Ex crew who went to the airport's customer service and the lounges: the lounge host job, the airport ambassador role
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#1 Kenya Airways, Nairobi, four years, and I am still flying but my cousin left KQ after seven years for the airport's lounge and customer service and the Nairobi ex crew ask about it as the ground job that is not the office. Here it is from her, written with her permission, because the forum's exits are the airline office, the training, the dispatch and the recruitment, and the lounge is the one the African ex crew take most.
The jobs
The airport lounge host (the airline's or the independent lounges: the welcome, the service, the premium passengers on the ground), the airport customer service (the airline's ground service desk, the premium passenger assistance, the disruption desk at the gate), the airport ambassador role (the airport's own customer service in the terminal, the information, the assistance), and the airport's premium services (the meet and greet, the VIP handling). All customer facing, all the cabin's service on the ground, all hiring ex crew first.
Why ex crew
The service standard, the premium passenger handling, the calm at a disruption, the languages, the grooming, the aviation knowledge. The lounge host who was crew knows the premium passenger's expectations because she served him in the air last year. The airport ambassador who was crew knows the terminal's rhythm. The hiring managers at the Nairobi airport lounges are ex crew themselves and they hire ex crew.
The pay that is lower
An honest step down from the flying total: the lounge host's salary in shillings without the allowances is below the KQ international crew's total with the London and Dubai allowances and above the KQ regional crew's. The ground pay logic every exit thread describes, with the Kenyan numbers. The airport jobs are not the money. They are the next paragraph.
The hours that are human
Shifts, fixed, known a month ahead, home every night, the body in one time zone, the family dinner. The cousin left KQ for the children and the lounge gave her the school run. The hours are the reason and the pay is the cost, as every ground exit says.
What she misses and does not
The London layover and the allowances and the crew. Not the 3am sign on and the body clock and the hard years. The lounge has the premium passengers without the aircraft and the service without the galley and she describes it as the job's best part kept and the hardest part left.
The African ex crew and the airport
The Nairobi, Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg and Addis airports have ex crew in the lounges and the customer service desks in numbers, because the airline offices are smaller and the training centres fewer than in Europe, and the airport is the ground job that exists. The African crew who leave flying go to the airport more than anywhere and the lounges are the door.
For the crew thinking about the airport
The lounge host and the customer service desk hire ex crew first, the pay is the ground pay, the hours are the human ones, and the premium passenger is still yours without the aircraft. It is the exit with the service kept and the sky given up, and the African ex crew take it for the school run.
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#2 Nairobi, applying, and the lounge host at JKIA being ex KQ crew is the thing I see when I use the airport: the service standard on the ground, the ex crew who know the premium passenger. Aisha's cousin's exit is the Nairobi one. The school run is the reason.
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#3 Ground ops, Manchester, and the lounge host and the airport customer service are the UK exits too and the ex crew fill them for the same reasons: the service kept, the hours human, the pay the ground pay. Aisha's cousin's version is the African one and it is the same exit with a different airport.
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#4 Ghana, and the Accra airport lounges are ex Ghanaian crew from the Gulf carriers who came home for the family and took the lounge, exactly as Aisha describes for Nairobi. The African ex crew and the airport is a real pattern and the lounges are the door.
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#5 Recruiter, Cape Town, and the Cape Town airport lounges and the premium services are ex crew hired by ex crew, as Aisha says for Nairobi. The service standard on the ground is the thing the airport buys and the crew have it. The exit with the service kept is the right phrase.
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#6 Emirates purser, from Nairobi, and the Kenyan ex crew at the Nairobi lounges are the ones I see on the Nairobi layover and they are the same crew with the school run. The hard years at KQ and the human hours at the lounge. Aisha's cousin chose and the lounge is better for it.
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#7 Emirates from Cape Town, and the Cape Town airport premium services are where two of my ex Emirates friends went when they came home, as Charlotte says. The premium passenger without the aircraft. The pay the ground pay. The family dinner. The African exit is the lounge.