This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
Ok here we go, this is my first trip report, and V-flyers first trip report from a crews perspective. I wont be rating anything as it doesnt really apply and you will note a lot of stuff is probably very different than a more traditional report. Hope you all like it, if so Ill do more. Also to cover my back so I cant get into any trouble I have omitted the date, and flight number, along with a few details.
My alarm went off at 4:30am, what is it about getting up early why cant I ever sleep?! I spent most of the night looking at the clock. Got up and got ready, made sure everything I needed was packed and then loaded the car up and drove the 5 minutes to Gatwick. I got to the car park and waited for the bus. We have a free bus that takes us to LHR, you will probably have seen it going up and down the M25, you cant miss it, and its big and red! Had a nice coffee and a chat on there, traffic was fine so only took 45mins. Got to LHR an hour and a half early, the later bus pushes it for time. My check in was at 9:30am, so not much to do but go to T2 for a coffee. I used the time to read my manuals as they had just changed our briefing. We have to answer a question on emergency procedures. I was quite nervous about it. I had met two other crew I knew on the bus so we all sat together and went through our manuals. About half an hour before the briefing time our check in was open so we went and signed a form with all our names on, then picked up our baggage tags and placed them on our suit cases. (so much easier than you guys I know!)
The briefing was called so we went into the room and this is where you meet all your crew normally all of them for th first time. The FSM and the two CSS sit in front and then the FSM starts by introducing them and telling us about the flight. He informed us of the loads, pretty much full. There were no companions on, but we did have what they call a unique passenger, ****** ******. We were one crew down so my position was changed. This meant I was down the back and had a retail therapy bar. No problem as I dont mind that. At this point we get told about passengers with special needs, disabled, visually impaired and allergys none of them on today. We then went into the briefing questions, which was fine, I got my question right, with a sigh of relief I can now relax a little. The two CSS then do their little bit telling us how they want the services to run and anything that they dont really like. The FSM finished off saying that he likes to give crew rest and will as long as everyone else works hard while its happening. That all done we were good to go, the captain then came in to introduce the flight deck and give us the flight times 11 hours 15, wow! This is quite long. We then went to get our bags and make our way to security.
Security was quiet, normally at this time of the morning there are loads of our crew and BMI, BA and ground staff trying to get through but just us really so didnt have to queue. Once out of there we were onto the bus and out to the aircraft. We stop at the back of the plane, was cover girl. To drop off our suit cases and then get taken round to the front and go up the stairs to the gate. We didnt enter the gate area you see, sometimes we do, especially if we have to wait for the plane to be ready. We were straight to onto the plane and I went down to the 4 doors, which is where my jump seat would be, to stow my bag. There isnt a particular place we have to put our bags. Then we start to check our jump seats and any equipment stowed near them. Things like oxygen bottles, smoke hoods, fire extinguishers and life jackets. Once this is done we do a security search of our area of the cabin. Once I did all that I handed in my checks and signed a form. Then I went and got a sandwich from our crew cart (first thing I had eaten that day and its now 10am!) while I had that I started to box up headsets and as we were full we put the amenity kits on the seats. There was time and it would save us handing them out later. By now we were ready for boarding so the two boarding people went to the door and slowly but surely our passengers started making their way up the isle.
I had finished my sandwich and had got my 2 litre bottle of water and wrote my name on it. We are supposed to drink the lot by the time we land but I rarely do! I then started to make my way down the right hand aisle to see if anyone needed help, passengers normally are full of questions at this stage, and quite stressed so a presence in the aisle is good, there are always crew on the left hand side but they are manning the doors and cant move from them so can only be of little help. Also boarding takes on average 50 minutes so always good when someone offers you a break to get some water or go to the loo. The most common question I get on boarding is actually can I use the restroom to which I always say yes its not like a train! And laugh so they know Im joking. Once we had boarded, I went round closing lockers, and then back to my door ready to arm it. The FSM made his PA cabin crew doors to automatic I them armed my door and crosschecked the left one, then we went and put the screens up on the bulkhead seats ready for the demo. While the demo plays we then have about 5 mins to drink water and chat to the other crew in the galley. Then when the demo gets to remove high heel shoes we go out to our demo positions and do our bit!! Afterwards I secured my area was quite hectic as people had large bags on the floor or laps, I had a lot of blankets on laps so had to get them under the seat in front (it could trip you up if we evacuated!) then finally we were ready to go. We taxied straight out and were airborne about 11:45 so only 15 mins late. After the seat belt signs had gone off we went out with headsets and then landing card, we always seem to run out of blue customs card at the minute.
Once that is all done I helped to set up the drinks carts and went out with mine from the front of economy. When youre walking backwards these 600s are sooooo long! While doing drinks we had a few screen resets more than normal, also I got to about the middle of eccomony and there was an American passenger who ordered a tomato juice, I had run out as the Americans really love the stuff so had asked my CSS to get me another carton. I said to the passenger that wont be a moment im just getting some more from the back as Ive run out he went mental shouting at me! I was rather shocked but none the less apologized for the wait. Within 2 minutes of ordering he got his drink. I carried on, got to a lovely couple who were asking me about premium, as he had lots of miles and was thinking of upgrading. So, I told him about all the extras and how nice the seats are, he told me hed be traveling back from SFO so I warned him that the seats could be different on the older config. He was a very nice guy, and off to the Cook Islands for some of their holiday. The rest of the service was pretty uneventful. I had someone ask me for a jack daniels, so I went to the bar in upper and got him one. My oppo on the right went out and cleared in while I sorted out a few IFE problems most were sorted with one reset. There were a lot of resets to be done so carried on with them, seems to be the imap doing it!
We now move on to dinner! The menu was meatballs mariana, chicken tikka or veg cottage pie. All with GU (I love them) this was great everyone looks forward to some sort of food on a plane! All was going well till I got to my polite American! I served his food and asked if he would like any wine he asked for a tomato juice. Now we dont have much room on top of those carts but we always manage to squeeze in OJ apple juice, coke, lemonade, beer and 6 bottles of wine, but we dont put tomato juice on there, when I told him he would have to wait a few minutes he went ballistic! Again I apologized that on his 11 hour flight he would have to 2 minutes, and carried on until I got my tomato juice. Never experienced anyone fly off the wall like that for no real reason! I did try to remain polite though. We didnt run out of anything, which is good. When we did tea and coffee the premium crew had come to help one of them did my tea for me so I set up the carts to clear in. when one of them came back in she informed me that one of my passengers were crying!!! It was the tomato juice guy!! I asked her to go and see if there is anything wrong as he may open up to a girl and a different face but he said nothing was wrong, I told the FSM so he was aware of what had gone on. While clearing in one of the wine glasses fell off my tray and smashed on the arm rest, going all over the floor and onto a ladies lap, I was mortified! I couldnt apologize enough and quickly got the dust pan and brush and cleaned it up! How embarrassing! The passenger was fine about it though, which was nice.
Finally at 13:45 I could have something proper to eat, I dont like any of the crew food hot meals this month so had the meatballs left over from the service, I love those. Then we started our crew rest I was on last break so opened my duty free bar and went out with that I had to do both aisles as the other crew member with a bar was on their break. I didnt mind though as I like selling duty free (its the easyjet in me!!!) it took 2 hours to do it though, sold loads. I had a quick drink and then went out with ice creams and juice and water. I love this service as you can have a quick chat with everyone and also find out what film they are watching and if its any good! My tomato juice guy had now stopped crying and while I was chatting to the passengers behind him, who were from Montana and wanted to know if we would fly over their city, joined in the conversation and was very nice!! It just goes to show you never know why people are flying and how stressed they may be, but he seemed fine now and was very polite (maybe he was feeling a little sorry for having a go at me) once this was done it was time for the break change.i dont really sleep so read my book instead, really into Bill Bryson at the minute! After break I came out a little early to see if I could get ******s autograph for my friend who collects them, the FSM said it would be ok as he seemed very nice and was awake so I approached him. I asked and said sorry to interrupt him to witch he said was fine as the film was s**t! And asked me who it was for and what did they do and stuff like that. He was lovely and so nice, apparently he had been winding the senior in charge of the galley up. Saying things like her galley was a f**king state and when he orders a latte he wanted exactly 2cm of foam on top! He was of course joking but he had her worried for a bit. He didnt eat on the flight except for sandwiches and seemed to like them!
Well now we were near the end of the flight, Mr. Tomato juice was happy, and we had apparently flown right over Montana! We waited for the seatbelt sign to come on I drank some more water managed to get half a bottle in! and then bing the seatbelt sign came on so we started to collect headsets and secure the cabin took a while but we soon got it done and we were down and straight into a parking slot. Passengers got off and we did our security checks then got off ourselves. Immigration was quiet just our flight, which is normally the case at this time of day. Got out crew bus to the hotel, traffic wasnt too bad and was glad to get to my hotel room as I needed a shower.
Within 5 minutes of being in the room the fire alarm went off and we had to go outside. LA for this trip has been freezing by the way, I was still in my uniform so was feeling the cold. We got no information from the hotel staff, but I did get some out of them later. One of the AC units had over heated and set the curtains on fire, the fire brigade were there in seconds and we had a helicopter lighting us all up with its search light so think I may have been on fox news or something lol! 2 hours later we were let back in,
Once back in my room I got changed and joined my crew for a few drinks, today we went to Santa Monica, got some nice trainers from American eagle, very cheap! Then Venice beach for lunch and a look at all the weirdos lol tonight we went to a nice restaurant for dinner and im now in my room righting this, Borat is on HBO now so think I may go and watch it, as Ive never seen it!
All in all a good flight, passengers were typical of an LA pleasant, slightly demanding, and a lot of non English speakers but nothing we cant handle! I hope you have all enjoyed reading it, I realize it is quite long but wanted to make sure you got a detailed TR as its the first one.
Thanks for reading.
Amended to protect privacy of pax - Decker
