Thursday, May 12, 2011
Done my supy flights last week on Wednesday and Thursday to Nairobi (Kenya) and Amman (Jordan) respectively.
Before doing the first supy flight, I was filled with nervousness and fear that I won't get my job done in time correctly. Plus the feeling of butterflies in my stomach on my first supy, it isn't too goos a feeling. However, it went on well, with wonderful crews and passengers to and from Nairobi. As the flight is a turnaround flight, and the flying hours is long (5 hours per journey), I can learn a lot of things on board, and also build relationship with the passengers.
On the return trip from Nairobi, there were a few chinese passenger in the First Class cabin and the first class crew were not able to converse with them properly, hence I was paged frequently for help in the First Class cabin. It was an experience that I won't forget, talking to the First Class passengers. They are all so nice, too.
After service and having our meals in the galley, I make my way out to the cabin to get people to do some survey for us as well as do some PR with the passengers. I talked to this 2 chinese man from Guang Zhou (China) and they don't seem to stop after talking. After that I served a Scotish man who worked in Singapore for 10 years in Jurong, and now living in Indonesia with his wife. He is travelling along and I think he feels bored sitting on his seats for hours.
As for Amman flight, it was a full load flight for both journey, and due to an hour of delay, passengers were not really very happy when they travel, service bells all over the place and 5 steps service to be done in 2 hours. I hardly get the chance to rest my feet. Luckily crews were nice too, and they were really helpful.
Today was my first operational flight and I was rather nervous today as I have no idea what I should do. And today I have a door to myself, meaning I am responsible for the door's safety check, as well as my area of responsibilities for safety and security. So I should say I am very proud of my performance today as I did everything on my own. Arming & disarming the door, securing my cabin, security check of my cabin area, meal services and clearance, all done by myself without someone double-ending with me. I hope I will get a hook out of everything and get used to the routine very soon. As it was a rather short flight, we need to rush our service, especially during the return sector, that we nearly run for our meal cart and do the meal service. We didn't even have time to do tea & coffee by hand due to the short cruising time. But luckily all the passengers were understanding and they know our time constrains. I simply love the passengers on board, no as scary as what the trainers say during training.
Crews on board were nice, especially the purser from Thailand. Seeing her definitely makes you feel happy all day long with her helpful front and her bubbly character. I like this kinda purser, and the company should have more of such kind.
More flights coming up and till time, I will update again.
Ciaoz...
love goes around | 12:10 AM
Monday, May 02, 2011
It's the last day of training today after 6 weeks of intensive drilling in of all the safety, medical, security and service needs on board.
Through this 6 weeks, people in our class are FORCED to work with each other
(we are not given a choice as you can see), as well as FORCED to love each other during this 6 weeks time. While we are just going to get used to loving each other and get a hook on our friendship with each other, they want us seperated, by FORCE again.
Well, I can say that it's great to graduate from the college and get into real business now, but at the same time I feel kinda nervous, knowing that I will be the most junior person on board the aircraft, and may not know what is happening on the aircraft. I have get used to having my fellow colleagues around me during training to help me along when I don't remember anything, but come to think of it now, I am all alone and have to rely on myself. I really hope I can handle the stress and people on board.
The 6 weeks training were intensive as mention earlier, but I felt that it was fruitful and essential to prepare us to fly professionally. Like what the trainers always mention, if 1700 batches in front of us can do it, we can do it as well. I believe I can do it as well as I have faith in myself. However, knowing that I am a slow learner, I need to be 200% more hardworking than anyone else in order to make sure I remember and do things correctly. I hope the Purser and SFSes won't get too hard on me, seeing that I am new.
Let's do some recap on the training I've gone through since I have not blog about it at all.
Week 1 - Induction Week
This week is for us to understand the different departments in the college as well as HQ. It is also a nutshell for us to understand what we will be doing for the next few weeks
(although they don't tell, but when yoy go through the rest of the weeks, you will realise what you learn during the 1st week is really useful)Week 2 & 3 - Safety & Emergency Procedures (SEP)We had 2 weeks of intensive training on the aircraft safety, location of all the emergency equipments, as well as how to operate the aircraft doors of different types of aircrafts. Did a lot of practical and mock ups on the safety and emergency in the state of the art stimulator in the college, which I am really impressed in, with all the decompression, turbulence, fire in the cabin
(which you can actually feel the heat), etc. It's simply amazing. With the wonderful trainers we have, it's simply enjoyable as well.
Week 4 - General Medical Training (GMT)
This week we will be practicing on each other, in regards to medical issues on board the aircraft. We learn about all the signs and symptoms of the illness that will happen on board and how to handle it. And I am proud to say that I am a CPR certified personnel who know how to do CPR already
(which I always wanted to learn when I am in Singapore). With the skills that the trainer has given to us, I believe we will be able to cope with most of the medical issues on board the aircraft.
Week 5 - Security, Image & Uniform and NujoumI should say this is the most relaxed week for me as we general need not do much things through the week. During Seccurity, we learn how to do the Aircraft Restarint Techniques, and have a wonderful session in class restraining each other and learning how to restrain distruptive passengers. I always love to go for all this restrain classes as I like things to be done physically.
Image & Uniform day was a wonderful and fun day too as we all get to wear our cabin crew uniform for the first time. Everyone seems so professional once they are in their uniform. We learn in general how to put on makeup ourselves and how to put on nail polish ourselves. But I love the fact that there is no assessments for this, at all.
Nujoum was a day full of surprises, at least for me. I enjoyed the challenge that we have to challenge our limit i.e. rock climbing, net climbing, the pole, ladder, etc. It was a fun and relaxing day. I enjoyed the day a lot too. I especially like the last part of the Nujoum, which I feel so touched after they provide us with the surprise with thr stars around, because we are all stars of the company.
Week 6 & 7 - Service Training
This is the last phase of our training in the college before we go ahead to commence in our supy flight and then move on to the operating flight which is about a week after we graduate from the college. It was a lot of information to absorb and learn during this 1.5 weeks of training and I am rather proud that we can achieve the result of operating the whole cabin and galley by ourselves after the first few days. I am really impressed with ourselves. From day one which we know nuts about aircraft service, and feeling stressed in all the service routines, until now that we are quite familiarise and ready to operate any galley, I can say that we are doing a real good job, so are the strict trainers that we have.
Now that we have finished everything for the training, I felt rather sentimental about leaving all my wonderful friends and colleagues and going on to real business on flight, but it's part and parcel of the training. But I believe that the training really helped us a lot in regards to our service and safety on board the aircraft, and that our customers will feel safe and comfortable boarding the flight with us.
As I said, I am feeling nervous for my Supy flight as I still don't know where I will be going and it will be my first official flight
(although it's observatory). But I will do my best and learn as much things as possible on these flights so that I can apply them on my first operating flight to Theran.
My room mate analysed my roster routes and mention that all the routes that I've got are rather difficult routes to manage due to the demand and the time on air. But she believes that I will be very experts in operating the flight after a month since all my flights are difficult to handle and if I can handle them, i will be pro after that.
(hopefully...)After going through so many weeks of training, and pleasant surprises that the company has given us throughout the training phase, I can loudly say that I am proud to work with a company which is full of surprises, listen to their employee's feedback, and continuously improving. Hope it will continue to grow and provide more surprises for the passengers as well as employees, as it really makes someone's day.
KEEP DISCOVERING!!!
love goes around | 11:41 PM
