Memoirs from the Orange Army

Over the Bridge and far away...

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Ok so some of you probably wonder exactly what we hosties do (I once had a school trip ask me if we slept on the plane) so while I'm now sat in the garden soaking up the sunshine I'll tell you about life at Gatwick Airport and its infamous eternal bridge.

So I'm operating a late flight to Nice (South of France) for example and after a nice relax at home, I start getting ready for my flight. Crew bag? Check. Passport & I.D? Check. Uniform up to standard? Meh, it'll pass (Normally crew will just iron the sleeves of their shirt as we now wear waistcoats). Nightstop kit? Yep, not going to use it today but you'll never know when something will go wrong. Ok, I'm ready as I'll ever be, let's go!

I just have to mention the uniform here. Ever since our lady Carolyn McCall took over the reign of notorious Greek Stelios, the uniforms have largely improved. We no longer have orange shirts or orange gillets, we have a nice grey suit with white shirts and a fifty shades of orange tie. It's actually much smarter and it's the first time other airlines prefer our uniform to their own. The thing is, theirs are probably made with comfortable materials such as cotton whereas ours is a horrendous mix of Nylon and Polyester. Not so comfortable. The only blunder is the coat. It looks like a large duvet with sleeves and a fluorescent orange lining. I'm sure there is a cord in there somewhere. If you pull the cord you turn into a giant airbag should we ever trip and fall on the length of the coat. Anyway I digress so let's get back to the story.

Now I live very close to the airport so I normally walk into work along the perimeter road of the airport and let me tell you, there are some funny things that happen down there. A few guys had once pitched a tent there for the night and promptly got arrested for doing so. A couple in love were in their car at the side of the road and got a penalty for being there but it must have been pretty awkward with no clothes on! There is always something going on down there.

I reach the side entrance of the airport which leads you past a hotel reception so I walk through strutting my stuff (in my Nylon uniform) before reaching the lift to the terminal. I give myself a check over in the lift, yep still looking presentable!

I casually stroll round to the building that has my crew room inside but I'm still strutting along, passengers heads are turning, children in awe, I mean it's like there are explosions happening behind me and other things from scenes in the movies. I reach the terminal and that's my glamorous part virtually done for the day. I can promise you now, when you've finished your shift, you're not going to care at all how you look and who sees you!

I get to the crew room, check in for my flight, check my emails and print out my flight summary. Then I head to my briefing table where the other crew are waiting. I'm now assessing who I'm going to talk to or like the most and I'm also trying to remember if I've flown with any of them before (there around 4,000 easyJet crew at Gatwick). Then we start to brief about the amount of passengers, if we have everything we need, flight times, and any other experiences or questions we might have that is relevant to the flight (usually baggage is a problem on French flights). Then the flight deck crew meet up with us and confirm flight times and weather conditions (I'm so used to hearing the word turbulence at the minute) before telling us what we really want to know, what parking stand we are at. Stand 103, that's just great. That means we've got one hell of a walk to do. Then we all proceed to staff security.

Upon arrival there you empty everything into plastic trays before giving yourself the inaugural frisk before stepping through the scanner. On the other side you see security with their rubber gloves and you fear for your backside (they don't really do that with us but the thought of an internal exam will always cross your mind). We all get through just fine until the captain is seen arguing that his bottle opener is not a weapon or a tool. I don't know why they all have bottle openers, they all drink tea with a bit of milk, no sugar (they're sweet enough apparently) or they opt for bottles of crew water.

Now comes the long journey over the bridge and far away where easyJet like to play. We all line up in pairs ready to head into the terminal and glide along as a group. Yes, we glide apparently.

There's nothing more awesome in our jobs than the bit where we all walk together and everyone literally stops and stares. Immediately everyone thinks we have an awesome job would do anything just to be us when we do that and I have to admit, it's the best part of our job. It's one of the last bits of glamour left in this industry where curvy girls with beautiful legs are worshipped by men and lady passengers go green with jealousy.

Suddenly on approaching the bridge you're greeted with what is supposed to be sounds of birds chirping and other various sounds of the countryside (thank god it's not the smells too) but it's mixed with sounds of the jet engines and our noisy crew bags. It's a deafening experience. Talking to your fellow crew members is almost impossible at this point and I'm sure nearby passengers must think we like to shout our conversations. Two sides of traffic on the bridge are separated by glass and another easyJet crew are walking past waving and although you wave back, you really want to stick your fingers up at them because you know they've just finished their shift. You reach the top of the bridge and you can't even see the end. What is this hellish bridge? Is it a mirage? There are the usual passengers having mini heart attacks every 30 seconds..."have you got the passports?" before realising they're holding tightly onto them. Finally after 15-20 minutes of walking since leaving the crew room and an eternity on the bridge you reaching the boarding gate and cross the air bridge to the aircraft where you immediately start dressing down. Ladies remove their high heeled shoes, we all remove our Blazers and I.D badges and get to work with our safety related duties.

I must also mention here that the one thing most crew pray for is that we are not an one of those aircraft with the new livery. It makes the aircraft look like its wearing an orange bandana and therefore I'm pretty sure we have now become a laughing stock again. I'm sure all the great men and women sat in the boarding room felt like they needed to make us look silly in some way after designing a smart uniform (minus the coat, mine is still in plastic packaging) and this was how they did it.

Now we have the irresistible urge to greet our passengers like pirates. "Avast ye landlubbers! Take yer seats and buckle up!". Really. That's not a good look for us. If we see one in the distance, we fear it and cower away in the hope we are not chosen to fly on one of these aircraft.

Life at Gatwick as an easyJet crew member is never easy, we are always going to be the subject of ridicule from the likes of British Airways or the bimbos at Virgin Atlantic (they probably couldn't spell ridicule) but at least we have a lot of fun onboard and that shines through to our passengers. We make the best of the crew we have onboard and we generally have a lovely time on shift.

We are the easyJet generation.