Last one out: the cabin secure walk, the final look before you close the door, and the ritual of the empty aircraft
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#1 After the last passenger is off and before the cleaners come, there is a moment when the aircraft is empty and the crew are still on it, and every purser has a ritual for it. Mine is a walk. Here it is, and I want yours, because this is the part of the job nobody films and everyone feels.
The walk
Front to back, every row, both sides. Looking for: the left bag, the left phone, the left child (it has happened, not to me, to a colleague, once, and it is the reason the walk exists), the seat that is broken, the toilet that is blocked, the thing under the seat that should not be there. Also looking at the cabin, which two hundred people have lived in for ten hours, and which has a specific smell and a specific quiet that I have come to like.
The final look
At the door, before I step off, I look back down the aisle. Fourteen years and I do it every time. It is not a check. It is a goodbye to the flight. The cabin that was a small city for ten hours is empty and in thirty minutes will be a different city with different people and none of them will know we were here.
The ritual of the empty aircraft
The crew, standing in the galley, in the quiet, for one minute, before the bus. Someone says 'good flight' or 'well, that happened'. The purser says thank you, and means it, and names the thing that went well. The junior crew are taught in that minute what the job is: it is the crew, in the empty galley, having done it together.
What I say
'Thank you, everyone. The medical in 22C was handled beautifully, Amina. The bar service was the fastest I have seen this year. Get some sleep. See you on the bus.' Thirty seconds. Fourteen years. It is the most important thing I do on the flight and it happens after the flight.
Your ritual
The walk, the look, the minute in the galley. What is yours, and what did the purser who taught you say?
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#2 The look back down the aisle. Yes. I did not know anyone else did it. I thought it was mine. It is, apparently, everyone's, and that is better.
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#3 A380, and the walk is two decks and it takes eight minutes and the look back is from the top of the stairs, and the minute in the galley is on the upper deck by the bar with the lights half down. The crew who have done a good flight know it in that minute. I do not have to say much.
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#4 Three weeks in and my number one said 'good flight, Georgia, you checked every seatbelt' in the galley after my first flight and I wrote it in my notes and I now understand why she said it there and not on the bus. The galley is where it counts.
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#5 Short haul, and the minute in the galley is thirty seconds because the next passengers are at the gate, and it is still the minute. 'Well, that happened' is exactly what gets said at Manchester.
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#6 @aviationamy 'well, that happened' is universal and it is the correct summary of most flights.
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#7 JAL, and the empty aircraft ritual is a formal bow to the cabin by the crew, together, before leaving. It is the same thing as the look down the aisle. A goodbye to the flight. Every culture found its own version of the same moment.