Introducing Nadia
We recently caught up with Nadia Patel, former Cabin Crew for Emirates. Nadia reveals her journey, what it was like working for Emirates and what the benefits are of a career as cabin crew.
Pursuing a career in the aviation industry
From a very young age, Nadia knew she wanted to become cabin crew, travelling regularly with her family she was inspired by all the amazing staff in the airport and on the airplane.
When it came to choosing a career after school, aviation wasn’t in Nadia’s mind, instead she decided to pursue a degree in biomedical science at University, which stemmed from her passion for medicine. After one year of the course, Nadia decided the course didn’t align with her future goals anymore, and decided to move back home and get herself a job working for a local call centre.
When looking at some alternative careers she took a-turn and decided to look into becoming cabin crew, after seeing a friend working in the industry with no qualifications.
After checking on the Emirates website, and looking into what exactly was required to be cabin crew, Nadia realised she matched the requirements for 5 GCSE’s, so she decided that she would go for the opportunity with one small downfall, the job would be based in Dubai. She realised this may be an issue, coming from a traditional Indian family, moving out of the home before marriage was not the norm!
After speaking to both of her parents, Nadia was pleasantly surprised when they both agreed and told her to go for the opportunity if that’s what she wanted to do.
Application Process for cabin crew recruitment
When it came to the application for the cabin crew job, it was a very long and drawn out process, which included an open day in Nottingham, a screening day and then a final interview – all of which you would need to pass to be successful to the final interview. Once Nadia was interviewed for the final time, she had to wait a very long 4 weeks for her result. Even after being successful, she had to wait a further 4 months to find out when she would take part in her first flight.
When it came to her first flight, Nadia was given the opportunity to fly to Karachi, Pakistan, which was an easy 100 minute flight which she said went very quickly. After a few local flights, she then did her first long haul flight to Brussels, which was a long 7 hours each way.
In terms of the role itself, Nadia said that her primary job was the safety of the passengers on the flight and her health and safety training that she had to partake in was in line with this. When asked if she had any scares on any of her flights, Nadia said that she was fairly lucky with only a few emergencies, such as a passenger suffering with a seizure and someone choking on her aeroplane food. In those moments, Nadia was very grateful about the health and safety training.
