Actually, it wasn’t planned that I ended up in Bangkok.…
Ready for long-haul flights. First stop: Maldives
I am back….
The inspiration has been lacking for the past months.
For me the inspiration comes from being in different places and seeing new things, but also from packing my suitcase in the knowledge that I am not going to wake up in the same surrounding the next day.
However, I haven’t been able to go anywhere for the last few months – which isn’t entirely true because with my job I went to Greece, Turkey, Canary islands, Madeira multiple times, the only problem was that at the end of the day when I got off the plane, I was back in Frankfurt.
It wasn’t how I expected life as a cabin crew in first place. I thought I would be able to exit the plane and see all the places where we were heading too. But for most crew that is not the case, reality is, that you got one or two hours transit time, meanwhile the plane is getting cleaned and new passengers are boarding for the return flight.
But then again, most people also don’t know what we have to know for our jobs. Everyone is only seeing us serving drinks and meals – they can call themselves lucky if that is the only thing they see us doing on-board, because actually we are trained for all the worst case scenarios like fire fighting, first aid or evacuating a plane in an emergency situation.
Now that I worked as cabin crew for more than 3 months on short and middle distance flights, I got trained for long-haul. Which means I am finally getting to leave the airplane in a far away destination.
The past months were great fun and full of different experience. Getting to start and land in the cockpit at the very beginning when I was additional crew or seeing the top of the Alps covered in snow from the sky, just to name a few. Working with all sorts of different people on each flight who might never have met in everyday life is also very interesting and getting a genuine ‘thank you’ and a smile from passenger after a long day makes us forget how tired we are.
But now actually going to different places each month is why I wanted to do this job in first place.
My very first flight was to the Maldives, a destination which most people go to as a special treat on their honeymoon, and I was lucky enough to go there for work. The best thing was that I was able to sit in the cockpit for landing and got a fantastic view of the many small islands and atolls. The Maldives consist of over 1.200 islands and the sea is crystal blue. The view from the air is really phenomenal. Also the airport is basically a 3 km long artificial island called Hulhule, which is just a runway in the middle of the Indian ocean.
It felt really surreal that after all I actually was at some place miles away from home, having 30 degrees in winter and being surrounded by probably the most stunning little islands on this planet. I probably only realized where I have been after I boarded the plane 2 days later to head back to Germany.
One of the best experience was seeing dolphins while having breakfast in the 4th floor of our hotel where we were having a good view of the ocean. We were joking how they would release the dolphins for tourists after you would give them some dollars. Only seconds later I saw a dolphin jumping in the air and then the fins of a group of dolphins swimming past. Obviously I didn’t have time to take a picture because everything happened so fast, but some moments can only be captured as a memory.
The view from the cockpit.
Hulhule island hotel.