-
#1 Emirates purser, six years, from Amman, and I sit on the other side of the probation flights now. The new joiners in the kitchen groups talk about probation as if it were a second assessment and it is not quite that, but it is not nothing either. Here is what the six months actually are, from the purser's sheet.
What probation is
Six months from the first line flight. During it the airline can end the contract with short notice and without the process that applies afterwards. In practice the ending is rare and the reasons are specific, which is the part the kitchen groups miss. The vast majority pass by doing the job.
The grading flights
Two or three flights in the six months where a purser or a senior is briefed to assess you. You are told. The sheet has the SEP items (the pre flight checks done properly, the demo, the door arming cross check, the cabin secure), the service items (the standard sequence, the galley discipline, the timings), and the behaviour items (punctuality at the briefing, grooming, the way you speak to colleagues and passengers, whether you ask when unsure). The grading is pass or needs development, and needs development means another flight, not an exit.
The warnings that end it
The ones I have seen end a probation: repeated lateness to the briefing (three times is the pattern, each one noted), a grooming standard that does not improve after two conversations, a safety item done wrong twice after being corrected (the arming cross check skipped, the pre flight check from memory), a passenger complaint with a verified rudeness, and the accommodation rule breaches that come to the airline's attention. None of them are a single bad day. All of them are a pattern the crew member was told about.
The crew who failed and why
In six years on the fleet I know of a handful. One for the lateness pattern after three written notes. One for the accommodation rule (the guest who stayed, repeatedly, after the warning). One for a safety item repeated after correction. One who resigned before the decision because the Dubai life was not working, which is the most common exit in probation and is not a failure. The ones who talk about failing probation on the forums are usually describing the resignation.
How to pass without fear
Be at the briefing ten minutes early every time. Do the pre flight check as the actual check of the actual equipment (the check flight thread). Cross check the arming as a look. Ask the purser when unsure, because the purser writes 'asks when unsure' as a positive and 'guessed' as a negative. Take the grooming conversation as information. And treat the grading flight as a normal flight with a colleague watching, because that is what it is.
The honest line
Probation is the airline checking you are the person the assessment said you were. If you are, it is six months of flights. If the Dubai life is not for you, it is the time to find that out, and leaving in probation is cleaner than leaving in year two.
-
#2 Grade I, two years, and the probation fear in the kitchen group was out of proportion to what happened: two grading flights, both normal flights with a purser watching, both passed, and the only note was the grooming conversation about the beard line which I took as information. Tariq has it exactly.
-
#3 Training week 3, and this is the thread the whole batch needed because the probation stories in the group chat are the resignation stories dressed up as failures, as Tariq says. The ten minutes early and the ask when unsure are written down.
-
#4 Purser, and the sheet Tariq describes is the sheet, and the thing I write most as a positive is 'asked before acting' and the thing I write most as a negative is 'completed from memory'. The grading flight is a normal flight. The crew who treat it as an exam are the ones who freeze at the demo.
-
#5 Two years, from Accra, and my probation included one 'needs development' on the service timings, which meant another flight with a purser two weeks later, which I passed. The needs development is not the exit and I wish someone had told me that before the two weeks of not sleeping.
-
#6 Week 5, from Curitiba, and the accommodation rule being one of the things that ends probation is the thing nobody in the batch takes seriously enough. Tariq's list is the list. Thank you for the honest version.
-
#7 Four years, and the resignation in probation being the most common exit and not a failure is the honest line. Two from my batch left in month four because Dubai was not for them and both are happy at UK carriers now. Cleaner than year two, exactly.
