..

After the briefing we went to the aircraft that just had landed with half an hour delay, so in order no to loose our slot time, I immediately started doing all my checks and preparing the aircraft for the passengers as well as helping the new SFA with her galley, like checking her stock and counting meals. It wasn´t until I just had finished my pre-flight on ground work and sweeting like hell that I was informed that we had gotten a slot with a new departure in 2 hours. That sucked. One hour later, captain decides to let the passenger board the plane and informed us we got an even worse slot. On the ground we tried as much as we could to entertain the passengers, giving them everything we possible had to read and going in twice with the beverage carts and once with the meal carts and about three hours after the schdeluled departure time and after two hours with the passengers onboard, we managed to take off. But all in all, everyone was quite happy, service on ground helped a lot, and everyone deboarded with a smile in their face.

We did a very quick turnaround and after the new passengers boarded the aircraft we managed to take off quite quickly. But most of them, had been waiting about three hours at the airport. Every passenger were informed about the situation, the thunderstorm outside was quite obvious as well for everyone and every single aircraft on that airport was delayed - so, it wasn´t like it was our fault.

As our passengers were boarding the airplane, I saw that everyone had a voucher in their hands. That would only mean one thing: in such a short flight, with the Embraer beeing a smaller airplane and therefore not having a lot of storing capacity, that would be a very stressfull flight.

No one likes a delayed flight and believe me, for us, cabin crew it´s something that we try to avoid at all costs. There can be many causes for a delayed flight, but against the Forces of Nature there is absolutely nothing that we can actually do. Neither when 105 passengers board a plane with a voucher and we only have 20 beer stored. Sorry if I can´t ferment yeast and brew beer onboard on a 40min flight. Believe me, I would, if I could. Just give us a break people.