New Adventure

Hello everybody!!!

I know its been a long while since I have posted anything on this blog but I do have a very good reason.

A lot has changed since my last post.

I moved to a new country to start a new job. A job that has been a dream of mine for many many years!

So here I am right now, sitting at the dining table, empty breakfast plate next to me, laptop open, in the living room of the new apartment that I share with two other flatmates, beginning to write again. Now where is this new apartment located you might ask? In DUBAI!!! Whaaaaaaaat!?!

It’s ironic because out of all the places I thought I’d live in or move to in my life, I never ever thought of Dubai (even though I was aware that I had to for this new job).

Now I know many of you know what my new job is, probably from my Instagram, but I just wanted to build up the excitement a little, so I can take a moment and appreciate this incredible achievement.

I moved to Dubai to become a cabin crew at Emirates!!! I still can’t believe that I can say that now, knowing it’s fully real and not just something I dreamt about for years and years.

So let me tell you a little bit about my journey of becoming Emirates cabin crew.

I actually applied to one of the company’s assessment days back in October 2024. This happened right after I had failed an important exam at university, and technically wasn’t allowed to finish my degree. I did appeal this decision, but to be honest with very little hope of receiving a positive answer. So I sent in my CV and showed up in Amsterdam where the assessment day was taking place.

We were about 30 applicants in total, in a small conference room, and it started with a long presentation about the job, the airline and moving to the United Arab Emirates, followed by each of us standing up in front of everyone to introduce ourselves, say where we are from and where we would like to fly with Emirates if we joined. Next, they split us into groups where each group received a scenario related to a flight. If I remember correctly our group got a scenario in which we had about 8 different passengers from a pregnant mother to a frequent flyer and we had to decide which of them should receive a seat upgrade. Now we got 15 minutes to discuss and come to a unanimous decision and at the end present it to the rest of the room.

The third activity was an English language test that we took on our phones, it included around 30 questions I believe and to be honest it was quite easy. After the English test we had to fill out a few forms online, again on our phones, and while everyone was doing that they were also calling us one by one to measure our height and arm reach, to make sure we reached the minimum requirements.

The last step was the final interview as well as getting our pictures taken by the recruiters.

Now, what I didn’t mention is that after each activity, we would be sent outside the conference room so that the recruiters could decide who stays and who goes. About half the applicants were sent home after each activity, but once you reached the English test and the height and reach test, those were just a pass or fail and then you were safe to stay till the end.

The activities themselves were not actually difficult, but what you might not have guessed is that during all this time, the recruiters were analysing us. They were watching everything! Our body language, how clearly we communicated, how we interacted with the other applicants, whether we took initiative but didn’t speak over anyone else and more…

The whole day went very smoothly, and even though I was super nervous, I made it through till the final interview.

While I was waiting for a response from Emirates, I received an email from my university letting me know that my appeal got approved and so I was given a second chance to finish my degree. For me this was a clear sign that I should go back to studying and finish what I’ve started. So I did just that and put my Emirates dream on hold again. I say again because I had been dreaming of joining Emirates for many many years before that, and it was the closest I had gotten to it till that point.

So I took one more year to finish my bachelor’s degree and once I was done, I immediately applied to Emirates again. This time I applied in Brussels where I was living and again in October, but in 2025. This second time around I was a lot more prepared. Since the first time I applied, I had learnt that the CV you send in is actually much more important than I initially thought. I believed that everything depended on how you performed during the assessment day, but actually the assessment day was just the first step in the whole process. Once you finish your final interview, your photos, CV and notes from the recruiters get sent to some mysterious HR team in Dubai and they are the ones who actually decide if you get hired or not. But so as you can imagine, these people never meet you and have to make a decision based on a CV, a photo and a few notes. Having learned this, I spent 2 whole days perfecting my resume.

This second time around I was a lot more comfortable. It was a long day though, as we started at 9AM and finished around 7PM.

The recruiters told us to expect an answer within two weeks. If you got the job they would call you, if you didn’t you would receive an email. So during the days that followed I was completely glued to my phone, all notifications and sounds on, even during the night. The first week waiting was really hard, I was getting super anxious, waiting to see if my dream would become reality. At some point my mom saw how frustrated I was and even told me to perhaps consider other jobs or maybe other airlines. I knew I wanted to work for Emirates specifically but the past week had been so hard that I started considering applying for other airlines. I looked up Etihad, Qatar, but they were not hiring at the time. Then I remembered I had seen a new and actually quite interesting airline that was hiring, Riyadh Air. I saw that in three days they had an assessment day in Prague and so I thought you know what, why don’t I just apply? I also had friends living in Prague so I thought it would be the perfect distraction while waiting for a response from Emirates.

So I booked tickets to Prague and there I was at another hotel applying to another airline. I registered for the assessment day, sat down in the conference room and stayed for a very exiting two hour presentation about this new airline that hasn’t even started flying yet. Once the presentation was over, we had a break. When it was time to head back into the conference room to start the activities, the recruiters started calling our names into groups to head back inside. When I was about to walk into the room I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket, took it out and saw the three numbers that I had been anticipating for what felt like forever, +971, the UAE country code. And so I knew it was Emirates.

I quickly picked up the call and swerved away from the conference room.

I got the JOB!!!

I had finally received my golden call, which is what it’s known as in the industry.

I was so happy, I could not stop smiling. I immediately called my mom and my sister to deliver the amazing news I had been waiting for all this time.

Welcome letter

Now about ten months later, I am here in Dubai, living the dream I had dreamt about for many many years! What a life! Honestly I still wake up barely believing it happened.

I flew to Dubai in April 2026 to start my very intense two month long training. I am not kidding, I literally had one single day to settle down in my new room, in a new apartment, with two new flat mates, in a completely new country.

The training was very very intense. Every day we were learning new things and when we came back to our accommodation in the evening, we had to study the material for the very next day. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever put so much effort into anything in my life.

My batchmates from training college. What an amazing group of people!

It’s been about two months now that I have been flying and I absolutely love it! There is no job I can think of that suits me more than being a cabin crew at Emirates. Really! And it’s such a dream come true. I still can’t believe it.

Of course there are challenges, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. The hours are extremely random, the jetlag is very much real, our circadian rhythm is completely messed up and sometimes the flights are long and difficult. But still I would not change my current life for anything else! And I’m so happy I got this opportunity!

I truly love my job and I am extremely grateful for it!

Anyways, I hope it was fun to learn a little bit about how I got into Emirates and I hope to share more and more of my life here in Dubai and all the amazing places I get to visit around the world.

Thank you for reading and see you in the next one!!