Melanie Fitzgerald, cabin crew co-ordinator for Aer Arann in Cork, talks to My Day
I'VE BEEN in the business for 11 years. I meant to go to college when I left school, but I got a part-time job here and fell in love with airports instead.
I work 10 office days and 10 flying days each month. When I'm in the office I look after the day-to-day running of the rest of the cabin crew.
I start at around 8.30am each morning, making sure the early flights went off okay and no one called in sick.
I then go through flight reports, to look for issues relating to contract cleaning or, maybe, where cabin crew weren't alerted to the fact that a passenger requiring a wheelchair was on board.
As aircraft come back I go out to oversee the cleaning turnarounds. It takes 25 minutes, which is the industry standard.
I'll spend the afternoon making sure the late flights get out okay.
If I'm on a cabin-crew day I'm up at 5am. With practice you get your make-up down to a fine art, and I'm normally done in 40 minutes. My hair is short, so that's easily managed. Once it's above your collar you don't have to tie it up. You have to be super-organised to get out that early, with bags, breakfast and lunch waiting by the door.
When I get in I meet with the rest of the crew and talk about any safety or weather issues, and go through passenger numbers.
Then, by 6.30am, we're on board doing preflight checks. We check everything, from fire extinguishers to life jackets under every seat. We go through the hold, the overhead lockers and catering carts.
Occasionally a Department of Transport inspector will test us by sneaking something on that shouldn't be there, but we always find it. They also try boarding with out-of-date boarding cards or on wrong flights.
The Dublin service is very short - 35 minutes - so as soon as we're at 10,000ft we're up doing the complimentary service. The Cardiff service is one hour and 10 minutes and is a paid service.
On those days I finish up at around 1.30pm, which is great. I go swimming on the way home. I live with two of my colleagues, and we have a great social life, but it's not a glamorous job at all. It's very hard work, and you're constantly on show.
Every cabin-crew member has their pet hates, like when you're offering a free newspaper and someone wants a different one, and you're thinking, hey, this is free. Or when you have to sit down fast for take-off and someone has left the safety belt in a knot.
When I'm flying myself on holidays I'm a really good passenger. I sit very quietly, don't ring the call bell and hand my magazines to the cabin crew when I get off.