Memoirs from the Orange Army

When In Rome

This chapter is the first one based not from my own experience but from another crew member who recently positioned out to Rome. It's taken a while to write this as best as I can to provide you with a personal experience so although it looks it's written from a first person perspective, it's actually from a fellow crew member.

Just a few weeks ago, Rome suffered a terrible atrocity. Rome Fiumicino airport (or otherwise known as Leonardo Da Vinci airport) had a devastating fire which burnt out a large section of the airport. It was plastered across the media all over the world. Amazingly no one was hurt despite happening around the late afternoon. No one saw how it started and it was quickly blamed on faulty electrics.

Just two weeks later, I was enjoying my days off relaxing in the sunshine when I had a strange urge to check my roster for any new changes. My gut instinct was telling me something was different. There I saw it. The red banner. I clicked to check my changes and I thought I was originally doing a rescue flight to Rome. This excites me, I'd never done a rescue flight yet but I had heard that flying an empty aircraft out was always fun and you could sit in the flight deck for take off and landing. Then I noticed that I wasn't coming back that day. Or the next day or even the day after that. It was a total of five days. Day one was to be positioning out to Rome, then three days on airport standby and day five would be positioning back home to Gatwick. I couldn't believe it. I woke my best friend and fellow crew member and excitedly asked them if this was correct. They confirmed it was completely correct and advised me to call crewing for further information.

I remember talking to crewing whilst I bubbled with excitement, making sure everything was correct. I was told my flights and hotel would be booked and confirmed with me the very next day. I wanted to leap up and punch the air with glee, it was such a fantastic opportunity but my gut instinct kicked in again. Why was I being sent there? What was going on? I checked on the Orange Information Pages on Facebook to see if anyone else had been summoned for similar duties and sure enough there were more. I remember a slight feeling of uneasiness creeping in, wondering what could be happening for us all to be called out there. I hated not knowing what was happening and despite several attempts to try and find answers, nobody knew.

The next problem was telling my other half. They were inbetween jobs and had a couple of weeks until the next job and they had hoped they could spend more time with me. Time is a very precious thing as crew, we have very poor social lives because of the nature of the job. We can get up before our partners wake up and sometimes we may not get into bed until well after they are asleep. It puts a large strain on our personal lives as well as relationships with family, friends and partners. I broke the news to them gently. It wasn't taken too well, after all, they hoped to spend more time with me and here I was being whisked away for five days. The good thing is, I always said I wanted to go to Rome with them and I saw this as an opportunity for them to travel with me and experience crew life first hand. My body welled up with excitement when they agreed to come with me.

I had just over thirty six hours until I was due to leave so I frantically started packing a suitcase and making a checklist ensuring I didn't forget anything. Staff travel tickets were booked for my partner and any missing items on the list were purchased and packed too.

When the day came to position out to Rome, I couldn't fit my uniform in my case so I had to wear it. I didn't think it would be too bad, I'd only be wearing it for about four hours before I would be settled in the hotel room and ready to go spend the rest of the day in Rome. We got to the airport, checked in the hold luggage and then proceeded to relax in the airport lounge. When the time was ready, we went to the boarding gate and waited to board the aircraft. In this time, it was discovered that somebody had left their carry on luggage in the middle of the terminal and despite several PA's and attempts to reunite the bag with its mystery owner, nobody came forward. Concerns grew deeper as more passengers boarded and there were less in the terminal. At the very last minute, the last passenger stood up, walked over to this bag and proceeded to board. Understandably, the check in agents gave them a stern talk about the importance of airport safety. The arrogance radiated off this passenger as they didn't even seem to care and they were very nearly offloaded from the flight because of this.