Crew who fly in the week of a family event at home: the wedding you missed, the birth you made by a day
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#1 Emirates from Nairobi, four years, East Africans in Dubai, and the thing the crew abroad carry that the crew at home do not is the family event in the week of the roster: the wedding, the birth, the funeral, the graduation, three thousand miles and a published roster away. The crew room has the layover stories and the passenger ones; this is the one about the family events and the swaps and the pursers, because every crew member away from home has one and the new joiners should know how it works and how it does not.
The wedding you missed
My sister's, in Nairobi, in my first year, with the roster published two weeks before and the wedding on a Saturday I was rostered for a Sydney. The swap board had nothing, the leave request was too late, the purser on the Sydney was kind and could do nothing, and I watched the wedding on a video call from a Sydney hotel room at 3am. The first year is the year you miss things because you do not yet know the system, and the system is the next paragraph.
The swap culture
Every airline has a swap mechanism (the swap board, the app, the group chat, the crew scheduling desk) and the crew who get to the family events are the ones who learn it early: the request for the days off put in the moment the date is known (months ahead for the wedding, which the leave system takes), the swap advertised the moment the roster is published, the favour owed and repaid (the Christmas swap you give in year two is the wedding swap you receive in year three), the crew from your region who understand why the date matters and swap with you first. The East African crew at Emirates swap among ourselves for the Nairobi and Addis and Kampala events because we know. The culture is the thing that works and it works for the ones who are part of it.
The birth you made by a day
My brother's first child, in year three, the date known approximately, the leave requested four months out for the week around it, granted, the baby arriving two days before the leave started while I was on a Manchester, and the Manchester purser calling scheduling from the hotel to get me on the first flight home from Dubai instead of my rostered one, which scheduling did because the purser asked and because I had the leave anyway. I made it by a day. The purser is the person who can move the thing and the ones who do are the ones the crew remember forever.
The funeral the roster did not allow
My grandmother's, in year two, the death on a Monday, the funeral on the Wednesday in the Kenyan way, me on a standby block with the compassionate leave granted immediately (every airline grants it, the days vary) and the flight home the same evening on a staff ticket, and I made the funeral, and the colleague who was on the same standby and whose grandfather died the same month in Lagos did not, because the Lagos flight was full and the standby ticket did not clear. The compassionate leave is granted; the flight home is the thing that is not guaranteed, and the crew from the cities with one daily flight carry that.
The pursers who moved heaven and earth
The Manchester purser who called scheduling. The purser who swapped her own days off with a crew member for his father's funeral. The purser who held the door for a crew member running from the staff travel desk with a confirmed seat to the funeral. The pursers who ask at the briefing whether anyone has something at home this week, which the good ones do. The purser is the first line of the family event system and the new joiners should tell theirs.
For the crew away from home
Learn the swap mechanism in month one. Request the known dates the day you know them. Give the swaps in the years you can so you receive them in the years you need. Tell the purser. Know that the compassionate leave is granted and the flight home is not, and have the backup route in your head for your city. And know that you will miss something in the first year, as I did, and that the system exists to make it the only one.
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#2 Ethiopian alumni, now Emirates, and the Addis crew swap among ourselves for the Addis events exactly as Grace describes for the Nairobi ones, and the first year wedding missed on a video call from a hotel at 3am is mine too (my cousin's, from a Perth hotel). The swaps given in year two are the ones received in year three. True and important.
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#3 Lagos, documents started for Qatar, and the colleague whose standby ticket to Lagos did not clear is the paragraph that frightened me and that I needed to read before I join: the one daily flight and the funeral. The backup route in the head for Lagos is the thing I will have. Thank you Grace for the honest one.
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#4 Emirates purser, from Amman, and asking at the briefing whether anyone has something at home this week is the thing the good pursers do and I learned it from a purser who did it for me in my year two for my father's surgery. The purser is the first line. Grace has described the system as it is and as it should be.
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#5 Qatar from Alexandria, and the Egyptian crew at Qatar swap among ourselves for the Cairo events and the Qatar swap app is the mechanism and the favour culture is the thing that makes it work. The leave for the known date requested the day you know it: the thing the first years do not do and the second years do. Grace has it.
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#6 PAL, and the Filipino crew on every airline know this thread by heart: the Manila flights full, the family events the roster does not know about, the swaps among the Filipino crew first. The compassionate leave granted and the flight not: exactly. The pursers who call scheduling from the hotel are the ones we remember.
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#7 United Newark, reserve, and the US version is the reserve with no swap rights in year one and the family event that the reserve day lands on, and the compassionate leave that exists and the seniority that does not. The system is harder on reserve and the purser is still the first line. Grace's thread applies with the US adjustments.
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#8 Nairobi, Qatar event next month, and the first year missing something is the thing my mother fears and this thread says it will happen once and the system exists to make it once. The swap mechanism in month one and the Nairobi crew swapping among themselves is the thing I will look for. Thank you Grace, from Nairobi.