How I almost ended up being a flight steward

Blog IX of Thirty Days – Thirty Blogs series

Since some of my past blogs have got quite mundane, for my next three blogs, I would share anecdotes of how I almost ended up choosing a different profession. The first one is a flight steward (there is no such thing as an air host).

On a chilly February morning, Snowy, Tintin, Calculus and Haddock discuss how they must do something special for their approaching graduation. While we could eat out, stay late into night but we could not find the ‘centre piece’ in our plan. Then Tintin whipped out a newspaper ad showing how AHA (Air Hostess Academy) was doling out tickets for a concert by Strings. Attending a concert was high in our lists but the catch was the tickets were only for people willing to join AHA for their flight stewardship training programme. There seemed to be no other way to get a ticket (or at least that is what we thought then). So we came up with a plan.. :-)

Next week, we found ourselves waiting in a line to be interviewed at AHA. Snowy met a old man who asked him only two questions, name of Indian PM and count of states in India. I hope they have stricter questions for the pilot but suffice it to say, Snowy was through to the next level. However, shockingly nobody else got through and the next round required the presence of parents as well. Needless to say Snowy’s mother had a tough time understanding his son’s sudden ‘change of heart’.

So next week, Snowy and his mother were back again for next round of interview. Clearly, general knowledge figured high in the list of things that flight stewards should know because Snowy was asked EXACTLY the same questions again. (Next time when you look at a flight steward, ask him the same questions and see his response !) The results were announced almost immediately and surprise surprise I had crossed the last hurdle of being a flight steward..umm I mean getting the concert tickets.

From here things get complicated, Snowy somehow needed to get four tickets without enrolling in the training programme. He took Tintin’s help in this. They came up with an ingenious idea. There are two branches of AHA not so far away from each other. They went to first branch, came up with a story of how Snowy could not pay anything until the concert date ohhh but he could do with some concert tickets. They removed all marks from the offer letter and repeated it another time at second branch and we had four concert tickets in our hands.

Five years have elapsed since that day but even today when I look at this photo I think, boy, we look so happy to have won our one way ticket to flight stewardship, who could have thought we two would end up being something else.

DISCLAIMER: The author does not recommend such an act since it constitutes a fraud howsoever harmless the end goals might have been. As it turned out, there WAS a way to purchase tickets for concert outside the AHA scheme.