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Underneath a Flight Attendant: Living Vicariously in a New Era of Consciousness
Underneath a Flight Attendant: Living Vicariously in a New Era of Consciousness
Underneath a Flight Attendant: Living Vicariously in a New Era of Consciousness
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Underneath a Flight Attendant: Living Vicariously in a New Era of Consciousness

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Underneath a Flight Attendant talks about the authors adventures during her long flying career as a cabin crew and her musings as a spiritual guru and peace seeker.

All the stories in the book are true facts experienced by the author and some told through her by her close friends.

It talks about all subjects: love, politics, religion and science. A book to entertain, but also to teach- Weve all got something to teach others, but also learn until our last breath.

The title Flight Attendant was chosen by the author since its still so popular in USA, but she explains that Cabin Crew is the latest title used in Europe and the Middle East. This book is also a good reminder for passengers all over the world, especially those who travel 4 or 5-star airlines; on how to be a conscious economy passenger and behave well.

The author reveals to the world her psychic abilities. She describes ways for you to understand that anyone can start practicing their good luck habits and add waves of good energy into their quotidian. Hence, attracting positive bids in your professional or personal life.

I tried to summarize my so far lived vicarious life in one book. Since this book talks about various subjects and the chapters are not sequences, theres no need to start it from the beginning. Just try a chapter that inspires you first at the contents page.

LanguageEnglish
PublisheriUniverse
Release dateJan 17, 2012
ISBN9781462023332
Underneath a Flight Attendant: Living Vicariously in a New Era of Consciousness
Author

Soraia Nakib

Soraia Naves Nakib was born in Sao Paulo on the 18th of April in 1977.She's Brazilian by birth but also carries Lebanese nationaliy due paternity. Today she resides between Beirut and the Arab Gulf, where she practices her profession as a flight attendant.She's still a bachelorette; looking for her soulmate as described in the book. She believes in a new era of faith,"Awakening" and the unification of all religions is yet to happen within this century. After concluding high school in Sao Paulo she moved to Beirut. At the age of 18, she joined the National Lebanese Carrier and accomplished her first Flight-Attendant license, operating many types of Air-Buses and Boeings. Her Log-book has gotten above ten thousand hours of flying (across the globe) in a period of 15 years so far.She has visited more than a hundred countries in five continents. Soraia is fluent in Portuguese, English, Arabic, French and Spanish , and recently has been entertaining herself learning Italian. "My priority dream when a child was to be a veterinarian. Circumstances changed my destiny and pushed me towards my second graded dream, being a Flight Attendant. Now, circumstances allows me to achieve my third dream thar is being a writer...perhaps circustances will even allow me to pursue my fourth and fifth dream...perhaps even more. The key to success is following the guidelines that circumstances try to show us."

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    Underneath a Flight Attendant - Soraia Nakib

    DEDICATORY

    Instead of simply giving names of people you don’t know, I enlighten you with the songs that make me remember each person I’m dedicating this book to, so you can understand what they truly mean to me. I suggest looking up (Google) the lyrics as well as the translations of the songs that are foreign to you. Not only you will voyage with my personal feelings and thoughts, but you will also discover some great artists from Brazil, Lebanon, and Syria.

    Some of the people below are often mentioned in this book. The ones who aren’t are also irrevocably crafted in my memories and heart.

    Home (Blake Shelton)—Dedicated to Lebanon where my family live and where I consider home for the moment.

    Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) and Como Nossos Pais (Elis Regina)—To my Christian mother, Zilda, and my Muslim father, Hicham.

    Chiquitita (ABBA) and Big Big World (Emilia)—To my only beloved sister, Samantha.

    No Lies (Black Eyed Peas)—To my brother-in-law, whom I consider my own.

    Flightless Bird (Iron & Wine)—To my baby nephews, to whom I sing this song as a lullaby.

    I Will Always Love You (Whitney Houston) and Bad Romance (Lady Gaga)—To Nizar, who will carry a pink aura eternally.

    Eu Sei (Papas Da Lingua) and Romanza (Andrea Bocelli)—To Marco, who enchanted my heart.

    Carvao (Ana Carolina) and Quando a Chuva Passar (Ivete Sangalo)—To Thomas, the love of my previous existence.

    The Winner Takes It All (ABBA)—To Ayman, my first love.

    Because You Loved Me (Celine Dion)—to Capt. Magid, who tutored me the principles of Islam and flight-attendant behavior.

    I’m Alive (Celine Dion)—To Dr. Makarem, who saved me from becoming paralytic in 2006.

    We Are the Champions (Queen)—To my best friends: Ghada, Najila, Sonia, Dalia, Patricia, Kiran, Dolla and Claudio.

    Please Don’t Go Girl (NKOTB)—To Daniela, my childhood best friend.

    My Love (West Life)—To the greatest memories of travelling.

    Is This the World We Created (Queen)—To the suffering people and animals I have witnessed across the globe.

    Swear It Again (West Life)—In gratitude for the twelve years of service with my first airline.

    Stars (Simply Red)—For the unforgettable four years of service with my second and last airline.

    Intou Wa’na (Majida Roumi)—To all my Lebanese friends.

    Samahtak (Assalah)—To all the broken hearts I provoked in the Middle East.

    Sinonimos (Xitaozinho e Xororo)—To all the broken hearts I provoked in Brazil.

    Is This the Way to Amarillo (Peter Kay)—To Mathew, the best ex-boyfriend a girl could have.

    A New Day Has Come (Celine Dion)—To Michel, who has touched me with love like an angel.

    Because We Believe (Andrea Bocelli and David Foster)—I would like to dedicate this last song to all the people who bought this book. Wishing you joy and hope for a new era of consciousness.ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    Iwould like to express my gratitude to my mother, Zilda Naves, for her help and advice, and to my friends for their support. Without their encouragement and faith, this book might have remained just another Aries dream, the typical bad habit of my star sign—starting but never finishing a task.

    Above all, I must thank God, Saint Mary, and Saint Rita. I love you, and I know you love me back. Below are the songs that I sing and listen to in celebration of my devotion.

    Oceano (Josh Groban)—To the O Mighty, Allah, God, Deus… in any language called—who always protected my flights and never allowed a ditching or crash.

    "Romaria, Senhora de Aparecida" (Elis Regina)—To Saint Mary, mother of Jesus, who always listens to my prayers and keeps my family safe.

    The Prayer (Andrea Bocelli duet with Heather Headley)—To Saint Rita of Cassia, who has interceded for me through all the impossible cases I prayed in despair for.

    FLIGHT ATTENDANTS

    Open wings

    Walk in the clouds

    Feel near God

    Feel my wings being cut

    Dream I am a comet

    Be a shooting star

    Dare the heights

    With my feet on the ground

    Be an angel

    Attend to the call of all

    Fly away

    But always return.

    Zilda Naves (my mother)

    INTRODUCTION

    We flight attendants always have a good reason to wake up at four o’clock (a.m. or p.m.) in a good mood; we don’t want to miss a layover in a place like London, Paris, New York, Phuket, Bali, Kuala Lumpur, or the Maldives. All those great places are not even my favorites. What are my favorite ones? It would be unfair to mention those, as you might assume they’re the best places to go on your vacation. Advertising some destination is the least of my purposes. What I can tell you is that I judge a place depending on how great the food experience is.

    In my opinion, gastronomy is the most important consideration on a holiday trip. But again, please do not let me influence you in any way. We are all different and have different perspectives and tastes. Some people are not interested at all in food, and their biggest consideration is drinking a lot for the lowest price they can get. Other people who are vegetarians or fruitarians may have a blast on a tropical island that lacks bovine meat but provides an exquisite selection of fresh exotic fruits.

    Being a huge carnivore myself, if a place lacks a succulent T-bone or fillet steak, it annoys me so much that I am unable to enjoy my trip to the maximum. I cannot enjoy fresh seafood or shellfish, such as muscles or lobster, because I am allergic to them. Pitiful, isn’t it?

    If you come from the United States, Brazil, or Australia, do not expect to find good red meat around the corner, particularly in Asia. When you travel to places where there is no bovine industry and killing a cow is considered a sin, frozen imported meat is your only provided choice (if available), and it is ridiculously expensive and tasteless.

    This planet is so beautiful, and I wish for you to explore it in order to broaden your concept of mankind. For you to understand the reason for the world being the way it is, you must see it with your own eyes, not just on TV. You should experience in practice, because with theory alone you cannot physically feel bad smells or intoxicating aromas, extreme heat or cold, delicious food or poisoning dishes, sadness in the eyes of a vagabond or a bagger child or the happiness of honeymooners. These are all just few examples outside the box of the aircraft.

    What about the scenes flight attendants witness and experience day by day? The sadness of a widow watching her deceased husband’s casket being loaded into the cargo hole. The happiness of a father going to visit his only son, whom he hasn’t seen in more than a decade because the son just got out of prison. A child travelling as an UN (unaccompanied minor) once a year to be reunited with one of his/her parents, the result of a long-distance divorce. The humble groups of elderly from all over the world travelling to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for the holy Hajj season of Islam. Many of those are people travelling for their first time with their entire lives savings, and their only purpose is to reach their religious goal before their inevitable death.

    Sometimes being a flight attendant feels like being a psychologist who listens to the troubles and confessions of strangers—listening, empathizing, witnessing stories. Sometimes we have to deal with the detrimental behavior of a passenger, aware that the passengers seated near such a person can get traumatized.

    I don’t mean to be scaring you though. Our job is one of the most beautiful in the world!

    It all depends on how mentally and physically prepared we are. It is certainly serious, just like a physician during an operation. We try our best to save people, just like other professional rescuers. Becoming a medical practitioner is one of the most beautiful jobs as well, and it is also one of the most stressful and dangerous. Having people’s lives in your hands all the time is not always wonderful. Sometimes human mistakes happen and the worst follows. Flight attendants’ and pilots’ lives are so much like those of physicians and nurses, yet only we know the similarities and particularities. Together we try to succeed in every flight operation.

    Flight attendants do have to save lives sometimes; that’s why we carry valid first-aid licenses. I will not talk about saving lives during crash-landing or ditching, as I’ve never experienced those, thank God! This book is not about me almost dying; it’s about living on top of the world—literally!

    In my opinion, flying is much safer than driving or walking or even biking. In fact, no one I knew during my fifteen-year career died in a crash. Many people I met died from other causes. An average study of daily crash landing around the world according to the local Aeronautical College annual journal of 2007 (attached to my airline journal) is just around five hundred cases a month. Five hundred is so insignificant compared to ten million car accidents daily also mentioned in the same journal; yet people are so afraid of flying. The good news though is that the average number hasn’t changed much in 2011 says the same journal again.

    Whatever we do, we do it because we love travelling. Here some excellent reasons why:

    First, shopping! Second, shopping! Third, I have to say sightseeing! Fourth, enjoying the local food. Fifth, having a hot date… a guy I met once that could had been the twin brother of Daniel Craig, just like Craig’s version of James Bond.

    If none of the reasons mentioned above were applicable for some horrible destination we are sent to, we think about the fat allowance and extra cash in our salaries by the end of every month! That’s the priority for some senior crew members. Those people have already gone sightseeing enough. They have families to take care of and are not shopaholics anymore like the junior ones. What about me? Well, I always considered myself in between. I was always able to shop as much as I wanted to and still save. It’s difficult but not impossible. It all depends on your ability to find the best for the least.

    Traveling is not only what I do, but also what I enjoy doing. I’m not a wealthy person though, and I don’t have my own place yet. But many of my friends were able to build their dream house. As I said, it all depends. You can save, or you can spend, or you can take a loan. My friends who were able to build a beautiful house and furnish it and get married are not shopaholics and do know how to take care of their budgets and priorities. I will probably soon turn myself into one of them. I’ve started to feel I have had enough of flying and it’s time to start settling down. However, I cannot say I have seen enough; there’s always more to discover on this wonderful planet. Every scene, bad or good, is like a treasure for my memory. Memories that lie underneath the wings of a flight attendant.

    CHAPTER 1

    ROUTINE

    At four o’clock in the morning, my cell phone alarm goes off. Wake up time! My subconscious reminds me, Ten more minutes of sleep if you press snooze . Now, really wake up! Jump out of the bed, take a shower, moisturize, put makeup on, tight up hair impeccably with loads of gel, put on the uniform… ready to go!

    The little crew bus arrives, buzzing low chimes when its door is about to open and again when it’s shutting. Good morning, I say and quickly place my black roller on the first row of seats together with the other luggage.

    Good morning! Staff number? the driver reminds me. Those nice guys are usually from humble parts of Asia—India, Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines, but some are from poor African-Arab countries.

    "Number 180477, salamat cuiah!" I enounce in Tagalog while settling down. We learn small talk with these people and the crew. The humble employees really appreciate hearing a little word from their homeland. It makes them feel welcome and helps them endure the homesickness. Sometimes they go three years without being able to go back to their countries and see their loved ones.

    Good morning, girls. Another two girls are already there. Usually we are acquainted, but names… well, I’m very bad with names, but people don’t know that. Besides, in the East, people don’t use each other’s name in the middle of almost every sentence like in the West. So a little chatting on the bus, omitting names, is fine. Everybody is wearing a badge, but if you stare at it, it is even more embarrassing, and because of the darkness on the bus, most of the time it is hard to read anyway.

    I never prepare for my briefing ahead of time; I always do it on the bus while going to the technical (a building at the airport designated for the flight operation, where the crew meets). It should be done sometime before my pick up according to my instructor during training days, but I don’t feel the need to be so radical, as I have so much previous experience. It’s easier for me than for other crew members who have never flown before. The pre-briefing preparation is a little twenty-minute reading about service and safety procedures according to each specific flight. What works for me is reading on the bus. It takes about twenty-five minutes to get to the technical, which is the perfect amount of time.

    Before I continue, here are some terms you’ll need to understand. Briefing refers to meeting the crew before every flight to make introductions, listen to supervisors’ guidelines, answer random safety questions, and gather information about the flight. Dispatch is where the pilots meet and gather technical information from the dispatchers for the flight. Rostering is the department that produces our monthly schedules (called rosters) accordingly to our computerized requests or manually accordingly to our availability to fly a certain type of aircraft. It is really complicated. To shorten this explanation, we hate the Rostering people, and vice-versa!

    If my pick up is at 5:00 a.m., do you really think I can concentrate on anything and actually read? Not to mention, I’m one of those people who cannot start reading anything without a little bit of caffeine. My problem is that my body demands a lot of sleep; it has ever since I was a little girl. Some people sleep for five or six hours and they feel wonderful. I can’t understand that. I must sleep ten hours in order to wake up pretty, witty, and gay!

    I tried preparing for the briefing the night before for my first flight, as the instructor guided us to do during training, but the nightmares I had out of preoccupation were not reassuring. I really don’t need to dream about ditching and crashing before my flights. Would you disagree?

    Some people just can’t cope with this crazy environment. Jetlag is one of the reasons crew members give up flying. The sun is rising and we are supposed to go to sleep. I got used to it, though it’s not easy. If you get used to it, being a member of the cabin crew is one of the most exciting jobs in the whole world. It’s also as hard to quit as cigarettes. I have never smoked and never will, but if you smoke and tried to quit few times, you know exactly what I mean.

    Accordingly to my personal research (interviewing one hundred crew), 80 percent of the crew adopts the same tiredness and extended sleeping routine. The other 20 percent suffers from insomnia, mostly because they suffer from vitamin A deficiency, usually found in dairy, onions, and egg whites. On top of that, drinking coffee or tea with jetlag only makes things worse. But you, dear reader, are not to worry! Another study I did, speculating sick crew at the medical clinic of my company, is that my airline is quite healthy. Within few months of discrete observation and speculating crew and nurses, I came up with 90 percent of the cabin crew is a100 percent fit and capable, just doing routine examinations. The other 10 percent are classified in severely sick. The most usual cases are back problems, followed by other orthopedic issues and then cases of ENT. The dead ones, is an average of two people per year out of 5000 thousand crew, some due to natural causes like a heart attack, and others for accidents outboard.

    When I hear about a senior pilot dying from a heart attack, I find it sad but natural. We all will die someday. But some crew members die out of fatigue and stress, and that’s not fair. I’ll never forget Kamal-Deep from my batch. She was from New Delhi and was just twenty-one years old. She was crossing the street in her hometown and got hit by a bus. She died instantly. Just two months after she started flying, she got fired. Why? Her crazy boyfriend stole her passport and her company ID from her purse (in the hotel) on her first flight to New Delhi while he was visiting. So she couldn’t go back to base without documents and got stuck in New Delhi. She let him meet her at the hotel for some reason. I would guess he was blackmailing her somehow. Her family was not aware of her private life at all; being so traditional, they would probably banish or even kill her if they knew about him. Sushimita (her best friend, another Indian girl from our batch) and I knew she was having some serious family problems because of her hush-hush psycho boyfriend. She probably wasn’t paying attention to the traffic because she was arguing with him over her mobile phone still stuck in New Delhi. Apparently she tried numerous times to break up with him before she joined my airline. I wonder if she was on the phone at the exact moment of the tragedy. That guy was destroying her sanity out of possessive jealousy and trying to make her quit her only dream—to fly. One time—she told us that her boyfriend would kill her if she didn’t go back home to him. In a way, I do believe he was the reason for her death.

    The most unusual death I ever heard about was the Red Bull guy. He was in his early twenties, a young Syrian friend of a friend, and he was found dead in his hotel room minutes after the pick-up time during a layover in China. He was addicted to Red Bull and was well-known for nonstop revelry while oversees—until his heart stopped forever. It’s not only sad, but it also makes you think: having nonstop fun and enjoying yourself to the maximum can literally kill you.

    After hearing about that guy, I felt so proud of myself for sleeping so much, reading a book, and writing this one. I really love spending time in my crib, cleaning, organizing, watching DVDs and CNN, and cooking for my friends. My job is to travel, so my free time is dedicated to home. But of course, I like to meet with my friends and catch up. The only problem is our busy schedule. Nowadays the boundaries of communication are over; video-chatting and face book with family and friends has become the ultimate form of communication and preserving friendship.

    Sometimes we spend months without seeing each other, and sometimes even years, such as with my friend Sonia, an ex-flight-attendant from the United States. She got unfairly fired after September 11 along with thousands of other Arab-Americans, thanks to President Bush. After fourteen years of flying, she doesn’t have any other kind of experience in anything and has been struggling because of that.

    Within the first year of flying, 50 percent of every new batch will quit exactly like mine. I keep speculating crew. This is why my company keeps recruiting more than the needed amount of crew, because the management knows already since training days that half of a batch doesn’t survive a year. Usually within four years, those victorious 50 percent left of each batch will look for a ground job (in the cabin crew department) or continue flying forever. During training days we crew learn that the majority of managers; instructors and other subordinates used to be cabin crew.

    Most of the time, the reason for continue flying is very simple: lack of experience in any other field. But again, the reason could also be what I’ve already explained—addiction.

    For the female crew the most common reason to quit flying is the kids. Usually flight-attendant moms can’t cope with travelling and caring for the children at the same time, not to mention the tough situation with needy husbands who can’t control a house by themselves. In that case, it’s marriage or work. Some choose marriage, others choose divorce. My sister, Sam, is my best example. After six years of flying, she chose her husband over her job—a wise decision, I would say. Moe proved to be the best husband, the best father, the best son-in-law and brother-in-law. He’s the younger brother I never had.

    My sleeping theory is that our environment, being pressurized inside the aircraft for so many hours—sometimes up to sixteen—modifies the natural sleeping pattern from 6/8 to 10/12 hours. I broke my personal record, extending it to fourteen hours in a row, only waking up to pee. I have been told several times by crew members that before flying, they could never sleep for more than a few hours, even if they took an aspirin. Now they sleep for fourteen hours in a row without any effort, without even getting up for a toilet break or a glass of water. Vitamin C is part of their checklist when packing; it helps the immune system fighting the flu virus on board as well keep them alert. So, basically, we spend half of the day and night sleeping. And sleeping is one of the beauty secrets of every flight attendant, as you’ll learn later on.

    We, the female crew, are assumed to be sexy, smart, and educated women. The females are never assumed to be lesbians, which is 20 percent erroneous in my calculations. Every two of 17 to 20 crew (big aircrafts) females turn out to be lesbians. The male crew, on the other hand, are assumed to be homosexuals, which is untrue… for at least another 20 percent of the entire male population (in my airline at least) according to my studies. By the way, the homosexuals are the best crew in terms of professionalism in the opinion of my gays/non-gays colleagues and myself of course. Although I live in a perpendicular world of my own, I tend to be more practical-elegant than elegantly gay while serving.

    As I mentioned, there’s something sexy about being a flight attendant. Imagine you flirt with someone at a piano bar, a lounge, or a rotisserie. Let’s say you pretend you are a flight attendant. Watch and see the excited expression followed by a crooked smile on whoever’s face is in front of you. It reminds me of Miranda on a Sex in the City episode, when she goes on that four-minute table-chat dating service. And after guy number ten, out of frustration, she decided to lie and say she was a stewardess instead of a successful attorney. Who would want to date a lawyer and get sued afterward? Not that breaking her heart is illegal or anything, but the fact that the woman is a successful lawyer is kind of intimidating. As predictable, the guy’s face went from nervous to excited. It worked! She finally got herself a hot date.

    I wish she had at least used the term flight attendant instead of stewardess. Nowadays, calling a flight attendant stewardess is like calling a professor teacher, or a doctor nurse, or a janitor housekeeper, or the saleswoman as the information-desk-girl. Not that any of those jobs are indifferent, but it does sound so stupid when someone miscalls your title, doesn’t it? I would be proud to be called a stewardess, if only I was such, which I am not!

    I’d like to explain to some the difference of both. The title steward/stewardess means that the person’s job is to professionally host you period. During training some airlines like mine are professional enough to explain the history of commercial flying, thus we learn the history of the expression steward/stewardess and why it has been changed. This title was created in the early 1930’s, when first commercial airlines started to hire females. Those days, it was required to the airline to have attractive stewardesses (female only; to serve); in other words a chic maid. And to have one or few qualified nurses on board in case of sicknesses or post crash because the job of the "stewardesses were to graciously host and serve period. The pilots were the ones who would open and close the doors.

    A flight attendant is trained and annually goes through an international written examination to maintain their Flight Attendant licenses valid. The training is so intense; it includes all the necessary training to rescue the lives of the passengers in any situation being it a crash; decompression; delivering a baby during cruise; having a heart attack situation; handling a bomb; anything imaginable that maybe happen on board, we are trained for.

    Now, haven said all that, do you agree with me when I advise you not to mix up both titles? Flight Attendant means that the crew assists or attends all the possible needs being service or emergencies. But the Europeans (Airbus Industry) lately have changed again the American term Flight Attendant to the latest CABIN CREW Cabin means that we crew operate the cabin of the aircraft and FLIGHT CREW means that the pilots operate the cockpit (or flight deck) of the aircraft. So now there’re two titles the American Flight Attendant and the European Cabin Crew.

    You definitely don’t want to say, Hi, Captain! to the co-pilot. Not cool! Although the co-pilots don’t mind at all being mistakenly upgraded, the real commanders do get offended if you present such a naïve confusion. Just call the co-pilots by their first name. They feel thrilled if we manage to remember their names. Most of the captains, especially the American ones, insist on us calling them by their first name too, in order to avoid misunderstandings and to break the ice at the same time.

    To know who’s who, just nonchalantly look at the stripe bars (usually the traditional gold yellow but some airlines carry silver) on the pilots’ shoulders—four for captain, and one, two, or three for co-pilot.

    It can always get worse. Very often the co-pilot is much older than the captain. Let’s pick an awkward number like twenty years older. I’m not kidding. It’s hard to look to a senior person and not assume he’s the captain. You may even keep calling him Captain! in the middle of the airport, especially if you’ve forgotten the exotic name of Ghandowrf. I never was able to pronounce it, afraid of calling the man dandruff. I just played naïve and kept calling him the next most predictable choice, Captain!

    It’s also hard not calling a captain much younger than myself by the first name.

    I confess, I keep a list of the entire crew hanging in the galley. On the crew list, there is flight information as well, so I combine professionalism with smartness.

    To update you even more, it is also fine to say cabin-crew whenever you fly with an Arab airline. There are many five star airlines in the Arab Gulf and Middle East as well as Turkey and we all follow the European system of flying terminologies.

    You must be wondering why the names in this profession keep changing so much.

    My conclusion is that the terms used in aviation are simply updated like a new computer. Pilots were first called aviators, and nowadays there are also astronauts. Are they considered pilots out in space? Maybe some are pilots and commanders and others just engineers, but all are astronauts at the end. You see what I mean? So, I guess our titles have to be updated from time to time. As I said, just like a new computer program. Who knows what the next generation’s title will be? Any suggestions? Perhaps if the world continues to become so dangerous, we might become flight officers and develop some kind of air law and be granted real authority during flights. I hope no weapons are included though. I don’t believe any kind of weapon is justified as a form of protection. I believe in the Muslim judgment trial way. It’s brutal, but perhaps the most efficient form. If you’re not familiar with it, please Google it. That is why criminality in the Gulf is so low. Having a hand amputated by stealing your wallet is definitely something to make hold back the evil inside of a thief’s soul.

    What about drunkenness on board? Well, we try to protect our passengers and minimize alcohol. Alcoholism is strictly penalized by all the airlines in the Arab Gulf, there is, if a passenger is reported to the local authorities at the arrival. Crew are not allowed to consume alcohol at least 24hrs before their next flight. Breath tests are taken by any Arab airline (in the Arab Gulf) security personnel periodically, without warning notice at the Technical building where briefings are conducted before each flight. We can’t refuse to take to test. I witnessed a twenty-one-year-old beautiful young lady getting arrested and being expelled from the country in the Technical building before her briefing. Her record and name has been registered, and she has been blacklisted in all the Gulf States and will obviously be rejected if she tries to apply for another job as a cabin crew within the region.

    Are you aware that the commercial space trip is about to begin within the end of this decade? I ask you, what will the cabin crew of the Commercial Space Airbus be called? Cabin astros perhaps? I imagine the passengers will be demanding, greedy, starving, moody, spoiled, and rich. I mean, a turnaround trip to view Earth from the orbit—that will cost around a hundred thousand US dollars says a documentary on CNN; and there won’t be any kind of five-star meals in such an environment, at least for a long time. The only source of food would be instant noodles and some other scarce astronaut supplements. Therefore, being demanding, greedy, starving, moody, and spoiled rich will not matter. The space trip will be the sweetest revenge I will witness in my lifetime.

    As I said before, I don’t differentiate professions. But the ridiculous requests passengers make thirty thousand feet above ground are sometimes ridiculous, even for a restaurant. There’s a menu right? If you don’t like the menu, you shouldn’t pick that restaurant. Do I make sense?

    I wish we could have fresh vegetables or eggs to be boiled and blended for some fresh soup or dip, for the crew as well. In fact, we often bring homemade food to be eaten on board.

    Trust me, airplane food (five star airlines such as in Asia and the Middle East) may look nifty and may taste delicious, thanks to the combination of preservatives, but it’s not healthy to be consumed on daily basis. I empathize with some passengers; we can suddenly get sick and feel like having something homemade, like chicken soup or fresh juice. But that’s not possible yet. Who knows what the future brings? I wonder if some passengers assume we have a stove and a chef to cook their demands hidden somewhere in the galley, like a secret space they are not allowed to see.

    It is okay to hate the passengers, just like you hate your lawyer colleague during a court trial and then afterward have lunch with him or her. Or when you get caught up on a project during the weekend instead of spending it with your children or your girlfriend. Or when you have boring homework to do, but in order to graduate, you must do your homework. Hopefully what you do now is what you chose to do when you were still a child dreaming about succeeding in life. Hold that thought! I did think of becoming a veterinarian, ballerina, and a pianist, all together if possible. My fifth grade Portuguese and English teacher, my dearest Ms. Ineide, used to believe I could become a great writer someday.

    Nobody considers the bad side of anything while dreaming. The famous saying, Be careful what you wish for, is based on the unforeseen consequences of a beautiful dream. Ask the engineers who planned the Palm Island in Dubai. It was a typical human mistake (but a beautiful dream), trying to change the natural course of this planet; hence massing with the coral reefs around the area and having to request expensive payments from the residents of the island to maintain the expensive ships replenishing the sand around the shores of the fake beaches. If only ambitious, faithless people stopped pretending that the planet isn’t a perfect place.

    Anyway, I am sure all the other possible options I had had would have had a contradictory side as well. There isn’t a profession that doesn’t cause some discomfort sometimes. Think about it. Relaxing massages wouldn’t exist if body discomfort didn’t exist.

    Once again, the doctor comparison: they never think about the consequences of an error or losing a life during their years of education. It will only hit them at that particular moment when the situation arises for the first time. I wish doctors would understand that one apology cannot not fix their mistakes, but at least we can think of them as human beings and try to forgive and understand.

    The difference between us and doctors is that we are well trained to say, I am so sorry, sir. I apologize, it’s totally my mistake…—even if it wasn’t. A genuine apology, or one well-acted, really pays off in the airline business.

    My mother always felt proud telling everyone about her only two daughters being cabin crew members for five-star airlines. I guess the entire world and especially my mother are very much aware of the great image we have. It’s like saying, My daughter is beautiful, intelligent, successful, and a sophisticated lady. She always found a way to mention the fact that I could speak six languages—Portuguese, English, Spanish, Arabic, French, and Italian. In the eyes of parents, we little girls are all saints, aren’t we! And we will never have naughty love adventures, even though we are thousands of miles away in a tropical island surrounded by a handsome pilot that was flirting with us the entire flight. Not to mention the gorgeous marines, models, and athletes we encounter and are flattered by all the time. The temptation is inevitably present in our lifestyle.

    I have a very strong will against temptations, and being committed in a relation helps a lot. But who am I to blame others? The idea of flight attendants having a boyfriend waiting for us at every destination is so unrealistic for most of us. I do have to admit, however, there are some pretty naughty crew members, starting with the flight-deck crew.

    Did I make you curious to know some details about a pilot’s naughty life? Well, I am already preparing for my next books about two certain pilots—the extraordinary lives of two captains. I will describe what goes on with the flight-deck crew, including the extraordinary, beautiful, romantic, amazing true story of their backgrounds.

    Another good reason to become a crew member, perhaps the best one, is that you get to travel all around the world for free! You get to stay in the best hotels and resorts if you are lucky enough to work for a company like mine. You get to do the best shopping, buying original brands, which are sometimes cheaper than you could ever imagine. How? All the tips you need to know on how to profit during your business or pleasure trips are mentioned in this book. Keep reading and taking notes. By profit I do not mean saving money, I mean bargaining techniques in order to spend the same amount, but buying much more!

    Going for adventurous sightseeing makes you educated and sophisticated about the wonders of the world. For example, spending an afternoon in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I always felt like I was living on top of the world, with a smile on my face and brightness radiating out of my eyes!

    As I was saying earlier, I always found it easier to read my flight briefing in the bus. With two stops to pick up some other crew members from other accommodations, I have plenty of time to read. By the time I got in the briefing room, everything was still fresh in my brain. Leaving the bus, I would say to the driver, "Salamat kooyah! meaning Thank you, sir" in Tagalog. Then, off I go from the parking lot to enter the Technical Building.

    Usual Routine

    • Check-in: sliding my ID card on the computer, waiting a few seconds in front of the screen until it accepts and shows the check-in box to be clicked.

    • Looking at the flight’s basic information displayed at the screen board in the hall and taking notes on a small piece of paper, including flight number, aircraft type, load, briefing room number, parking area of the aircraft, and its registration.

    • Go straight to briefing. Saying hello and greeting all the familiar faces I’ve flown with before as I make my way down the corridor. Seeing some other faces that I can’t remember, but they remember me. It’s like being a politician. Funny sometimes. Embarrassing other times.

    • Check the mail. There is never enough time for us to take a five-minute walk outside the building to the pigeon holes’ house, behind the parking lot. So usually, the crew checks their pigeon-holes on the way back home, when there’s no rush to check in for briefing.

    In the briefing room, I say, Good morning everyone! with a friendly smile. Hi, Julios, how’ve you been? Small talk in a very low voice is a good way to start breaking the tension and give a good impression of good mood for the long flight ahead. Julios was a first-class crew member whom I got acquainted with one flight, and today is a supervisor who is nice to me whenever we fly together. My mother always says, "If you’re nice to people, they will always be nice back to you—even if they’re not nice."

    The supervisor steps in; time is running, and the conversation is over.

    I find that most of the crew, especially the juniors, have the need to prepare their briefings one day before. They go through the website and find out who the crew is that they are flying with and any other information. Who cares who the crew is? We can’t choose with whom we work. Some crew are so scared of certain supervisors, they simply report sick and don’t show up for the flight. Sometimes the supervisor is scared of the crew because of previous misunderstandings that ended up in the management office—just like school days in the principal’s office. The only difference is that we don’t get detentions, expelled, or transferred. Instead we get a tough warning letter, a demotion, or ultimately fired!

    I was never scared of anyone. I don’t give a shit. Anybody who ever tried to hurt me only ended up having their mistakes backfire. I

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