This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
Seat
Cabin Crew
ok so here we go...
got up early to go to Gatwick love flying from there as it's nice and close to the house lol drove to the car park and got on the bus, chatted to a very pleasant my travel girl, then got off and went to check in. check in was fairly quiet just us and an Orlando. I went into my briefing room to pick my position. In the room were my FSM, CSS's, 3 lovely girls, and another FSM who was working down. He was also my fsm on a recent Havana trip, cool someone I know! There was also a junior from that trip going with us. I looked at the sheet and PE was available upstairs, so I went for that.
Briefing was called we went in, there were only 5 girls on the crew including the management so was going to be an interesting trip. Once we answered our questions, it was onto the flight part of the briefing. As this particular route is known for being busy on the drinks, we were advised to watch everyones alcohol intake and monitor how much was left in the bars. If we started to run out of stuff we would have to close the bars so the returning crew would have enough for the flight home. We were also told to have fun use our personalities and give everyone a great flight.
out to the bus and onto the plane, I went upstairs with my sidekick and we did our checks and started to prep the cabin, water/menu's/amenity kits, then the flight deck arrived, two girls one being the captain and a guy for the relief pilot. Cool they were extremely nice and very friendly. Which is a good thing as we would be serving them all flight.
Now they were on we had to prep boarding drinks and also sort the flight crew out with sandwiches chocolate and fruit. Also get down how they took their tea/coffee. While I was doing this passengers had started to arrive. It now gets a little busy upstairs as you have to make hot drinks for the pilots, welcome passengers, and take large bags from them to go into the wardrobe. All this while my co worker is extremely busy handing out drinks and prepping new ones. but it all get very organised soon enough and its onto letting them know about the exits, I like to do this before the demo as there is more time and its a good way to break the ice and get chatting to your passengers. For these who havent flown upstairs before, the exits on the upper deck are to be used if we have to get out in a rush, on land. If we land on water we go downstairs and use them. We have to tell everyone about this, and its suppressing how many crew dont do it! Once this is done we collect empty glasses, I did have to ask 3 passengers to finish their drinks as we needed the glass's back. The plane was getting close to the runway! I did ask nicely of course and promise them another glass of bubbly after takeoff if they wanted it. They were fine though.
Take off was on time and we set off on our 11 hour 15 minute journey. (Now I realise that you all know exactly what route this is lol) straight after takeoff I did hot towels (I always seem to make them really hot!! well better than cold!) my colleague did headsets and landing cards. I had a quick chat while I did towels to find out where everyone was staying as the hotels here are the main attractions.
The drink service was great nothing to comment on here, then onto the meal we had enough of everything and got extra off of the FSM working down he was in PE downstairs so knew they would be fine down there with an experienced FSM looking after them. We did a second wine where I asked if everyone had enjoyed there meal. Everyone having the beef loved it and the same could be said for the chicken korma. I had a lovely family at the back of PE two kids one about 10 the other about 16, they had took advantage of the sale at check in and were really enjoying themselves saying they had never travelled with us normally go on holiday with a charter airline, and they never though they would ever be able to afford anything other than Y. how nice! tea / coffee round once then we cleared in asking first if anyone wanted a second tea or coffee if they did we said to keep their cups then after clearing in we would come round again. We cleared in by hand rather than take a trolley out, it seemed quicker and that way if someone hadn't finished we could just come back to them. It felt much more relaxed doing it this way. Someone asked me for a glass of bubbly, so I decided to treat them and went down to J to get a proper glass. I asked the CSS she said yes and even gave me upper champagne and popped a strawberry into it, how very chic! My lady passenger loved it!!
It was now time for us to relax a little, and sort out that shelf on top of the stairs; I put some newspapers left over from J on there, along with juice, water, soft drinks, and the fruit bowl. We then did brandy and bailies. My oppo and I got some food from the rear galley and then it was time for breaks, we got just over an hour. Thats good for this flight as its notoriously busy. My sidekick went first and I stayed to man the upper deck and pilots. The FSM had been sorting their food out for us so not really much to do there just keep phoning them to check they were ok. From what I understand and saw downstairs was a different story. While I was sat with a coffee chatting to some of my passengers about the delights of Dubai (they had a flight booked for march) downstairs they were fast running out of beer and vodka, also there was a massive queue at the galley's for drinks, passengers were congregating at the doors to chat. This is all very harmless and while I can understand the need to stretch, and you really should every 2-3 hours, it causes a problem for us. The first is the drop down oxygen masks there are only 8 at the bar and 2 at the door stations, same in the toilets, and no before you ask this isn't for those passengers wish to become members of a certain club! They have them for when babies are being changed. The second reason is it blocks the aisles, makes it difficult for passengers going to the loo and us moving through for either the service or if we have to do screen resets, or worse a medical. One or two people is fine but when you have a stag doo of 6 people standing at a door area its too much and not very nice for the passengers sat by the door. So just to disperse it a bit we rang the flight deck and asked for the seat belt signs to go on. Once they were on, and we asked them to sit down it made it much easier. Youll not know when this has happened because we dont actually go through checking seatbelts, nor do we police people going to the loo. Just 5 minutes really works you find that when they sit down they start to watch a film, and stay there when the signs are switched off.
Ice cream round was done about 2 hours after lunch, this is as ever seen by most passengers as a wonderful treat. That done I did an OJ and water then went through with the fruit bowl. The plums are really nice at the minute. then back to the top of the stairs and a quick chat with the 2 ladies sat on the very back row, one of them got up and came into the galley and told me it was her friends 40th while they were there and she had ordered a half bottle of rose champagne. I looked in the pre order cart and saw it was empty but the paper work said it was definitely on board so I got a colleague to cover for me while I went down stairs to hunt for it, on my way to the galley I must have been asked 5 times for drinks so made a note and got them as well, the pre order was in the galley, phew! Got that and went back upstairs, handing out the drinks on the way. I was so glad to be upstairs as it was so relaxed and quiet up there. The ladies were sat back down so I prepared it on a silver tray with 2 J champagne glasses and some chocolates, I also dressed the bottle. I went to the seat wished the friend a happy birthday and opened the bottle, telling her that her travelling companion had ordered it for them to enjoy. They loved it!
My colleague came back and it was time for my break, I decided not to go to crew rest but to just spend it chatting and reading a paper, I also went down to upper to chat to them. Hot snacks were done while I was on break, and also another OJ and water. The fruit bowl was run out again, and before long it was time for hot snacks, always a fun service as it means we're nearly there. We were over the mountains now and starting to fly over the Canada/USA border. The view was amazing! I got a wicked pic in the flight deck.
The end of the flight was near we collected headsets and then the seatbelt sign came on and it was time to secure, once we did this we came into land with a fab view of our destination. Once the doors were disarmed, I gave the thumbs up down the stairs and opened the wardrobe netting to get the bags out; I managed to hand a few out and lined the rest up at the top of the stairs. The doors were opened and our passengers were disembarked first. We then had to security check the upper deck, which is quite hard when you have all those side cupboards to check but Y was still getting off when we had finished so we waited and chatted to the flight deck, complimenting them on a smooth landing. Women always seem to do better landings then men. It was the captains jokes when we were parking that had everyone laughing. ' this is the captain welcome to ************* as you are aware you have 2 girls driving today, we got you here ok, just need to park so you all had better bear with us could take a few goes!!!' love it!
Well we were off in no time and through immigration and on to our hotel. All in all a wicked flight made better by having a great team to work with. Am I just lucky that most of my flights seem to be like this? Once again sorry for typo's and bad grammar punctuation lol!
John
