Thursday, April 16, 2009

April Roster !!!

1)Islamabad - Turnaround that turned into a diverted flight into Karachi
2)Manchester -36 hours layover
3)Jakarta - 23 hours layover
4)Doha - turnaround
5)Casablanca - 35 hours layover
6)Manchester- 24 hours layover


OK... lets start the month with : Medical emergency ... why not?

Islamabad:
Flight started quite normal...( for Pakistan flight I mean ). Full economy going in and supposed to be full as well on the return sector. Outbound flight went fine... without and incidents.. but the inbound flight. About and hour into the flight and at the beginning of our service, suddenly I heard a guy scream .. I had no idea what happened because I could not locate the person that screamed, but suddenly my colleague that worked on the left side shouted to me that she has medical emergency and that she needs help. And at that moment I saw one of the passengers having a seizure. As per our First Aid training we just put pillows and blankets around him , so he wont hurt himself until the seizure stops. We followed that until our other colleagues came to help us. He started having problems breathing so they applied oxygen and thankfully there was doctor on board that came to the rescue, and was constantly monitoring the casualty. The guy came back to a "normal" stable state in a matter of 15 minutes. We gave him something to eat and drink but before he even had the chance to start it... I heard another scream !!! He had another seizure.... but this time it got much worst and his heart and breathing stopped. My colleagues dragged him to the back galley to begin the CPR. He was out for about 1 min and 15 sec. But after about 20 chest compressions his heart beat came back so we did not have to start the Defibrillator. Thank God.. we had about 4 doctors on board the aircrafts.. and all of them willing to help.... how lucky are we? At the moment of the second attack, the captain made the decision to divert into Karachi since it was only 40 minutes away. The flight time into Abut Dhabi would be only 1:20 but the doctor said that the casualty might not survive the next attack... so we need to get him to the hospital ASAP. After landing in Karachi.. the ambulance and doctors were waiting for our aircraft. At this point the guy felt much better, was fully conscious and talked with the crew. We don't know what happened to him after he left the aircraft... but we are sooo thankful that we were able to save his life on board :) After we finally landed in AUH the Etihad Management wanted us to come back to the briefing area to get us de- briefed and to write a full report on what happened. They were very sweet and considered... even offered us help of psychologyst if needed and gave us option to take couple of days off. I did not opted on any of those since I actually felt great about what happened and about our great team work we showed in this stressful situation ( we even finished whole service while other crew was helping with the casualty ) . I think we done an awesome job all together and that all that counts to me. GO ETIHAD !!!!!

Manchester:
My first Manchester trip ever... and I fell in love with that charming place instantly. The weather wasn't too good so I decided to only go for a walk to the nearby city of Hales. What I love about it is the beautiful houses and properties along the road. They all have very english look, but each one is different and one of a kind. And the gardens..... WOW the gardens are amazing. Definitely looking forward to next layover :)

Jakarta:
My first trip to Asian country. On way to Jakarta about 95% of the passengers in Economy were house maids returning home from Saudi Arabia or UAE. They were sooooo sweet. The call bell did not go on for the whole flight. They were taking pictures of us the whole time LOL What a pleasure to have flight like that for a change. We get to the city at around 3 pm and about 6 of us decided to go out shopping, go for dinner and massage. wow... 1,5 hour massage was amazing... but it was quite strong so next day I had bruises on my back LOL. I got to the hotel at 10 pm and next day I get up early to go shopping again since I did not find anything I wanted the day before. I returned to the hotel at 12 pm and our pick up was at 1pm. I wish we had a longer layover there ... it would be soooo much better to be able to go and see the whole city. On our way back the flight was as pleasant as on way in. But this time most of the pax in economy were pilgrims to Mecca, about 3 different trips ,because the whole group was dressed in the same clothes so it was easy to recognize them. I could do this flight any day, especially that we had THE BEST cabin manager - Silvia. She made this trip so special for us. ( I flew with her to Frankurt before.... just a pleasure to have her on the flight :)

Doha:
Definitely the shortest trip I ever did LOL. 45 min to go in and 35 min to go back....

Casablanca
Jeeeezzzzz.... what a looooong flight. Everyone I know hates to do this flight. They tell me that the pax are demanding and rude. Nothing more wrong. My flight went unbelievebly smooth and with almost no call bells. :) lucky me LOL. The only problem with this flight is the flight time : over 8 hours... and on top of that it's a night flight..... trust me, it's hard to stay awake.
I was suprised on how much Casablancas suburbs remind me about my home country. And I'm speaking only about the natural beauty. The trees, the fields... just amazing. ( except that we don't have palm trees in Poland heheehe ). The city by it self is quite noisy and poor. But it realy have THE personality :) The first evening 5 of us ( 4 crew and 1 pilot ) went to the spanish restaurant called La Badega... nice food, nice atmosphere... very different form regular 4 or 5 stars restaurants in AD.
Next day I went with 2 pilots to the beach area for lunch and had a chance to look around the town. :) Over all.... nice flight, nice crew, nice destination. Will do it anytime !

9 comments:

Traytable said...

Well done on handling a scary situation. The first time it can be very daunting, but you learn many skills which will help for next time. I don't think I've ever had a very serious case where we didn't have a doctor or nurse on board.

It seems you have had a very busy month! I am hoping that I will receive another invitation to interview with EY when they start recruiting again later in the year =)

Anonymous said...

Great Work Nikita...

Your April Roster is not as much as your March Roster. But I think you love it as you can finally take some rest...

Anonymous said...

Hi Nikita,

Thank you sooo much for all this info its great! Ive got a quick question, do you get to request flights every month? Or do you get what you are given? I noticed you requested one, and a friend of mine used to work for EK they got to bid every month for the flights they want so Id thought its worth asking.

Many Thanks
Fe

Airboy said...

Hey Nikita, I found your blog through TrayTable's blogroll and am Impressed with how much you went through on your Karachi !

I'm adding you to my BLOGROLL. And while I'm at it. Do you know anyone called Kate (from Paris/England) ??

Sherri said...

Just found your blog. Wow, that was a scary medical emergency!

I fly in America. Sounds like you fly to some amazing places!

Girl on Tour said...

Cool Blog Nikita! I'll be adding you to my blog roll too!

Anonymous said...

Czesc Nikita!
mam nadzieje ze dalej rozumiesz trchu po polsku:) Chcialam ci powiedziec ze znalazlam twojego bloga przez przypadek i musze powiedziec ze jest swietny:) Bardzo mi sie podoba ze opisalas caly kurs ktory przeszlas - przeczytalam wszystko. Mam nadzieje ze tez kiedys bede latac tak jak ty:)
Pozdrawiam,
Nicole

Unknown said...

Dear Nikita, thank you very much for this blog. I also want to be a flight attendant, and this blog is very helpful to me. Best regards, Claudia from Romania.

P.S. Your motto is also an inspiration. Take care and enjoy every minute of your life.

Tanzeel said...
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