Life Of A Flight Attendant | Delays, Struggles & Layovers

Hello friends, welcome to a new vlog. We're gonna be in Moz for the next week. Well, the next six-ish days. Today is Sunday and I'm leaving for Moz tonight and I'll be back on Friday night. I just got to the SAA lounge. They're very like, no camera, no this, no that. I was on a video call with Keegan like 10 minutes ago while I was like heading over to dish up food and so of course I showed him a little bit of my food naturally and the lady came up to me and she was like, please no videos, no recording. You know, you'll make other passengers uncomfortable or whatever. So gotta be discreet. I'm gonna eat my food and watch some YouTube and edit a little bit and catch up with you guys when I get to Moz. Made it to Moz guys. Got on the flight. It was a full flight, 90 passengers. Operating crew were really great. Flight was maybe 42 minutes long, so really very quick and now we just landed here. I'm heading over to the office to make sure we get transport. I got off with the passengers. I'm just gonna wait for everyone in the bus. They'll come and we'll all head over to our hotel. Alright, we've made it to the hotel room. We are in a different hotel and I think this started about a month ago or something. I obviously haven't been here in a while, so it's my first time at this hotel. Downstairs looks pretty nice. The room is okay. It's just that I have two single beds, which is really not the end of the world, but let me show you guys. There's the door and here's the bathroom. I'm actually really not a fan of the shower tub combo. I prefer just a stand-up shower, but hey, this is what you get. And then when you come into the room, this is the room. Like I said, I have two single beds. The cupboards have sliding mirror doors, which is cool and you can't really see much of a view. I think there's just a building across the road. Hopefully it's a better view in the morning. We'll see. I pushed my beds together, so it felt like I was on a giant king bed and it was so comfy. I slept like such a log. It was so good. It's 9am now. I'm just gonna head downstairs to grab some breakfast. I really just need some coffee and some eggs and I'll feel much, much better. And then I'll come back upstairs, have a shower, get dressed and ready to go because our pickup is at 11. It's gonna be kind of a long day, so I'd rather be really fueled with as much caffeine as possible for that. I've got an omelette, spinach, bacon. Thank you. Cheers. And coffee. We're in Kilimanjaro. There's a storm coming. It's gonna start raining like in the next few minutes, so we're trying to race against the clock and assist the cleaners so that we can start boarding and get out of here, so that our passengers aren't like trying to board in the rain. But we're doing a four-leg. I don't know if I told you guys. We're doing Maputo to Kilimanjaro back and then Johannesburg and back. Kilimanjaro flights are about an hour and a half long each. We just landed in Kilimanjaro and I had passengers literally as we touched down and we're just going off of the active runway and I start my announcement and they're already standing up taking their stuff out of the overhead bins. So there's me like shouting over the PA like, sit back down! It's literally not even just because I feel like being on your case, it's literally for your safety. And also I just never understand. Do people really think that as soon as we land they can just take their bags and they're immediately off? Because that's not how it works, you know. We land, we wait for seatbelt signs, get switched off. Then we get up, stow our jump seats and then we check with the flight deck and once they give us the go-ahead then we can open the door. Then we let the ground staff do their thing and when they give us the go-ahead then can we let the passengers off of the plane. It's not just as simple as opening the door and getting off. Ever. So these passengers were like sorry sorry sorry and on their way out I was like you must sit down, you must wait. Thank you, thank you so much. We're on the 900. You guys know whenever we're in Moz we're on the 900 and I'm currently sitting in one of the overwing. My junior started in July so she's still bushy-tailed and bright-eyed. She's so pretty, she's so sweet. The flight deck crew are great but our pilots when we get back to Maputo they're going to switch and we're going to get other pilots to do the Joburg flight with us. But yeah, so far so good. We had 89 passengers on this last leg so it was a full flight and I think we're expecting 80 going back to Maputo. Busy day, full flights. Made it to Joburg. Everything looks great. We had 69 passengers getting back to Maputo. We had a quick turnaround actually. Things moved very quickly and we boarded and now we're here in Joburg. We came to Joburg with 58 passengers and I think we're expecting 59 going back or 56 somewhere along those lines. But it should be a fairly easy flight. The Joburg flight times are like 45 minutes long which is nice. It's seven o'clock right now. We're supposed to be departing in 30 minutes so hopefully the passengers are on their way because we're ready to go. Cabin, crew, catering, we're just waiting for passengers to come so that we can be on our merry way. Back at the hotel and of course with my luck my room key is not working so now I have to head all the way back downstairs and get them to reset my key card. Fun. We are back. We made it into the room. We made it back to Maputo. I have just been such a crazy sloth since I got back into my room because all I wanted to do was jump into the shower and eat my dinner and literally just relax for the evening and that's exactly what I've done for the last couple of hours. It's after 10 now. Guys I've been listening to a book called The Last Mrs Parrish by Liv Constantine. That is my favorite book of 2024. I don't think anything is gonna beat it. Wait, when did I read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo? If that was this year then those are my top two books because wow what a great book. I am four chapters away from the end and I'm just loving how it's turning out. I'm loving how it's written. Just what a great book. Wow. Highly recommend. Highly recommend if you're into like, I don't know, what kind of book is it? Is it just a drama? I guess it's a wicked debut thriller. You'll relish every diabolical turn. That's what's written on the front cover. I'm usually like a romance book reader or a thriller reader and this is kind of, it's not really a thriller. It's like a very manipulative psychological thriller almost and it's just really really good. I can't remember when last I spoke to you guys but we went to Joburg with 58 passengers and we came back from Joburg with 56 passengers. There was three deadheading crew members going to Joburg with us and they were just all lovely. I get along with them really really well and then we came back. That was just a really super easy flight. Our passengers were great the entire day. There was a lady on one of the flights, I think coming back from Kilimanjaro, who tried to make it a point to like say to me like you should be speaking Portuguese. I don't speak English so you should be speaking Portuguese since you're working on this plane and I was like in the middle of service and all I'm trying to do is just like offer her a drink you know and like today I'm just so lazy and out of it that I really I just don't have a single argumentative bone in my body right now. I'm not trying to prove a point. I'm literally just trying to get through the day man you know it's just been one of those kind of days and she's like pointing at what she wants to drink but she's trying to like at the same time say like but you should be speaking to me in Portuguese so that I understand what you're saying as you understand what I'm saying and I'm like ma'am do you want the Sprite and she says yes the Sprite and I'm like okay so like I'm not understanding where this miscommunication is coming from. You know how to say Sprite? I understand what Sprite means and I can give you a glass of Sprite like what is this big lecture I'm getting on not being able to speak Portuguese? One of the other passengers I was just chatting to that was so nice and he was saying like he'd like to learn more English and everything and I was like you know it would be great to learn Portuguese but unfortunately with my job it's not that like I'm not here long enough to learn Portuguese you know. I'm here for five days now this month but next month I might be in Gabon where I need to speak French for the entire month and then I'm back in South Africa where I'm trying to understand Afrikaans because most of my pilots are Afrikaans and I'm trying to speak Tswana because most of the black people I interact with in Joburg are Tswana and or Swati or something like you know and like there's just so many languages to try to learn and then I come back here for two days or something like that and then here I am again trying to learn Portuguese. It's just not enough time to like fully integrate and fully learn a language because we are so all over the place as flight attendants. I hate it when movies say this person spent four months in Russia so now they speak like fluent Russian in a movie. You know what I mean? Because four months is not long enough. I'm sorry guys, four months is not long enough. I was on and off in Sudan for like almost two years and I can't speak Arabic fluently. Are you insane? How does that happen? I'm sorry but it just doesn't unless you're like adopted by that family and they barely speak English but they integrate you into their language and stuff. I can see it happening, yes, but if you're just like a tourist who spent four months in Russia like you're not gonna come out speaking fluent Russian. That's crazy. Or maybe you're just more talented than me in languages and linguistics. I'm just very hard-headed as a Zulu woman. I don't know. Oh gosh, I don't know what just set off that entire tangent. I'm sleepy, I'm tired, I'm gonna say goodnight now. I'm doing this exact pairing, the Kilimanjaro-Johannesburg four-leg up until Thursday I think. Today is Monday, I'm doing it tomorrow, Tuesday, and I'm doing it Wednesday as well. And then I think on Thursday I have a Cape Town night stop. So I don't think I'm gonna vlog tomorrow and Wednesday because it's literally gonna look exactly the same as today did. But if I do anything interesting, if I take a walk out to the water or something like that, then I'll bring you guys along with me. Otherwise I'll just see you guys again on Thursday so that we can do the Cape Town night stop together. I don't know what's made me so exhausted today. Like I just I've felt very under-energized today. I've been like on the struggle bus like crazy all day long. It has been overall a good day. I've had good crew, good passengers. I've had a good time and we were like really on time the entire day. We were actually early all day. I'm not like complaining about any of that. I just feel like I have such a lack of energy today and I'm just gonna try to work on that on the next couple of days and then I'll see you guys on Thursday. Good morning everybody. It is now Thursday, 25 past 10. I need to be leaving my room in the next five minutes because our pickup is at 10 40. Today, since Monday, I've been doing the same foreleg. I've been doing that Kilimani back, Joburg back foreleg but today it's a little bit different. We're going from Maputo to Kilimani and back and then we're doing Cape Town and it's just the one leg and we're sleeping in Cape Town tonight. So it's not even time for me to go home yet from one layover to the next pretty much but I will be back here tomorrow. So I'm trying to decide if I should take both my suitcases or if I should leave one behind because I'm not checking out. I'm gonna be back in this room tomorrow for a few hours during the day before I go home but also I just know how unpredictable everything is and the fact that I might maybe be stuck somewhere or delayed or anything and anytime as a cabin crew member we start to think oh no that'll be here when I get back. I'll definitely get back in time. Something goes wrong. I think I'm gonna think better of it and just take everything of mine. I'm gonna have a little extra baggage with me today but when do I not? Yesterday and Tuesday's flights were so full, so hectic, long days. Yesterday we were delayed. I think we're about 50 minutes behind schedule the entire day because of the previous flight being late with the previous crew. So that meant every time we were on the ground everything was really rushed and really hectic but it is what it is. We got through it. Let me take my charges and my phone and everything like that and go downstairs and meet with my crew and get going. Yes we're ready. We're expecting 86 passengers I think. 85 passengers going to Cayman. Not sure if that's going to change or not. Probably will. It's probably going to be a very full flight. We have a wheelchair on board. That's who they're bringing first now. All of our checks are done. We're pretty much good to go and yeah flight is about an hour 25 minutes or so. Oh my gosh it's so hot I can't stand it and it's like it was snowing in Essay last week and now that cold front has completely passed and it's hot here. Very hazy here in Maputo but we are back. Came back to Maputo with 74 passengers and they were all fine. I have a bit of a headache now but it's been a good day so far. Honestly nothing has gone wrong. We've been on time the entire day. It's five o'clock now. We're supposed to be departing in 35 minutes time to Cape Town. I don't know how many passengers to even expect but hopefully boarding doesn't take too long and hopefully we can leave either on time or a little early would be preferable actually. I freaking love this hotel so much. It is such a nice hotel and it's always super super comfortable. I'm sure I've shown it to you guys before but here's another room tour. Here's the door and this is the bathroom. Toilet is through here. This is the lovely shower. Very spacious. I think that's what I love is how spacious it is. We have a closet here and a giant king-sized bed which I can't wait to starfish into. Huge mirror on this side. TV with my name. I love that. And then the fridge and desk area here. Yes we're literally right across the road from Cape Town airport but this is a great hotel. I love it so much and I just oh it sucks that I'm not gonna have enough time here. It's 9 29 right now and I'm hoping that by 10 pm I am showered and in bed and hopefully even dozing off to sleep. The flight here was so long. I think the captain said the headwind we had was like 200 kilometers an hour speed so it really slowed us down. It ended up taking us like two hours and 45 minutes from Maputo to Cape Town which is usually supposed to be like a two hour 20 minute flight. The service that our client that we fly for when we do these Mozambique flights, the service that they do is very limited so there's not like a lot of food and a lot of services or anything like that that we're able to do which I feel terrible about because it's like a dinner time flight. Our takeoff is at 5 30 but at the same time a lot of people do end up dozing off within like 30 to 40 minutes. We didn't get any like complaints or anything on this flight although the flights within Mozambique we usually get a lot of complaints from the passengers about like not having like sandwiches or meals or anything like that and unfortunately when we do a flight for a client it's not like our catering that we do like when I do a flight for my airline that I actually work for, we do a lot of food like we give a lot of food during our flights. We give sandwiches, we come back with snacks, we come back with chips and then with chocolates and candies and then with the beverage service there's like wine, there's red wine, white wine, there's sparkling water, water, cool drink, juice and then there's tea and there's coffee and on Fridays it's gin Friday and then there's beer like it's always a lot even for our short flights we still give everything so it's also different for us to be like working a flight where there's not a lot to give but yeah when we're flying for someone else or for another client then we have to serve what they give us and what they serve on their other flights and we got a bit of pushback about that earlier this morning like on the first two flights of the day and that just kind of sucks but can I just make a quick PSA if you're traveling with a child or a baby a young person who still wears diapers firstly especially if it's a larger plane generally there's always always a station in the lavatory where you can change your baby's diaper so please try not to change your baby's diaper on the seat next to you because that's all kinds of wrong definitely not on the tray table which I'm shocked that I've actually seen that happen as many times as I have and then also while you're at it if it so happens that you do end up changing the baby's diaper and everything you don't know where to put it please just at the very least wrap it in plastic like before you try to hand it to me while I'm doing a service that is all good morning it is quarter past seven right now I need to be downstairs by half past seven to get breakfast with my crew why am I putting lipstick on then if I'm still about to eat that's silly you know this is fine it's fine I'll reapply almost fully packed up I just need to close up my bags today we are just flying the one flight I can't remember if I told you last night or not but we are just flying the one flight to Maputo from Cape Town and I think today the flying time is going to be just a little bit faster I think it should be about two hours and 20 minutes going back and then we should be landing around 12 this afternoon and then I'm supposed to deadhead home earliest flight going back to Joburg is only at 5 30 in the evening I'm gonna head back to the hotel with my crew and hang out there for a few hours until it's time for the pickup for the 5 30 but I'm only gonna get home probably around I want to say nine o'clock tonight if I'm lucky um so it's gonna be a pretty long day of duty even though I'm literally only operating one flight you see it's gonna get cold again snow as well or what no oh my gosh are they loading passengers how many total literally just going from one hotel to the other back in Maputo back in my room I did not check out of it just because I knew that I was gonna come back here and I put a do not disturb sign on top so that they don't come in and clean if I'm gonna come and just mess it up for a few hours before I actually check out so when I leave later on today I'll actually check out some of the crew are like oh let's go get lunch or let's go for a walk or whatever and I'm honestly just gonna slam click like I have three and a half hours to myself before I need to go back to the airport to deadhead home and then I'm gonna be at home and I have responsibilities and I have things that I need to do so I'm taking full advantage because I feel like this entire week anytime I haven't been working I've been eating and sleeping in order to be ready for the next day it just had I just have not had time to just literally chill and do nothing and so I'm very excited to do exactly that and then on our flight it actually ended up only being two hours long we had 44 passengers so 42 plus two infants and we also had three deadheading pilots that were with us so it was a really easy chill flight anyway let me stop talking let me decompress and just relax and take advantage of these next few hours to do absolutely nothing I did buy my lights from here not I think just in time for the man united versus southampton match all I can say though is ladies if you're looking for a man to date find a manchester united supporter because you know they're loyal oh that's funny oh I love that especially because Keegan is a man you supporter it is now 3 31 and we are ready to go downstairs and go home finally here finally guys you give me a sign give me a sign ah give me a sign baby give me a sign just give me one more