I know I wrote here that I was heading to Hong Kong. Well, my flight changed to a Perth. I was under the impression that it would be a 48 hour layover, but no, another 28 hours to catch up with anyone and everyone. And a few blasts from the past too.

Like at the hotel, Brett Ashcroft was concierge. And on the flight back, Natalie Compton and Kate Dwight were passengers. I've never seen mouths so wide open, it was quite funny. Particularly since only a few people from high school (namely, Kris's and Peter's mates) knew I wasn't living in Ocean Reef anymore.

The flight back was REALLY bad though. Full of people heading back home to the UK. I haven't worked that hard since I left the convention centre. And the turbulence was worse than any Jo-berg flight. The flight crew were white. And it was a very hard landing. Some guy fully puked on 3 seats and a video screen during landing, and we couldn't clean it up because we had to saty in our jumpseats. Yuk yuk yuk.

Normally I'm used to dealing with disgusting things. I studied Forensics, and had to cut up foetal pigs, one of which hadn't been properly soaked in formaldehyde and stunk up the lab one time. And working the convention centre too, with unlimited alcohol, you come across all sorts of bodily fluids (UWA Med students are the worst). But flying is a little different. I think it might be because you're always standing, regardless of how bad turbulence is, and you're suffering from motion sickness too. And the air inside the cabin gets quite stale after 11 hours of flying time. As nice a job as it is, there are definately time I wish I was back at uni falling asleep during lectures.

It was also a very demanding flight. You ask any of the crew working for our airline which flight they'd least like to do, they don't say Riyadh, Sanaa, Dhaka, Bombay, Accra or Cairo. They say London Heathrow, the only redeeming factor being that it's a layover. Passengers travelling to and from London are by far the most demanding hosties serve. In no time you're out of Gin, Tonic Water, Soda, Scotch, Vodka, Jack Daniels, and any other spirits you've got. In Economy, we have 6 bars on the Boeing (max 400 pax) and 4 bars on the Airbus (max 250 pax) and I've been on flights to Glasgow and London Gatwick when our bars have closed 2 hours early because they're sucked dry.

We also had this one guy who got stroppy at crew because we couldn't upgrade him to business. Okay, so he was a Gold Skywards member, but anyone in the FF program knows that upgrades happen on the ground only. I think the only person we can upgrade free of charge is the Sheikh. Everyone else pays. Crew can't even get a seat in Business as a passenger unless they're flight crew. And when a crew is incapacitated, we still have to man the door!

The best story I heard was that travelling on a domestic US flight were John F. Kennedy Jr and Caroline Bisset in economy. The crew were stoked they were even on board, and asked them if they'd like to be upgraded to first. What did they say? "The plane's not going to get us there faster if were in first class." Very classy.

Anyway, I think I've ranted on long enough. Right now Bridgette is on annual leave and I have the apartment to myself for 15 days. Yay! And someone wants my Manilla flight for a 48 hour Malta. I think I'm gonna swap flights....:-) 2 comments