Taste of training college
Venice … the last greetings from my family and the first greetings with Daniela. Same joining date and same flight to Dubai. Most of us already knew each other from the Whatsapp group that we created for all of us who were joining on November 2nd. We stayed in touch until we arrived in Dubai. Together with Daniela, we spent a six-hour flight to Dubai airport, where Marhaba service was waiting for us. They took care of our transportation and suitcases. After passing through immigration and security, we met all those who joined the Emirates that evening, night, morning. Although the plane landed from Venice around midnight, I entered my new apartment in Sarab around 3 in the morning. At four I was already in deep sleep.
The next morning I woke up around ten and unpacked all my bags. I have to admit that it took me all morning to unpacked 50kg heavy suitcase. However, this is this art of packing clothes into vacuum bags; so I was able to bring many more things with me.
Since I was spending most of the time in my apartment, I decided to meet up with some girls who were also staying in Sarab. You could say that this is a small cabin crew village, similar to a student one. After living here for a while, you find it even better than a student village. We have Costa, a cafe, several shops (Zoom, Mini Mart,), a laundry, beauty salons, restaurants and a lot of taxis. “Although Sarab is almost in the middle of the desert,” some would say, the most important thing for me is to have peace and friends around me. And I definitely have them here.
In the afternoon I went to Mall of the Emirates (MOR) with Irene, an Italian from beautiful Sardinia. Another benefit of living in Sarab. We have a free shuttle bus to MOE every two hours. A useful or useless time spent, at least we got to know each other.
We returned home in the evening and it was time to get ready for first day of our training. I ironed my shirt and prepared a bag with all the necessary paperwork. I prepared my black salons and …
… STARTING OF SOMETHING NEW
The alarm clock rings at four in the morning, the bus picks you up at six in the morning, and you’re at the Emirates main building (HQ) at seven in the morning. The first day is at the door.
My batch number 3475. Who? Kasia 🇵🇱, Natalia 🇵🇾, Daniela 🇮🇹, Silviana 🇲🇨, Haruka 🇯🇵, Simran 🇮🇳, Aimar 🇪🇸, Anna 🇬🇧, Dunja 🇷🇸. We got information on social networks, security, a schedule for the next two months and most importantly … we signed a three-year contract. The next two days we had mostly medical checkups. So, at the Dubai Busniess Club, they took a blood sample to check for the following diseases: hepatitis, syphilis, HIV and they made an X-ray Image. At the Emirates Clinic they checked urine (illicit drugs and alcohol content) and blood for hemoglobin content. The doctor also checked our weight, height, vision, hearing, speech and motor skills.
This week we had our first image & uniform review. Hairstyle, make-up, nails, watch, clothes. Red Emirates T-shirt, black pants and black shoes would have become our new routine for the next five weeks. And training college became our second home.
SEP or SAFETY TRAINING
Jodie and Hassan, our SEP trainers, our motivators to do everything. A grueling 13 days, which we all successfully passed. In addition to lectures on General Safety, Boeing 777-300, Boeing 777-200, Airbus 380, we also had practical exercises. In fact, it’s worth mentioning that Emirates have the best aircraft simulators where you can experience the real scenarios. Every day we had different simulations on Boeing and some on Airbus. An experience that gives you a different perspective on actual training to become Cabin Crew.
So we challenged ourselves with turbulence, decompression, fire on the plane, emergency landing on land or water scenarios. We acted each possible event and got evaluated for it. Although under pressure, the experience was more than enjoyable. While we had three exams in between, we were able to cheer ourselves up by taking a slide on the emergency slide raft during our ditching session. What is that? Emergency landing on water. And finally, to end our training, we got so many pizzas we could assemble them into a 1 meter pizza line. I loved it.
At the end of SEP we had two more days of different lectures. Most important of all – the fitting for our new uniform. A jacket, skirt, shirt, waistcoat, shoes and last but not least a red hat with a white scarf. This is an image known by the world as the Emirates cabin crew. And the cherry on top – the perfect shade red lipstick.
HOW TO BECOME A NURSE Or GMT
The next phase of training was the medical part with coaches Patrick and Leonardo. I’m not the biggest fan of medical cases, but this week was really instructive and mostly practical. I can point out two practical examples that will remain in my memory.
CPR, according to Slovenian artificial respiration. Three similar but different procedures; for an adult, for a child, and for an infant. Different positions of the hands and the strength of the pressure. For example, two hands are used on adult, one on child and only two fingers are applied for a baby. Of course we tried everything on dolls. The case was further supported by the use of a defibrillator.
Another, even more interesting example is the birth of a baby on a plane. Because we had only one boy in the batch, Aimar, he was selected as a demonstrator of the whole process. Why is this important? Every year there is at least one birth of a baby onboard. I hope it’s not gonna happen to me.
SECURITY and …
Very important chapter about how to react in the event of an attack by terrorists, criminals. More importantly, how to properly perform a security search before passengers arrive. And what was more important this week from our perspective.
We had a so called personality day. We came to training college in our smart casual clothes and we had a chance to get to know ourselves and others in a completely different image. I should not give away more than that, because then it’ll come as no surprise to everyone else who read the blog and want to become Emirates cabin crew.
And one more important action, SERVICE TRAINING
The longest training, but also the most important from a customer perspective. Shall I say in other words? When we get on plane, we all expected to eat and drink.
Our training teachers were Romina from Argentina and Silvia from Brazil. Although the flight service itself may not look very special, there are many things we had to learn during our 12 days of training. How to properly prepare carts, how to serve food and drinks, names of all important brands of beverages (including alcohol), all the containers we have on the plane, the correct use of language with customers and much more.
The most important and interesting thing about service training is certainly the simulation of five different flights on simulators in training college. So us, as future cabin crew, we play out five hour flight to, for example, New York. On the “flight” we must complete all procedures (boarding, introducing ourselves to passengers, serving food and everything that goes with it). The downside of simulations – evaluation from our mentors, which we did individually.
I’m going to draw the line here. I have learned a lot and I will forever remember this knowledge, especially as a good travel companion for all future years as a passenger. In the worst case scenario, I can at least help with my knowledge and do my best.
