The high baker

A blast from the (recent) past

When I first started at Air North as a flight attendant, I heard about an aviation legend. 

I was learning how to use the ovens to heat Air North’s signature delicious warm cookies. Flight attendants sometimes use these ovens to heat their meals. I used to admire my co-workers elaborate lasagnas, curries and soups, prepared by hand at home and re-heated to perfection in the on-board kitchen. I was more of a carrot sticks and sandwich lady myself.

Someone, I can’t remember who, said, “There is a flight attendant who bakes in these ovens.”

“Like, from scratch?” I asked.

“Yeah, bread, cinnamon rolls, all kinds of stuff. His name is Derric, you’ll probably never meet him though, he’s part time.”

Now, I’ve made bread, and cinnamon rolls, from scratch, in my home kitchen with all of the amenities available to me. Most of the time I can get a decent result, after a lot of practise, but I’ve had my fair share of rock hard cinnamon rolls and sunken bread. To get a nice result on an airplane at 37,000 feet? Impossible. 

I would probably never meet this Derric because he doesn’t exist. It must be a flight attendant hazing ritual or a urban aviation legend.

I ended up working with Derric a lot during the busy summer season, and it’s all true. The man can make delicious, perfect cinnamon rolls, in an airplane. In fact, he made some the first time I ever worked with him.

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Derric with his "legendary" cinnamon rolls. Photo by Christa Galloway.

Keep in mind, we often start work at silly times, like 5:45am. Goodness know how early he had to wake up to make the dough, let it rise, pound it down, let it rise and so on before coming in to work. But it was worth it, the results were delicious.

This kind of thing was what made the job fun. Working with people like Derric, who weren’t just getting through the work day, but embracing it. When you do almost exactly the same thing, every day, a little fun and variety changes everything. The days I worked with flight attendants like Derric, I served passengers with a genuine smile on my face and a spring in my step. Fortunately for me, several flight attendants were fun to work with.

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Baking at 37,000 feet. Photo by Christa Galloway.

If you are worried that our passengers were strapped their seats hungry and thirsty while we were merrily baking away in the back you can rest assured that the passengers were always, always looked after before we looked after ourselves. On busy flights we often didn’t have a chance to eat at all. And, of all the flight attendants, Derric is one of the most conscientious about making sure the passengers are treated well. He has cookie warming and seat belt crossing down to a science. Once, when we were delayed in Fairbanks for over an hour with passengers stuck on the plane he had us do a water service, food service and a drink service before take-off. Plus he sent us all in to chat with passengers, make them feel comfortable and help them any way we could. When those passengers left the plane back in Dawson, two hours later than they were expected, they thanked us and said it was a great flight.

It’s a pleasure to do a job when you can do it well and enjoy it. It wasn’t always like that, but when it was, I feel the passengers benefitted. Having happy employees who enjoy their job is an important and often overlooked aspect of good customer service. It’s a lesson I will take with me in whatever I do next.

Silver wings and diet coke: my first flights

Yesterday, I got my wings.

After five weeks of training, on Sunday I had my Boeing familiarization flight (fam flight) and yesterday my Boeing line indoctrination (line indoc). The fam flight was my first with flight attendant duties although I was technically a passenger with a passenger seat and supervised by the "real" flight attendant, my trainer. During my line indoc I was again shadowed by a trainer, but this time I was also being evaluated.

I passed, hooray! Plus in the last few days, I've been to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. I saw Calgary for the first time from an airplane window, I caught a glimpse of an Edmonton runway and I actually got a chicken samosa from the departure lounge in Vancouver. And it was great. (Not the samosa, the travel. The samosa was very good though.) I'm not sure why it felt so good to go to these places when I didn't actually see much, but funnily enough, it did.

Oh yeah, and Vancouver felt like the tropics with the moisture in the the air. I could feel my skin greedily sucking it in. If I ever fly from Whitehorse to the Caribbean, it's going to feel like taking a bath. (Whitehorse is the driest city in Canada.)

It wasn't perfect. I gave a VIP of Air North a coffee with no stick stick, among other things. I did, however, have a great team on both flights, knowledgable and fair trainers and when the passengers figured out that I was new they were very encouraging. One kind lady gave me a wink and said "You're doing great!" It actually meant the world to me.

I have now experienced, first hand, the diet coke phenomenon. Heaven knows what they put in there, but it fizzes like crazy in high altitudes. I ended up pouring it like a beer, halfway, making another drink, and then pouring the other half. I was secretly pleased though. I have wings AND I've poured a diet coke at high altitude, I'm starting to feel like a real flight attendant. 

In addition to the diet coke phenomenon I've made it through (in relatively good form, I think) pre-flight briefings, pre-flight checks, safety demos, making coffee, galley checks, arming and disarming doors, securing the cabin, drink service, warming cookies and even a last minute plane change. It was overwhelming at times, but fun. 

The next hurdles are my Hawker fam flight and line indoc. The Hawker is a little more of a challenge because there's only one flight attendant, so I will be doing everything on my own, announcements, door opening, stair lowering, paperwork etc. Part of me is excited about being in charge (I may be a tiny bit of a control freak) and the other part is nervous bordering on terrified (of the responsibility that comes with that very same control.)

5 secrets about flight attendant training

I'm in my second week of training to be an FA. FA means flight attendant. (Aviation professionals are like teenagers texting, why waste time when you can abbreviate.) In my two weeks of FA training I've learned some other things that may surprise you.

1. The course is intense. Your flight attendant is not just a service professional, they've gone though extensive training in safety and emergency procedures. We're talking late nights, early mornings, a five-inch-thick manual of information to learn, study sessions, pressure, stress, drills and exams. In my case, tears have been involved two or three times. Okay, four times.

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FA trainee Susan Gregory Allen studies the FAM (Flight Attendant Manual) onboard a B737.

2. Flight attendant trainees get wet. Today we all inflated life vests and jumped in the pool. If we weren't close before, we are now.

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Instructor Michael Sofko supervises Sonja retracting the airstairs on a B737. Photo by Christa Galloway.

3. Passenger comfort is not a flight attendant's first priority. In fact, safety is the highest priority for a flight attendant. Out of the five weeks of training, only two days are dedicated to service training, the rest basically split between classes, drills and exams related to safety and emergency equipment and procedures. Don't worry though, you'll still get great service.

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Today, we removed the window exit on a B737. Photo by Christa Galloway.

4. Training is very hands on. We spend a good portion of our course on an actual airplane. (This is specific to Air North, many other airlines aren't able to do this.) We have given each other first aid oxygen. We have removed window emergency exits from two types of aircraft. We've all sat in the flight deck (cockpit). We will be putting out a live fire, learning first aid and jumping down an emergency slide.

5. Flight Attendants are all "A" students. You need to score 85% to pass exams. And there are seven exams. And there is a very thick book of drills to pass. Passing is by no means guaranteed. In fact, from what I've heard, many people do not make it through training.

I did not fully appreciate flight attendants before now. Not only do they get you your water, blankets and food (well, there's food on Air North anyway) but they are trained to deal with just about any situation that could arise. 

All and all, it's not the interesting summer job I had pictured before I started. It's so much more than that. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done. I've discovered I want this job more and more every day even though most of it is miles outside my comfort zone. 

Day 3 of flight attendant training

I just finished day three of my Air North flight attendant training. So far, so good! All of my fellow trainees are genuine, nice and friendly people. I would happily work with any one of them. The training is intense and thorough. The ice breakers are unsurprisingly painful - I had to tell a story for a minute about "the time (I) had a ride on Santa's sleigh" and it was the longest 60 seconds in recent memory. The real surprise for me has been how approachable everyone is. We've been visited by or visited almost everyone, other flight attendants, the president, a pilot, the catering department, the safety department, people from marketing and everyone in between.

Yesterday, the Chief Operating Officer, Allan Moore, came into our training room and spoke to us about how we were hired not for our good looks (thank goodness) but for our heart, how Air North wants the Yukon to start when a passenger boards an Air North plane with Yukon hospitality (this is definitely a thing, I've experienced it) and how Air North is still providing meals and service while other airlines are cutting back. It may be lame, but I actually had tears welling up during his talk, he was so sincere, and I felt proud to be referred to as a Yukoner. He gleefully ran to his office and came back with a huge stack of comment cards and started reading them to us. Comment after comment were complimentary about the service and the food. I was glowing with pride for "my airline" but at the same time there was quite a lot of pressure to keep up the standard. Time will tell I suppose.

The biggest thing I've noticed about the people in this company is that they care, and you can tell. 

We have an exam on Friday, here hoping I pass (a pass is 85%) Wish me luck!

The job interview

At any given point during the last few days, if you've seen me talking to myself, I was most likely answering potential job interview questions, often ending with a shaking of the head and a muttered "No, don't say that ya dummy." 

My big interview with Air North was this morning. I'd researched Air North, flight attendant blogs, interview question sites and even called up my cousin Katherine, who is a flight attendant. Basically I put to use my photojournalism training. 

The was a saying in my journalism class at college, "Never ask a question you don't already know the answer to." I was hoping I would know all the answers to my prospective employers questions. I was also hoping the preparation would prevent me from a) imitating a robot b) telling inappropriate jokes and giggling c) shaking and weeping. 

I spent the 30 minute car ride asking myself more questions while simultaneously reminding myself "smile, don't slouch, relax, be yourself, don't say that." I pulled in to Air North's slush laden parking lot, navigating around chunks of snow the size of small glaciers, feeling grateful for our 4Runner, Fi, who didn't take much notice. I looked at the time, I was 40 minutes early.

20 minutes of Candy Crush later, I couldn't take it anymore and I slowly headed towards the building, trying to find a path where I wasn't stepping in ankle deep slush and cold water. The howling wind took a fancy to my jacket and tried to whip to off me while making a hash of my carefully coifed hairdo. After a brief tug of war with the front door, I burst into the building dripping water, jacket half off, hair awry and tried to unobtrusively straighten myself.

Next, I had a photo taken by the receptionist. This would also be my ID photo if I was hired. My mantra of "smile and relax" was replaced by "smile, chin out, 45 degree angle" so after the photo all that remained of my mantra was "Smile!" At this I could feel my smile becoming stiff and grimace-like.

Here is the problem with getting to an interview early. I had a good 20 minutes in the waiting room, psyching myself out. "Be natural!" I scolded myself. I tried for the most natural yet professional pose I could muster in the waiting room chair. Jacket on my lap, no, no, jacket on the chair, jacket on my arm... legs crossed, legs not crossed. I may have ended up looking a bit like a contortionist, I'm not sure.

I tried to remember some of the preparation of the past few days but all I could call up was the name Krista, the contact name on the ad. I remembered this using a brilliant pneumonic mental device, and also, my name is Christa.

A professional smart-looking woman came down the stairs and with an outstretched hand and a smile on her face said, "Christa?" 

"Krista, Christa," I said, in an epic brain fart. While I was giving myself a mental slap on the forehead, she gave me a queer look and introduced herself with a name I can not remember because I was to busy with my mental slap but I think it was Debra and I know it was definitely not Krista.

I proceeded to make things worse by trying to explain my earlier not-so-clever comment as we made our way up the stairs, down corridors and around corners. The door opened and I was confronted with a large conference table and two other interviewers. One of whom was Krista, duh.

The questions began. I remembered to smile three or four times but every time I checked I was slouching so I snapped myself upright. In hindsight I probably looked like I was dancing, I think "krumping" is what the kids nowadays would call it. That or having small seizures.

Aside from the grimacing and krumping my preparation did come in handy for the actual questions and I think I did okay. I didn't completely bomb anyway. They seemed happy that I already understood the nature of the job from my interview with Katherine and there were quite a few similarities to my job on a cruise ship. I answered the questions clearly and gave specific examples, I was totally prepared to be away for a week at a time, have odd hours and be on call and I had the family support to do this. I believe they were also happy that I'd done my homework and I managed to relate a few tidbits Katherine had told me. 

When they asked me to give an example of great customer service I hit a complete brain block. All I could think of was the wedding I shot six hours away from home three weeks after giving birth. I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply to the world of air travel but it was all I could think of so I told it anyway. At one point they asked if I would be okay leaving my family for a week at a time I answered, "No problem at all, I love my son but I just spent two weeks at home with him and a week away would be great!" Thank goodness I wasn't interviewing for mother of the year.

My drive home was a little bit like the next day after having too much to drink, I kept wincing as I remembered stupid stuff I said. 

All and all it wasn't perfect but it wasn't anywhere near the disaster that was my Princess Cruises interview, and I got that job! Now, I wait and hope my Aunt Nonie's angels come through for me.