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The Airline Cabin Crew Profession – Catching Up With A Ghanaian Crew Member On Emirates 

The Airline Cabin Crew Profession – Catching Up With A Ghanaian Crew Member On Emirates
13.01.2016 LISTEN

The year was 2009 when a young lady from the Upper West region of Ghana took advantage of an opportunity to apply for a Job as a cabin Crew member in one of the world’s leading airlines, Emirates. After a rigorous recruitment process, Eunice Dery, was successful and started her career journey as an Emirates’ Cabin Crew Member.

Says Eunice “Emirates is an inspiring company to work with. I have always known Emirates Airline as a fast growing and culturally rich airline. When I decided to apply for a job as a cabin crew, Emirates was and still the pick of the bunch,”

I took on the job knowing that I will have varied experiences and challenges, but Emirates airline prepared me for the job through its state-of-the art training facilities including in-house simulator in Dubai at the Emirates Cabin Crew Training College ahead.

With a six continent-spanning network and colleagues from over 130 countries speaking more than 50 languages, Emirates is a truly global airline brand. I knew Emirates was growing and with new routes being added all the time, I was confident the job would be a secure one and would continue to be varied and challenging.”

Living the dream

Eunice has been living this dream job for the past six years. She now has the opportunity to travel the world and explore and imbibe the culture, sights and sounds of more than 140 Emirates’ city destinations worldwide. “Apart from that I have the opportunity to work on one of the world’s most modern fleets, including, of course, the iconic Airbus A380.” For Eunice what is also exiting about her job is working with over 20,000 multi-cultural cabin crew from more than 130 different nationalities, backgrounds, cultures and with different values. “Emirates offers a truly multicultural environment. We help and support each other, and we have the possibility to learn and teach each other too”, says Eunice.

Responsibilities and training

Eunice tells a story that goes beyond the visible aspects of service. The cabin crew member’s responsibility include making sure the passenger is comfortable, feels safe generally and have a pleasant flight. The person also needs to learn to say the right things at the right time and deliver exceptional customer services experience on every flight.

According to her, beyond the glamour, being a cabin crew involves constant training and preparation. She observes that Emirates considers the safety of its customers a priority and does not compromise on that. Cabin crew are therefore taken through intense, real life enacted training to ensure that they are prepared, competent and confident in taking care of passenger needs but and effectively handling any emergencies that come up during flights.

“We also ensure passengers in all cabins experience a specially created gourmet cuisine, while enjoying hundreds of channels of the latest movies, TV shows and music from around the world on the award-winning ice inflight entertainment system,”

“In 2014 alone, the airline trained a record breaking 33,000 crew in different disciplines ranging from Safety & Emergency Procedures, Medical Training, Service and Image etc. Emirates also invested more than US$6 million on medical equipment on board its aircraft and about 33,430 hours in the training of crew for first-aid and emergency medical care.” adding Eunice

Adjusting to Challenges and Perks

The constant travel and the need to adjust to varied sleeping patterns often present a challenge for Eunice and other cabin crew. This, she says, the airline addresses by helping crew maintain a healthy and active lifestyle, including providing nutrition advice, which allow them to manage these situations easily.

Being a member of a global airline such as Emirates comes with obvious perks. Crew members are provided high quality furnished accommodation in Dubai, the hub of Emirates and one of the world’s premier tourist destination sites. Emirates also offers crew superb benefits package which include attractive tax free salary, comprehensive medical coverage, end-of-service benefits, and annual confirmed ticket to home country, duty transport, education allowances as well as concessional travel.

Worthwhile experience

For Ghanaians who aspire to be cabin crew, Eunice says working with Emirates airline is an enriching experience that exposes you to many cultures and many countries. “It is a worthwhile experience and doing this while staying in a vibrant city such as Dubai is even more interesting. It is a city with a fantastic lifestyle - restaurants, clubs, sports and leisure activities and a first-class hospitality industry. Dubai has now developed into an international tourism and regional business hub.

It is a dynamic, modern, vibrant and cosmopolitan city, similar to major cities worldwide.” She encourages interested persons seeking to join to Emirates be themselves at the interview, and more importantly “be ready to learn from the best in the profession.

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