As you may know, the aircraft cabin is not pressurized to sea level, but rather to the equivalent of about 7 or 8 thousand feet. This means some passengers might feel a little light headed or that alcohol effects them almost twice as much as it would on the ground. It also means soft drinks foam up a lot more when poured out of a can. The worst culprit for this is Diet Coke. I literally have to sit and wait for the bubbles to fall before I can continue pouring. If all 3 passengers ask for diet coke I’ll often get them started, take another three drink orders, serve those, and then finish the diet cokes. As the infomercials say, “There’s GOT to be a better way!”

In fact there is! In the video below you can see me first pouring a diet coke the “normal” way, then pouring it the “smart” way.

Pouring Diet Coke the smart way.

As you can see, the can gets in the way and prevents the foam from forming. This saves so much time that I can pour a complete glass with ice the “smart” way before the foam even finishes falling when pouring the standard method. (That little cup full of melty ice was all we had left on the plane that day, normally with proper big cubes the effect of the foam is even bigger)

What you can’t see is that the diet coke doesn’t come out of the can when flipped upside down until you lift it up and tilt it slightly. This is because the air pressure is keeping the coke in the can. It makes pouring the diet coke very controllable and reduces the chances of spilling or overflow.

I know this seems like a minor detail, but at my airline we offer a full inflight service including hot towels, meals, bar, tea/coffee and more on flights over 3 hours. Pouring diet coke is one of the biggest slow downs in the bar service and on the shorter flights those precious seconds count!

(Disclaimer: I’m trying out some new publishing software, which may need some adjusting. Apologies if my formatting is off)

• Flight Attendants HATE sharing their pen with passengers (And sometimes other FAs).
  
  • It’s because in their minds they never get their pen back. And a lot of the time they are right. In my case I’ll share my pen because I actively horde pens from hotels for the sole purpose of sharing. I’ll also tell the passenger straight up to press their call button as soon as they are done so I can collect my pen back to share with other passengers. 9 times out of 10 I’ll get the pen back.
  • However if you ask for one 10 minutes before we land then you are out of luck. In those cases I have never gotten my pen back because the pax gets off the plane before I get a chance to see them again!

     

• Bribery goes a long way.
  
  • Often when I fly on another airline, especially on long flights, I bring a little bag of chocolate for the crew. As a crew member I can tell you that we all feel well appreciated when a passenger does that and we will do everything we can to make your flight the best it can be.
  • Until just the other month I’d never experienced the receiving end of this, but since then I’ve had 3 different flights were a passenger has brought a gift for the crew! I have a feeling some passengers are doing a little research. Although in all three cases the passengers declined the complimentary drinks I offered.

     

• Passengers like a little abuse.
  
  • Well, some anyway. There are many different kinds of passengers. Some like a little friendly chit chat, others like to be left alone. But my favourites are the ones who like a little sass. “You want ICE in your coke? Well aren’t we demanding!” I’ll get a good laugh from them and they’ll get a full can and a heaping glass of ice from me. Naturally you have to have a good gauge on who these passengers are. If you get sassy with the wrong pax you might find yourself in trouble later.

     

• Theft is the only way to make me really mad.
  
  • A passenger sees a large bottle of water on the galley counter and decides to take it for themselves. It may not seem like much, but this is the only thing that really truly makes me angry onboard. Firstly because chances are that was a crew member’s personal water (I’ve had mine taken many times!), but also because we don’t have enough supplies on board to give everyone their own personal supply. If that water bottle wasn’t a crew members, then it was for everyone. It was stolen from everyone. I’ve seen this happen with pop, alcohol, snacks, MY LUNCH, and so on. Not to mention, the law says whenever a passenger starts rummaging through the galley, I have to tear everything apart to make sure nothing “suspicious” was placed in there. It creates a whole lot of unnecessary work for me!

     

• Smiling makes my day.
  
  • No matter how bad a day I’m having (even if a passenger steals my water bottle!) as soon as I get into the aisle and start smiling it all turns around. And if I have a particularly difficult passenger, smiling usually seems to defuse them. It seems to be a topic that many flight attendants and passengers seem to have trouble with. But I’ll swear on it, keep smiling and you’ll feel better.

The flight was uneventful. It was a little less than 2 hours, so we offered a bar service and showed some sitcoms on the entertainment system. I’m just getting over a cold, so for much of the flight I unfortunately had a pressure headache.

We landed on time in Regina and were at the gate at 10:10 local time. In Regina we conducted a crew change with a Calgary based crew who took the plane down to Montego Bay, Jamaica.

My crew will stay here in Regina all day before we go back to the airport tonight around 23:30. We’ll meet that same YYC crew and take over the aircraft for the final leg back to YVR, arriving around 01:00.

It’s not a very difficult day, to say the least. As you can tell though, it’s a long day. Since it’s too long to legally (or sensibly) have one crew operate, the airline breaks the day down with two crews. One to operate the main portion of the flights, and another to catch the beginning and tail ends. It’s all designed to avoid fatigue.

I actually had a flight a few weeks ago that the captain terminated due to fatigue. We’d operated down to Cuba, after a series of extended delays beyond our control. The final straw was in Cuba when the airline couldn’t get a flight plan for us to go home. We sat at the airport, passengers onboard, waiting to go home. We waited for an extra 30 minutes. Finally the captain decided it was too much. We’d been on duty for too long, and there was no possible way to get the aircraft home before exceeding Transport Canada’s requirements on a maximum duty day. He pulled the plug, so to speak, and informed the passengers of the situation. We had to send everyone back to their hotels (paid for by the company, of course), and then spend a minimum rest period in Cuba. We ended up taking everyone home the morning after. Luckily we were flying to the prairies! Aside from a few (understandably) angry passengers, most people were okay with the situation. After all, it was a safety risk. Most people don’t want the pilots of a 737 to operate while fatigued!

That’s an extreme example, and luckily it’s very rare. But it’s also why my you see airlines planning crew changes on certain flights. It prevents situations like that from happening.
It’s not a bad deal for my crew either. Today we’ll get 8 hours credit, for 2 flights under 2 hours. On top of that we’ll also get an hourly per diem for all the time spent her in Regina.

Not a bad deal at all!

It’s no secret that I as a flight attendant have to be recertified with a new competency card every 12 months. Every country in the world requires flight attendants complete an annual training program. At my airline, requalification consists of three parts.

The first part is a pre-class work book that is emailed to us a few months before the actual training class. The workbook consists of 100 multiple choice questions and must be completed prior to the start of class. With every answer you also have to include a reference to our Flight Attendant Manual with the chapter and page number where the exact answer can be found. The questions aren’t all that hard, since we have the whole manual memorized, it’s just time consuming searching for all those references. That swhy they give you a few months to do it. Although I usually just sit down a week or so before class and power through it in about 6 – 8 hours.

Here’s an example question of what you might see in the workbook:

The following are all fire prevention practices, except?
a. Strictly enforce no smoking regulations
b. Investigate any unusual smoke, fumes or odours in the cabin or lavatory upon
completion of service related duties
c. Ensure cabin floors are kept free of paper
d. Be alert to circuit breakers that may have popped and the cause of it

The answer in this case is “B” because 1) safety and security come before service, and 2) if you’re investigating smoke, you’re no longer preventing fire. You’re fighting it.

The second part of training is the classroom work and in class drills. This is a regular 9 – 5 work day in a classroom. The first thing we do is hand in our workbooks to be marked. Everyone is required to get 90% or higher to pass. Once marked, we go over all the incorrect answers as a class so that everyone has been orally corrected to 100%.

After that, most of the day is spent going over study material, hazardous goods laws, and reviewing all the key points of our Manuals. The day ends with another 100 question exam where once again, you need to get 90%+ to pass. We’ll go over the incorrect questions again as a class to be orally corrected to 100%.

Finally, to end the day we’ll do some basic drills. We need to demonstrate how to put on the life jackets on ourselves, children, and infants. We show how to use the fire extinguishers, various oxygen bottles, breathing equipment, etc.

All the drills are exams as well. We have to demonstrate how to use each piece of equipment without making any more than 1 mistake. If we do make a mistake they’ll let us know after what we did wrong.

Finally the third part of annual requalification is the evacuation drills. These are the same ones we did in initial training, which I wrote about here. There was only one difference. This year the airline decided that it would be a good idea to take the soon to be upgraded Flight Attendants and put them in the Cabin Manager role so they could get a better idea of what was included in their new roles. Unfortunately there were only a couple upgrades this year, so the airline decided that “Flight Attendants who applied for the upgrade, but were unable to receive it due to the lack of available spots will be filling a Cabin Manager role in this years Hunger Games evacuation drills.” Apparently I would have received the upgrade this year if there had been room for me because I was assigned the in charge position. Hurray for small victories.

My group was last for the group evacuation drills. Our Scenario? “The Bomb Threat” Due to the security aspects of this scenario, I cannot disclose most of how we handled this situation. What I can say is this:

During the “flight” we received a bomb threat. The pilot called the CM (That’s me) to the flight deck and gave me my orders. We were to search the entire aircraft, including passengers and their bags. If a bomb was found, we’d take the details of it to the flight deck and get further instructions at that time. We were not to tell any passengers what we were looking for. Once I left the flight deck I immediately briefed my crew members.

During our search, we did find the “Bomb” (It was a paper shopping bag with a cartoon bomb drawn on it). I took down all it’s details and then returned to the flight deck, where the pilot gave me a fresh set of instructions.We’d be making an emergency landing immediately. We would be on the ground in 15 minutes. Do an emergency demo for the passengers. The signal to start your shouted commands will be “Brace!” once on the ground will be doing a rapid deplanement unless an evacuation is necessary. I’ll give you the appropriate signal at that time.

I returned to the cabin and briefed my crew. We performed our demos, and then took out jump seats. We began our shouted commands once we received the “Brace” signal. Once we “Landed” we performed a rapid deplanement and got everyone off the plane via the main entry door as quickly as possible.

It was the most time consuming and detailed scenario of the night. However I felt it was also one of the best executed. I was very proud of my team, because we all knew our stuff and we all made each other look good.

Depending on the year, there may be some extra components to requalification. For example, this fall I will be due to recertify my firefighting qualification. I’ll have to go into a simulator to put out live fires in a mock aircraft cabin. (This is my favourite one! Although I certainly hope I never have to use it in real life). Other components include first aid and dangerous goods. Those are much more boring to do, but equally as important. 

Keeping with the theme of lavatory placards; another flight attendant at my airline sent me this photo he took when he discovered a vandalized placard during his pre-flight checks.

I’m not a fan of vandalism, especially onboard an aircraft. But I’ll admit this Baby-B-Q gave me a chuckle. And not to worry, this placard has since been replaced by maintenance.

As always, you can click the polaroid for the full sized image.

The problem with placards though is that there is a lot of them. So many in fact that they tend to simply blur into the background. This applies to crew and passengers a like.

Did you know that the instructions on an aircraft placard are law? It’s the same as ignoring instructions from a crew member. If you ignore the instructions on a placard, you are breaking the law. (Hence why so many of them say “No Smoking” and “Stow table tray for taxi, take off, and landing.”)

This is why I strongly dislike unnecessary placards. There are already enough legitimately useful placards onboard the aircraft that you start to look past them.

We don’t need any more than what is necessary. The one that I find on pretty much every aircraft is this one located in the lavatory:

The main reason I don’t like this placard isn’t actually because its unnecessary, it’s because it’s an embarrassment to the English language. It’s a grammatical nightmare. Transport Canada had to approve this placard before it could be put onboard an aircraft. In fact, pretty much every country has approved it as is. I want to know who looked at this when it first went up for approval and said, “Oh yeah. That’s fine.” If I had that job, I would have said, “Oh, Hell no!” and sent it back with the following changes:

I also would have suggested that it be reworded somewhat. These are instructions, it shouldn’t be asking the passenger a question.

Actually all of that is a lie. If I worked for Transport Canada and saw this I would laugh, and then deny the request to have this posted in every friggen 737 lavatory. This placard has nothing at all to do with the safety and/or security of the aircraft, and as such should not be required to be there.

*Rant Over*

The best part is reading the laugh out loud.

Found Here: http://imgur.com/gallery/dSsXQ

After a short while we found Williston lake. Williston Lake is a BC Hydro Reservoir. In fact it’s the largest reservoir in the province. The lake had it’s own park with overnight camping and a day use area. We pulled into the day use area, popped out the slide extension, and got a nice campfire going. We spend a good chunk of the day enjoying this place.

We made lunch (I roasted hotdogs, while Ryan made a sandwich), explored the lake a little, and finally put out the fire and left. We would take the RV full speed ahead with the intention of doing a red eye to Liard River hot springs. We drove through Hudon’s Hope and eventually arrived in Fort St. John shortly after 7 PM. We stopped here briefly to refill the RVs Propane tank, which was reading less than a quarter full. Ryan also expressed concern about continuing to drive all night. He was getting uncomfortable from being in the passenger seat for so long and wasn’t too interested anymore in the idea of trying to sleep like that overnight.

That being said we still wanted the extra usable day at the hot springs, since we left MacKenzie early. We discussed our options and calculated our travel times. We decided if we continued driving until 10pm, and started driving again at 6am, we’d arrive at the hot springs by 3pm. Plenty of time left in the day to enjoy the site when we got there. We’d gain a whole afternoon!

The plan was set. After 10pm we’d stop at the first RV park we see.

It was a good plan, except for the part where there is absolutely nothing located between Fort St. John and Fort Nelson. 10pm came and Ryan was fast asleep in his passenger seat and I was driving through nothingness. I kept driving, looking for a place to stop. Every so often I’d see a sign saying there was an RV site coming up, but when the site actually came up it would be closed for the season. 10:30 came and went, as did 11:00 and 11:30.

At Midnight we pulled into Fort Nelson. Just as we passed the sign saying we’d entered the city limits I noticed something in the sky.

“Ryan! Wake up!!” I said “Whaaaat?”, he grumbled still half asleep.

“It’s the northern lights!”

Suddenly Ryan was wide awake. In the sky we could see the blue-green waves dancing, welcoming us to the city. It was magical. We only saw them for a few minutes, they faded away as we entered the brighter parts of Fort Nelson.

At roughly 10 minutes past midnight we found an RV park, however given that we were going to leave so early in the morning, we opted to save the cost and pulled over on the side of the road. We decided that we’d leave at 8am instead of 6, since we drove an extra 2 hours that night.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast, got gas, and were gone by 8:30. We drove straight to Liard River hot springs, stopping only once to gawk at a frozen lake. I guess we severely miscalculated our travel time because we arrived at the hot springs just before noon.

Side Note: After stopping at the frozen lake, we decided to shoot some video as we drove by. Check it out!

At 6am the next day we packed up and started our journey into the interior.

Our first stop was only about in hour into our drive. We stopped in Chilliwack. I’d mapped out all the free RV sani-stations in BC and the Yukon that were on our route (there weren’t many, most sani-stations cost $5 – $10 per use), and one of them was located at a rest stop in Chilliwack. I used this opportunity to empty the waste tanks that were still about 3/4 full from Porteau Cove. Once the tanks were drained, we pulled into a bus stall at the rest stop and made breakfast.

After breakfast we were on the road for the long haul. We only made a few stops along the way, mostly for gas and once for lunch. Ryan slept for much of the drive. I didn’t mind though. I had my music, and frankly I love to drive. In fact I often left the music turned off, and just enjoyed the sound of my own driving. I was happy as can be cruising down the highway, enjoying the sights of the forests, small communities that we drove through, and the wild life. Throughout the trip we’d end up seeing all sorts of Deer, Bears, Goats, Sheep, Bison, Moose, Hawks, Eagles, and more.

The route we took this day ran us up through Hope on Highway 1, through the Fraser Canyon and onto Highway 97. We drove through communities of various sizes such as Boston Bar, Lytton, Cache Creek, Clinton, 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, Quesnel, and Prince George.

Some of the places we drive through were no more than a Hotel/General Store/Gas Station/RV Park. All in one building. Others, such as Quesnel and Prince George were very large cities. I was especially surprised when I reached Quesnel, I expected a large town. But not a full blown city.

100 Mile House also made my list of unexpected pleasantries. It was in this district municipality (population just over 1,800) where gas was the cheapest that I could find throughout the entire road trip. In Surrey gas was $1.48/L when we left. As you leave the cities of the Lower Mainland, gas is known to get incrementally cheaper as you move further away. For Example in Chilliwack gas was $1.44/L and in Hope it was $1.40/L. The gas in 100 Mile House was $1.28/L. I was so glad I filled up here, because after 100 Mile house the gas price began to rise again. It would eventually plateau at $1.35/L. The RV had a 200L Tank, so you can imagine how important the fuel prices were to me. I would end up filling the tank 3 times this day, from about half empty.

After passing through Prince George we were on the home stretch. We’d been on route for about 12 hours (including rest stops and fuel ups), and it was only another two hours to MacKenzie. We began seeing billboards advertising the town. Some featured skiers traversing through fresh snow, others with a happy couple playing golf. All the signs were captioned with the phrase “Experience MacKenzie!”

We pulled into the town’s Municipal RV Park at around 8pm. There were signs stating we were required to register at the Municipal Offices before entering the campground, however we discovered the offices closed at 6pm. Since there were no other RV sites in or around the town, we chose to pull into the park and register in the morning.

The park itself seemed run down. Most of the other RVs and Trailers in the park were very old and appeared to be full time residents, although some of them looked abandoned. Each site had full or partial RV hook ups. We plugged into the site next to ours, because the power outlet on our side was cracked and I didn’t want to risk getting a shock.

The park’s brochure advertised free firewood. We found the firewood bins, but in them were just a few scrap 2×4 ends. It didn’t matter anyway since the park didn’t have any fire pits. It did however have random burnt holes in the ground were previous campers decided to have fires.

There was an information board in the park that outlined community happenings through out the year. There wasn’t much happening this month, but it looked like there were some public concerts and festivals happening in the summer. The board also outlined some nearby hiking trails and skiing in the area, as well as were the stores and services were in the town.

While I was checking out the park, Ryan asked some other RVers about the Municipal Offices. When I met back up with him he said we’d be able to register in the morning. He also obtained a password for the site’s free WiFi. (Bonus points for having WiFi!) He also mentioned that the people he spoke to in the campground were not very friendly. Some people would just go hide in their trailers if he approached them, and those that would talk to him would give short answers. Their body language suggested they wanted him to go away.

We’d brought our own firewood and had originally planned to make dinner by campfire, but given the lack of fire pits and the ambiance of the facility, we decided just to stay in the RV that night.

The next morning we packed up the RV and drove it into town. There wasn’t much to see. The only tourist attraction we could find was “the worlds largest tree crusher”. Besides that the community only really had businesses and services designed for its residents. Your basics like super markets, gas stations, and so on.

Despite what all the advertising suggested, MacKenzie didn’t really seem like much of a town for tourism. It really was just a pulp mill town.

We drove back to the Municipal Offices to discover that they were still closed, and would remain that way until after the weekend. We decided around then that we would leave MacKenzie since there was nothing to do, and spend the day exploring smaller nearby towns before making a red eye trip to our next scheduled destination.

When I was a kid, my parents used to do RV relocation specials. It was a great deal. The RV rental company would say “We have this RV that needs to be in this city by this date.” The company would cover the cost of the RV and pay for the gas, and my parents would use their Canadian Airlines flight passes to fly us home afterwards.

Of course these days the deal isn’t quite so sweet. While the RV was almost free, the company does not cover the gas. And while the gas does add up, it’s still only a fraction of the cost compared to a full priced RV rental.

After discovering that the RV company’s still do this, I planned my own road trip. We booked a relocation from Delta, BC to Whitehorse, Yukon. The rental was 10 nights for $99. Due to work restrictions, my friend who was coming with me was only able to 7 nights. So for the first two nights, I went on a mini-trip with my other friend to one of our favourite camping spots in BC.

I picked up the RV May 1st. I was excited to see what we were getting. They ended up giving us their second largest vehicle. While I was doing the paperwork, the RV dealership asked what our route plan was to get to Whitehorse. I explained to them that for the first two nights we’d be staying in Porteau Cove, just outside of North Vancouver, then head up to MacKenzie, later over to Liard River Hot Springs, up through Whitehorse to Haines Junction, and finally back to Whitehorse to drop off the RV.

They liked my route plan, saying I’m going to see a lot of cool stuff that way. They then suggested I take the RV through Downtown Vancouver to get to Porteau Cove. Seeing as how I’ve never driven anything this large, I was a little put off by the idea. But they assured me I’d be fine, and going around downtown will cost me a least an extra two hours and a whole lot of my included kilometres. In the end I agreed I’d have to drive the RV through downtown.

After a detailed tour of the RV, my friend and I were ready to hit the road. Our plan was for me to drive the RV to the airport employee parking lot, and my friend would follow in my car. At the airport we’d transfer all our stuff from the car to the RV, and leave the car in the parking lot so it be waiting when we flew back to YVR from Whitehorse.

Once the car was parked and the RV was loaded up we were ready to roll. When I first drove the RV off the lot I was a little overwhelmed. I was very worried about not making wide enough turns, not staying in my lanes, and not being able to stop in time. Luckily I had huge side mirrors to help with the first two issues. None the less, for the first little while I had a hard time getting the courage to drive the thing faster than 40km/h. Still, after about 15 – 20 minutes of driving it all started to become second nature. By the time I rolled out of the YVR parking lot, I was driving that RV as if I’d been driving it all my life.

Which was good because it was time to take it through downtown Vancouver. I suddenly became aware how the lanes are so much more narrow downtown. With the vehicle perfectly centred in the lane, my tires were just barely inside the white lines. I had NO wiggle room. Luckily the average speed downtown is no faster than 30km/h.

I made it through the city easily, and before I knew it I was on the highway. 30 or so minutes after that I made it to Porteau Cove Provincial Park. The park ranger wasn’t at the gatehouse when we got there, so we just went right in and found ourselves an available site. I pulled straight in, applied the breaks, and turned off the engine. Excitedly I announced “We’re here!”. My friend went into the cabin and started setting up. Starting with popping out the slide extension.

Sadly though, I didn’t think about where our electrical connection was. The power connection on the site was awkwardly placed behind some trees, and because I pulled into the site, our power line came out from the farthest corner of the RV to where the connection was. I learned quickly that the cord didn’t reach.

We retracted the pop-out, started up the RV, and with much help from my friend directing outside we turned the RV around and backed it in. This may have taken a few more attempts than I’d like to share. On the successful attempt I was backing in and my friend said “You have lots of room. Get as close as you can!” to which I responded, “We’re getting awfully close to those trees, is there still room for the slide-out?” “Oh.” I heard, “Stop where you are. If you don’t go any further, you’ll have room.” With that I again applied the brakes, and shut off the engine.

This time we we checked to make sure the power cord reached before setting anything else up. This time, the cord was long enough.

Shortly after setting up, our friend from way back when we were in Scouts showed up for the day/evening. Portau Cove is a favourite for all three of us. It’s even better when RVing.

While there did some geocaching and hiking. For the most part though we stayed around the campfire having lots of smores. I also worked on my tin-foil campfire grilled beef dinner recipe.

…I suppose I’ll have to do a post on that recipie one of these days. It’s amazing.

Anyway! My apologies in taking over a month to come up with a new post. After taking 2 weeks off from work, I decided I’d take the rest of the month off from writing. This week I’ll be working on RVing posts, and after that will be returning to my regular inflight topics!