Memoirs from the Orange Army

Caution! Trip Hazard

***AUTHOR'S MESSAGE*** - Hello all, Firstly I would like to apologise for the sudden stoppage on writing, this is due to a few reasons. It was partially due to writers block but largely down to one of the busiest years I've ever had both inside and outside of work.

I've often thought of coming back to continue this book but either time was against me or I was busy procrastinating. In general, summer was the busiest that our airline has ever faced and that certainly reflected on our workload. It's only now that I finally feel ready to pick up where I left off and enlighten you all with more tales from from my beloved airline and I have accrued many more to add to this book.

So, thank you for being patient, I've seen your messages and requests on here constantly asking for more memoirs. I shall try not to leave it so long for you next time. Now, are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

Joey S
x

Here I am again. Another late night Alicante service with a surplus of passengers fuelled with adrenaline and alcohol.  It's been a long week of late finishes and it's the height of summer outside. The sun is blazing and that British part inside me would rather have tea and cakes in the garden whilst complaining about the amount of flies, wasps and other various insects that are invading my airspace. In reality,  I was staring blankly around the briefing table in a stifling hot crew room trying to set myself in the right frame of mind for work.

When the rest of the crew appeared at the table, I put on my warm smile and prepared for the briefing. Halfway through briefing, one of the crew dispatch officers approached our table and informed us of a stand change. We were briefing in the north terminal but it transpired that our aircraft was actually in the south terminal so we had to be taken by bus over to our aircraft. This was clearly frustrating for us all as traffic around the airport moves at a glacial pace and the aircraft stand was a long and winding route. We finished our brief and left to get the bus and prepare ourselves for a long tour around the airport.

After what seemed like eternity, we got to our aircraft ahead of all our passengers who would also have had to have been transported by bus which was a blessing by all accounts. There's nothing worse than turning up to the aircraft and all our passengers are there waiting. Even if we were to arrive on time, it always looks like we are late and it makes our passengers impatient and grumpy. We got off our bus and immediately noticed something strange with our aircraft. There was a sign plastered on the rear door of the aircraft with some illegible writing. We all opted to board from the rear door to see what this sign said.

"CAUTION - TRIP HAZARD. AISLE CARPET LIFTED"

Defects like this are a normal thing. Cosmetic wear on an aircraft happens because of neglect from both crew and passengers although largely the blame is more directed to the latter. The level of consideration for an £88 million aircraft is terribly low. The Captain opened the door and we all saw green tape across the aisle blocking entry to the rest of the aircraft. Upon further inspection, we could see why. The cabin had been deconstructed. Rows of seating had been ripped out, strewn across other rows and in the aisle. The carpet had been ripped up and folded over itself in a messy fashion. There was a huge crack of approximately one metre in length in the floorboards. Insulation littered the area. At this precise moment, the catering team had opened the rear door on the other side and were now also just sharing the same vacant look we all had on our faces. It was a lot to take in. "How are we going to cater the food in the other galley" said one of the catering crew. Their silly question was met with silence. We all stood there for approximately a minute before clicking into action. We told the catering staff that this aircraft wasn't going out anytime soon and to leave us for a little while and try to return later whilst we made sense of the situation.

It was almost immediately that we all started digging for information through crew dispatch, ground operations and other crew members in the hope that somebody could shed some light on our little situation. Crewing had no idea what had happened and ground operations also had nothing to offer. Pictures of the aircraft went straight onto the staff Facebook page to see if anybody knew anything. Ground Operations told us that nothing had been said to them. It was exasperating trying to find out what to do. Crewing were insistent the aircraft was fine so we sent them the evidence that clearly showed otherwise. We were getting all kinds of questions thrown at us from many directions including crew who were trying to also find out what had happened. It had begun to seem like nobody knew anything about this and the aircraft had done this to itself.  Quite literally, the aircraft had landed and the crew had gotten off just 40 minutes prior to us arriving at the aircraft.

After a little while, a crew member had gotten in touch to say the aircraft had a bad landing from a new cadet which caused the crack in the floor panel. It was then in that short time between crew changes, the engineers had come in, ripped up the seats and carpet and revealed the extent of the damage and then decided to simply leave it in that state with a barely legible sign left on the door. It was also at this point that Crewing declared that this aircraft could be fixed within the hour and still expected us to fly out on it. This made the Captain rather unhappy and after a short consultation with myself and the rest of the crew, he refused to fly on it until a proper inspection had been completed. (I would like to point out here that Crewing and Operations are two separate counterparts. Crewing seem to think an aircraft can fly using magic where as Operations know that the smallest of things can ground an aircraft)

Crewing decided to call us once again and informed us about a new aircraft that we could have once it had got back into Gatwick. We all breathed a sigh of relief as I don't think any one of us particularly wanted to fly on this aircraft. They told us we could have the aircraft arriving from Olbia, Italy. When we asked how long this would be until it arrived, they simply told us it had literally just taken off...from Gatwick. Clearly frustrated by this, the Captain demanded another aircraft sooner but they told us this was the only aircraft available at the time. We simply had no choice but to wait for it to come back.

Many hours passed by. We got dinner, we slept and we talked endlessly about various things we could think of. By the time the aircraft was almost back at Gatwick, we were all exhausted. It had already been a long evening of waiting around for an aircraft and now we had to continue our original duty with grumpy and tired passengers. We left the crew room and headed over to the gate where our aircraft would be arriving at and we passed a whole lot of other empty aircraft along the way. This was very annoying due to the fact we were told there would be no spare aircraft and yet here there were so many just waiting to be filled.

We arrived at the gate and our passengers were already there. In circumstances like these, you keep your head down and walk past in the hope that none of them stop you and ask questions. It was all very awkward. You could see they wanted to cause a stir but were visibly too tired to say anything. We met the crew for a handover, loaded the passengers on and departed as quickly as we could.

The actual flights were uneventful. There were a few passengers on each flight that passed a few remarks about never wanting to fly easyJet again but we were all past the point of caring. We continued to wear our smile and greet them with an apology. We flew back to Gatwick and arrived at 6am the next morning. I remember going to debrief amongst all of the first wave crew who were horrified to learn of the huge delay we encountered and offered their sympathy towards our unrelenting duty.

For those of you who don't work in the industry, I'd like to enlighten you on something that I originally thought was common sense. If there is some sort of delay to your aircraft, then don't complain because there is usually a good reason for the delay. Most airlines will put passenger safety first and if that means you lose a few hours of your time as a trade for the safekeeping of your life then so it shall be. Your crew also do not wish to be delayed, a lot of them don't even get paid extra for all those extra hours worked. In short, don't give the staff a hard time, they are also humans too.

"Patience is not the ability to wait. It is the ability to keep a good attitude while waiting" - unknown