The crew member who is the base: every base has one, describe yours without naming them
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#1 Every base has a person who is not the manager and not the most senior and is, somehow, the base. The one who knows everything, is on every crew list somehow, organises the leaving drinks and the whip round for the colleague whose father died, and has been there for a length of time nobody can pin down. Describe yours. No names. They will know anyway.
Ours
A woman in her forties, a purser, Irish, who joined before most of the current base and who has flown with everyone. She knows the roster system better than crewing. She knows which hotel in Faro has the good breakfast and which captain to avoid on a Friday. She has a spreadsheet of birthdays. She has, at least three times that I know of, talked a new joiner out of resigning in the car park. She is not the manager. The manager asks her things.
What they do
The whip round. The card. The 'you should apply for the course'. The 'do not send that email'. The introduction of the new joiner to the old guard. The crew night that actually happens. The quiet word to the crew member who is drinking too much. The gossip, which they control rather than spread. The memory of the base, which in an airline with turnover is a real thing that would otherwise be lost.
Why they matter
Because a base without one is a car park with a crew room. The person who is the base is the reason people stay, in a way the airline does not measure and could not replace.
Yours?
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#2 Leeds: a man, fifties, been there since the airline was three aircraft, knows every family in the base, has a spare uniform shirt in his locker for anyone who needs it. He is the reason the Leeds base feels like a village. He would hate this thread.
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#3 Gatwick: a cabin manager, Scottish, who has a word for everything and a solution for most of it, and who I have watched carry a base through a summer of delays with a whiteboard and a biscuit tin.
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#4 JFK: a flight attendant with 30 years who is on reserve by choice because she likes the variety, and who has flown with every human on the seniority list, and who the schedulers call when they need a favour. She is the base. The base is a person.
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#6 Dubai is too big to have one, so it has one per accommodation building, and ours is a Kenyan purser who has been there twelve years and whose flat is where the new joiners go to cry and eat. She is the building.
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#7 Bergamo: it is me. I am sorry. Someone had to say it. I organise the leaving drinks and I have the spreadsheet and the crew room coffee is mine. I did not choose this.