The Middle East airline companies offer a 6-8 weeks training to their new cabin crew and in this period the new joiners learn everything about flying, the company’s fleet, how to react in case of emergency, how to offer first aid, how to have the best on board service during the whole flight and grooming techniques for an impeccable look. In the end, the graduates are ready to operate their first flight and to embrace literally the job of Cabin Crew. The training is provided for free by the airline company, as part of the benefits package.

I discussed with one of our former students, Cabin Crew for Qatar Airways, about how it was for her the training period at this company.

Training at Qatar Airways takes 2 months and almost 6-7 hours a day to study, at the academy in Doha. You have only one day off per week, during the training period, Friday. “It was a little bit tiring because during the week you have to study daily, and your day off it’s s the only moment you have time for yourself”, says our How to be Cabin Crew student.

What did you study, what was the hardest subject?

We started the training with a short presentation of Doha, the rules we must follow and how to present during the whole training period (make-up, hair and outfit). This took approximately 4 days. Then we had the first training module, de Service one. It took 2 weeks and we learned about the equipment and products we have on board, menu presentation, wine and cocktails and communication methods.

After the 2 weeks of service, which were the easiest ones, we had the Safety module for 3 weeks, being the hardest and most stressful period of the training part, because you had to learn new terms daily. You have to know everything very well, exactly like it was written in the manual. In this part we studied exit procedures in case of emergency landing on water or land, how to use the safety equipment and fire simulation.

How was the ditching part (water landing simulation) ?

Ditching was the task I was most afraid of, at first, because I didn’t know how to swim, but when I arrived there I saw that it wasn’t that much complicated, because you are wearing a vest and you jump into the water from a very small distance. A big inconvenient is that the water is very cold, but otherwise it is not that complicated, everybody passes this task.

The last part of the training was the First Aid module, here I learned about the pills we had in our first aid kit on board and how to use them, about different medical situations encountered on board like: panic attack, cerebral attack, fractures, burns, and so on.

How many exams you had to take during the training period?

We had one exam each week, and the percentage of promotion of the exam was 86%. This meant that you weren’t allowed to make more than 4-5 mistakes at a single test. The exam was multiple choice and had 50 questions.

How did you interact with your teachers?

The teachers, in general, tried to help us and to keep us motivated during the training period, because there were lots of moments when we had the impression that it is too much information for such a short period of time.

How it was to learn all the information in English, how difficult was to know all the technical terms by heart?

At first it was very difficult, it was hard to learn everything by heart, it was very stressful and I was very nervous before the first exams. Then I got used to the idea, and all seemed a lot easier, it become like a daily routine.

This is the story about Qatar Airways training period. I hope it will be very useful and to bring you closer to your dream.