Cabin Crew
They said to expect the unexpected, but what we didn’t expect was that on one of the hottest days of the year so far we would be donning red boiler suits and life vests! But what were we doing? This was an invitation from Virgin Atlantic to see how Cabin Crew are put through their paces, as they earn their wings.
After a change of clothing we boarded our ‘flight’ going through the safety procedures and why it is so important to listen to the instructions; for example the reason why Cabin Crew pass through the cabin with thier life vests on is so you can subliminally observe the correct way of fastening the ties, which is in a double bow around your waist (the narrowest point) so your vest doesn’t slip off.
Shortly after ‘takeoff’ our plane developed a technical issue and had to make an emergency landing! We adopted the brace position as Cabin Crew shouted ‘HEADS DOWN, FEET BACK’ over and over – even though this was a simulation our hearts were racing as we landed and evacuated the plane.
As we exited the plane we were faced with casualties that we had to assess, this is the point at which Cabin Crew would ask if there are any passengers with medical training to assist. We learnt how Cabin Crew are trained to deal with assessing casualties and to give first aid including resuscitation, defibrillation and recovery.
Our next exercise was to embark the life raft, an undignified process meaning crawling in on our hands and knees and then falling flat on our faces! I actually started to feel a little seasick, even through we were on dry land! We were tasked with erecting a canopy, which meant unravelling an orange nylon sheet and matching numbered tabs to notches on the side of the raft – but to make things more interesting we had to do it in under 53 seconds to beat the Brownies! It took us just over a minute, but we consoled ourselves with the fact that we beat the Met Police time!
Our final challenge was to slide down the escape shoot! After a safety briefing and demo on the correct position to adopt (arms crossed holding onto an imaginary collar) we approached the slide. It looked easy from the bottom, but from the top it was a different matter altogether, but there was no chickening out now as one by one we went down, some of us more elegantly than others!
Well. they told us to expect the unexpected and it was an amazing experience it was to go behind the scenes to finds out how Virgin Atlantic Cabin Crew are trained.
