Middle Eastern Airlines- What Are They Really Like to Work For?

Recently I have been receiving a lot of questions & emails regarding recruitment for Middle Eastern airlines. Being that I don't work for one, I've had to do a little research to find out the answers to some of those questions. Luckily for all the wannabes out there, I have some 'spies' out there in certain airlines who have been willing to answer my nosy questions so that I can tell you what you want to know.

So, just which airlines are we talking about here?

The most well known ones are, of course, Emirates, Etihad and Qatar. In addition to these "Big Three", we also have Gulf Air, Bahrain Air, FlyDubai, MEA, Air Arabia, Egyptair and Saudi Arabian to name a few. I'm planning to write a series of posts on the subject, covering various areas that people ask about, such as training, living conditions and rules imposed on FAs working for those companies.



Some of the questions I've received include:

* What's the pros & cons of working in the Middle East? (I believe this one depends largely on where you are based)

* Do all of the airlines have a curfew on their crew? I heard that they have tough rules and you cannot have visitors overnight.

* What are the perks of working for these companies- how much vacation time do you receive & what is the salary like?

* What kind of flying do they do- long or short haul? How long are the layovers? Do they have to share rooms with each other?

If you have another question you'd like answered, leave a comment below, or you can also contact me on Twitter or Facebook.

Coffee Capers

As a flight attendant, I've poured my fair share of tea and coffee. This in itself lends to some interesting observations about both passengers and crew.

1) If you say "tea?" they ask for coffee. If you say "Coffee?", they inevitably ask for tea. Whatever it is that you are NOT carrying, is what you will be asked for.

2) One can go the entire cabin without actually speaking the words 'tea' and 'coffee', but merely miming them, because most people are wearing headphones anyway. No-one has ever noticed! :)

3) If you are sitting in the aisle seat, and are not having coffee/tea, please lean back so that we may pass the hot beverage to the person in the window without risk of dropping it on you! The same goes for when working on laptops- please do not hold your cup over the laptop because I'll just have to ask you to move it anyway while I pour.

4) When I bring the extra milk that you asked for, please don't then tell me you also want more sugar. As much as I love exercise, I really don't want to make thirty extra trips on a short flight. If you must, ask the next person for it & we will love you more... ;)

5) The fuller your cup, the more turbulence there will be.

6) if you want to have ten cups of coffee, by all means do so but it's probably not a good idea on a 40min flight... hehe... especially when trolleys are out and you can't get to the bathroom very easily.

Ok I know that was a quick post, so while you're here go say hi to Tam, a really cool blogger from Qatar Airways. She has a great blog with lots of interesting posts about training and layovers.