The crew bag, item by item: what 14 years of long haul has left in mine and what got thrown out
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#1 Someone in the training board asked what to pack for the first trips and the answers were all uniform related, so here is the actual bag after fourteen years, item by item, with the reasons. Add yours and argue with mine.
In the bag every trip
- A proper pillow, compressed. Hotel pillows are a lottery and sleep is the whole game.
- Blackout clips for curtains that do not close. Two bulldog clips from a stationery shop. Best money I have spent in this job.
- A small kettle. Yes. Hotel kettles are either missing or have been used for things you do not want to know about. Mine is a 500ml travel one.
- Tea bags, instant porridge, a small jar of peanut butter. The 3am hunger on a Los Angeles layover does not want room service prices.
- Two chargers and a multi plug with USB. Lost one charger in 2016 and never again.
- Noise cancelling headphones. For the aircraft rest, for the hotel corridor, for the crew bus.
- A door wedge. Cheap, light, and I sleep better with it.
- A small first aid kit that is not the aircraft one: plasters for the shoes, painkillers, antihistamines, rehydration sachets.
- Gym kit that packs to nothing. Whether I use it is a different question.
What got thrown out over the years
- The hair straighteners. Hotel ones exist now and the weight was not worth it.
- The second pair of going out shoes. Nobody looks at your shoes in Nairobi at 2am.
- Paper books. Kindle. I fought this for years.
- The big toiletry bag. Everything is now travel sized and refilled at home.
- The laptop. The phone does everything I need on a layover and the laptop was 1.5kg of guilt.
The controversial ones
The kettle divides crew. Half think it is genius, half think it is a sign that I have given up on life. I have not given up on life. I have given up on hotel kettles.
What is in yours that would surprise people?
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#2 The bulldog clips. Nine years and I only learned that trick from a Virgin colleague last year. The kettle is a step too far for me but I understand the impulse.
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#3 Adding: a folding laundry line and a small bottle of travel wash. Three day trip, one shirt washed in the sink, dried overnight. The bag is half the size it was.
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#4 The door wedge is a Gulf crew standard, half my bag mates carry one. And I would add a small hot water bottle. Hotel air conditioning in Doha is set to freezer by default.
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#6 Reserve at JFK so the bag is always packed. Mine has a fake candle (battery) because hotel lighting is designed by people who hate sleep, and a set of resistance bands I have used twice in three years.
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#7 TUI long haul, and the peanut butter jar is mine as well. The Cancún hotel breakfast is at 7am local and my body is at 1am. The jar and a banana from the galley are dinner.
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#8 In training and taking notes. The kettle stays, the laptop goes. Understood.