10 things I learned while being a flight attendant for 10 years

I spent 10 years and a half of my life among the clouds. Being a cabin crew for Qatar Airways, I spent 12.000 hours in the company’s uniform and I visited 209 cities. Those were the most beautiful years in my life, the years in which I learned so much and made me the person I am today.
These are 10 life lessons that I learned during my carrier:

1. The flight was my confident

My destiny was to do what I wanted, meaning to travel the world back and forth. Firstly, I learned to find my inner peace and to fulfill my adventurous thoughts. For me, flying transformed into my confident, becoming an inseparable asset in my daily life.

2. I surpassed myself

I searched to reach a certain ideal model, although I have been told that the ideal model exists only in our imagination. I tried to reach the 5* standard that was imposed by the airline company, learning to surpass myself every time. From being a simple flight attendant, after 5 years I became Cabin Manager and after only 1 year I reached the highest step, being Cabin Service Director on board at Airbus and Boeing airplane, finishing by becoming the one thing that I wished, being a trainer.

3. I learned to be strong and independent

As a flight attendant I learned to be a very strong person and also independent, easily adaptable and holding my destiny in my hands. Many times people told me, till the moment they actually spoken to me, that I seemed unapproachable, full of mystery, but they changed their thoughts after they saw that I am actually an open-minded person with a complex personality. In fact that’s how I liked to be in an airplane: humorous actress, confident, who played the role of a doctor, chef, bartender or firefighter, with grace, delicacy and naturalness.

4. I learned to always smile

The most important advantage of a cabin crew is the smile! I figured out that everything I do on board, by putting a big smile I increase its value. My attitude has changed completely when I was smiling and it was easy to work in team.

5. I learned to take care of myself

As a flight attendant, image means everything. All eyes are always looking at you, even if you are on board or in the airport. I learned to always take care of myself, to pay attention to my image, for my respect and also for the company that I was representing. I wore with dignity my uniform, and because of it, my confidence increased considerably as the years passed by.

6. I learned to anticipate

During my career I observed how passengers always appreciated when I anticipated their wishes, investigating us, with curiosity, with which magic we read their minds. Therefore, studying each character on the flight to different places of the world, I learned to read minds even before boarding and anticipate some of their needs.

7. Safety is the most important thing

From my trainers I learned that safety is the most important thing: my safety, the cabin crew’s and then the passenger’s one (especially in this order). I always followed safety procedures exactly as we were instructed, preferring to make a short service on board, instead of putting my colleagues or passengers in danger.

8. Discipline, order, punctuality

As a cabin crew member I learned that discipline, punctuality and order are the qualities you need to have from the start, otherwise you will not resist in this world.

9. There is no room for NO in a flight attendant vocabulary

I learned from my Service on board instructors that working in team it’s in fact an activity to get to know your colleagues in order to make your guests on board pleased when they arrive at the final destination. A service is considered excellent when we succeed to not use negative expressions and the word NO is missing from our vocabulary.

10. Homesickness will never disappear

As cabin crew, I learned that flying can’t cure only one thing: missing your family, your home and Romania (in what concerns me!). At one moment, somebody said to me that the cities from the Middle East are like train stations in transit, in which different persons are going up and down, but in which the majority comes back to the origin station. The life that I build for myself for over a decay in my black Delsey suitcase of the company was a happy one, but which kept me away from my family. In 10 years as cabin crew I always had close to me old and new friends, lovers, but nothing could replace my family and our own traditional holidays spent home.