The galley at 3am: what actually happens in the long haul cabin while the passengers sleep, the quiet jobs, the conversations

Qantas Sydney, A380 upper deck, and the thing the passengers never see and the applicants never imagine is the galley at 3am body time over the ocean, when the cabin is dark and the service is done and the crew who are not in the bunk are awake in the galley with the curtain drawn. It is a specific place and I have spent years of my life in it. Here it is for the crew room, and tell me yours.

The quiet jobs

The galley restocked for the breakfast service, every cart checked, every tray counted, the coffee pots cleaned and ready, the ovens programmed for the hour the breakfast starts. The cabin walked every twenty minutes with the torch low: the seatbelts on the sleeping passengers checked by the shape of the blanket, the lavatories checked and restocked, the water offered to the one who is awake, the baby's parent asked if they need anything with a whisper. The paperwork: the duty free reconciled, the catering report started, the crew meal orders for the second service. The jobs are small and the hours are long and the rhythm of them is the thing that makes the night pass.

The conversations

The galley at 3am is where the crew actually talk. The service is too busy and the bunk is too tired and the layover is too public, and the galley in the dark with the curtain drawn is where the crew member you have flown with twice tells you about the divorce or the house or the mother who is ill or the application to the other airline. The conversations are quiet and honest and they are the reason crew who barely know each other arrive at the layover as friends. I have had the most important conversations of my working life standing against a galley counter at 3am over the Pacific.

The food we eat

The crew meal, which is the passenger meal or a specific crew one depending on the carrier and the flight, eaten standing or on the galley jump seat between the walks. The leftovers from the business class service that the crew share at 3am, which is the long haul crew's secret. The snacks from the layover city that someone brought: the Tim Tams on the Qantas flights, the dried mango from Manila, the baklava from Istanbul, the biltong from the Joburg crews. The tea, endless. The coffee, strategic, timed to the breakfast service and not before.

The one passenger who is awake

There is always one. The businessman working in the pool of his reading light. The grandmother who cannot sleep on aircraft and wants to talk. The teenager watching his fourth film. The nervous flyer who comes to the galley for water and stays for twenty minutes because the crew are the only people awake in the world. We know them all and we have the water and the biscuit and the twenty minutes, because at 3am the galley is a kind of kitchen and the awake passenger is a kind of guest.

The strange peace of it

The hum of the aircraft, the dark cabin, the curtain, the crew in the pool of the galley light, the ocean below, the sunrise coming in a few hours at the other end. The crew who hate the night flights hate the body clock and the crew who love them love this: the hour when the job is quiet and the aircraft is a small lit room over a dark planet and the people in it are the only ones awake. I have been doing this for five years and the galley at 3am is still the part I would miss most.

Tell me yours

The snacks your fleet brings. The conversation you had against the counter. The awake passenger you remember. The galley at 3am is the crew room's real room and I want to hear about yours.