The crew who are the only one from their country at the base: the loneliness, the ambassador role, and the moment it changed
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#1 Georgian Airways, Tbilisi, so at my own airline I am home. But I did two years at a Gulf carrier before this, as the only Georgian on the fleet, and I want to write about that, because the crew from big nationalities (Filipinos, Indians, Brits) have a community and the crew from small ones have a specific experience nobody discusses.
The loneliness
No one who speaks your language. No one who knows your food, your holidays, your jokes. The crew groups by nationality that form in the accommodation and that you cannot join. The passengers who ask where you are from and have never heard of it, or have, and say something about Russia. Two years of explaining Georgia at 3am in a galley.
The ambassador role
You become your country. Every Georgian the crew will ever meet is you. That is a strange weight. I found myself being more polite, more careful, more everything, because I was not one crew member, I was the Georgian. My Filipino colleagues did not have that. There were a thousand of them. Nobody expected them to represent.
The moment it changed
A Georgian passenger. Doha to somewhere, a family from Kutaisi, and I did the PA in Georgian for them, unofficially, quietly, with the purser's permission, and the mother cried and the father shook my hand and the children asked if I knew their uncle. I did not know their uncle. I might as well have. After that flight I stopped feeling like the only one and started feeling like the one who was there when a Georgian family needed someone.
What helped
The other small nationality crew. The one Armenian, the two Ukrainians, the Estonian. We found each other and became a group of people from nowhere in particular, and it was the best group at the base. The floaters, from another thread. The purser who asked about Georgia and meant it.
For crew from small countries applying to the big carriers
You will be alone for a while and then you will be the one. Find the other small nationality crew. Do the unofficial PA when the chance comes. And know that the loneliness is a phase and the ambassador role is an honour, once you have made peace with it.
Who else was the only one?
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#2 Latvian, and at my previous airline I was one of two, and the other one left after a year, and the second year was exactly as you describe. The small nationality group is the answer. Ours was a Latvian, a Slovenian, a Maltese and a Mongolian. Best table at the base.
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#3 Croatian, and the 'something about Russia' or in my case 'something about Serbia' at 3am is a specific pain that crew from small European countries all know. The unofficial PA for the Croatian family is the fix and I have done it.
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#4 Sudanese at Qatar, and there are more of us than Georgians but still few, and the ambassador weight is real and I carry it. The Sudanese passenger who hears a Sudanese voice in the galley is the reason I stay.
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#5 @ibrahimdoh the passenger who hears the voice is the reason. Yes.
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#6 Filipino, one of a thousand, and I want to say to the small nationality crew that we see you and the ones of us who are kind will adopt you. Come to the corned beef rice dinner. You are invited.
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#7 Finnair, so home, but I did a season at a UK carrier as the only Finn and the 'have you met my cousin' from a Finnish passenger who I did in fact know, because Finland, was the moment. Small countries. Everyone knows everyone.