Diary of a Flight Attendant

Step into the fascinating behind-the-scenes world of a Dubai flight attendant – a journey filled with humor, drama, and unexpected revelations.

This isn’t just about funny stories from the cabin – I’ll share secrets most people will never hear.

  1.  What do flight attendants do when passengers aren’t watching?
  2. Which topics are completely taboo on board?
  3. And what’s it really like to wake up in a different bed every night?

I’m not afraid to talk about sexual harassment or obedience either.

Discover the true life of an Emirates flight attendant – beyond the cabin doors.

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Sneak Peek

Diary of a Flight Attendant – A True Story

Discover the fascinating life of an Emirates flight attendant with breathtaking stories from extreme situations where lives are at stake. Take an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at airline life, working for one of the world’s largest airlines, where tension and fear often rule the cabin.

Get practical tips on how to succeed in the Emirates interview process and see what really awaits you during training – from funny, lighthearted moments to experiences that can turn into full-blown nightmares.

Experience what it’s like to work with people from all corners of the world, learn which passengers are the most challenging, and travel to the world’s top destinations. From dealing with emotional stress and burnout to navigating the realities of flying during COVID, this Diary of a Flight Attendant opens your eyes to the true life of a flight attendant and the hidden secrets of the airline industry.

Title: Diary of a Flight Attendant
Original title: Deník letušky
Author: Marika Mikušová
Publisher: Self-published
Cover Illustration: @murinwolf.art
Year of e-publication: 2023
Page count (print edition): 220

ISBN 978-80-909345-6-6 (online PDF)
ISBN 978-80-909345-7-3 (online ePub)
ISBN 978-80-909345-8-0 (online MOBI)

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The books attracted media attention both locally and internationally...

Diary of a Flight Attendant

Discover how it all began – from the first flight to Dubai and the life-changing Emirates interview, to an unexpected marriage proposal.

Dive into the full story…

Available as an e-book

Diary of a Flight Attendant 2

Step inside the untold world of flying – from mid-air door dramas and hidden cameras to more behind-the-scenes secrets only flight attendants know.

Dive into the full story…

E-book coming soon

Diary of a Flight Attendant 3

Flying in the time of COVID, negotiating with passengers, leaving the airline, and finding your way back home.

Dive into the full story…

E-book coming soon

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Table of Contents

A few words to start with ..................................................................... 5

Why exactly a flight attendant? ........................................................... 7

Open Days / Interview .......................................................................... 8

Journey to Dubai and my first impressions ........................................ 12

Training begins .................................................................................. 14

Harsh beginnings and the Indian apocalypse .................................... 26

Before today, I’d seen women doused with acid only on TV .............. 37

Oktoberfest on board ......................................................................... 46

Saudi Arabian pilgrimage flight – life is on the line here! ................. 54

Day off full of adrenaline in Dubai ..................................................... 62

This is one of our longest flights ........................................................ 64

Party in Dubai ..................................................................................... 74

Exotic Seychelles ................................................................................ 77

How I intoxicated the Czech shooting team ...................................... 80

He proposed to me in Nairobi ............................................................ 87

Düsseldorf hell ................................................................................... 94

Brussels and sexual harassment ....................................................... 103

No human being can possibly survive this! ...................................... 109

“Inappropriate conversations” over Kuala Lumpur ......................... 118

Sex tourism, worms and massages in Bangkok ................................ 125

On board we already know who’s going to end up in bed with who. 139

I love turbulence, but today even I had my doubts … ...................... 151

In a second, so much smoke billowing into the cabin… ................... 158

A drunk in Sri Lanka and a pregnant flight attendant ...................... 172

I'm never flying here ever again! ...................................................... 182

He was stealing onboard and then peed in a bag ............................. 193

Finally, South Korea ......................................................................... 198

And then came Covid-19… ............................................................... 203

Boxes instead of passengers ............................................................. 208

Covid flight with passengers ............................................................ 216

Open Days / Interview

I learned from a friend that one of the world's most luxurious airlines was holding an interview in Prague. That's it! I don't have any visible tattoos and I don't wear braces anymore. My BMI is normal and I can easily reach the hatrack (i.e. the overhead luggage compartment) on my tiptoes with my one hundred and sixty-eight centimeters. And if I put on my hated dress pants and blouse, for once, nothing terrible should happen to me. As far as English goes, high school English will do. There was no way this wasn’t going to work out.

The first time I came to the interview I wore dress pants and a dark blue shirt. I didn't even make it past the first round! It was a very simple (but evidently essential) thing. I stood in line and one by one, along with the other candidates, we handed in our resumés. There were about two hundred of us, and our fate was decided by one person – a smiling Czech girl named Petra, who was in charge of the interview.

I was better prepared this time. I dressed in a way that resembled a ladies’ suit, so I was closer to the look of flight attendants in uniform. I came in a black pencil skirt just above the knee (but really only just) so as not to be "haram" and therefore "inappropriate" according to Muslim tradition. I threw a black jacket over my red blouse, pulled on my nylons, and bought black low-heeled shoes. Lipstick wasn't in my beauty kit at the time, so I put kids’ play lipstick on my lips. It was expired by a decade or more, but it would do for now. I didn't use foundation either, so I at least powdered my face. I brushed my hair up into a ponytail – after all, you wear your hair up on board as well, albeit in a bun.

The first impression is the most important, they say. I think that's what had betrayed me that first time. When it was my turn with my resumé, I greeted Petra with a smile and handed her my resumé. She didn't ask me about any of the facts about Dubai and the United Arab Emirates that I’d laboriously studied up on. Instead, she glanced at the resumé and (apparently at random) picked out a piece of information to ask me about. We exchanged a few sentences about what I had studied, and then we laughed together about something. She put my resumé in one of three piles. I'm guessing "yes", "no", "I'll think about it". I was still feeling good about that moment.

The resumés have been turned in. Followed by a promotional brainwashing video about how amazing life in Dubai and the job of a flight attendant are. I'm a big girl now, so it's clear to me that all that glitters is not necessarily gold. 

8 | Diary of a Flight Attendant

That's how I do it with more than half the passengers in the cabin I'm in charge of. And all for nothing! Oh my God, why am I doing this to myself?! At that moment, a little voice in my head reminds me that there are still plenty of destinations I’m dying to visit. But when will I be able to tell myself that I've seen and experienced so much that I've actually "had enough"? The answer is – never! There will always be destinations I "still" want to see, and I will simply never have enough. It's hard to leave a flight attendant job, especially when you don't have a Plan B.

The plane is almost full. With a frantic wave of his hand, a passenger summons me. God, what now?! Someone's sitting in his seat and won't leave. Smiling and calm, I ask the passenger to show me his ticket. The gentleman takes his rightful seat and I lead the intruder to his. But someone else is already sitting there. I seat the intruder and lead intruder number two to his seat. Unsurprisingly, the seat is already occupied! Am I supposed to play this domino game with the rest of the passengers in my cabin?! Damn Jeddah!

"No one is sitting in their seat, fuck it, just seat them ANYWHERE," my colleague snaps resignedly. He noticed my helplessness and wanted to share his tactics. He's right! I really don't know how Noah did it back then. And we hadn't even gotten off the ground yet! I can feel a trickle of sweat running down my back. These passengers are terrible! For most of them, it's their first time on a plane. And maybe the first time they've ever been in a car. They must have gotten to the airport somehow… They’re poor, simple, and ignorant of how it goes on plane. So I try to forgive them in my mind.

During the safety video, someone waves at us from time to time, but we pretend not to see them at all. During the video, we should properly stand at the front of our assigned cabins and completely ignore any passenger requests. We're now slowly rolling down the runway. One passenger literally jumps out of his seat and starts gesticulating wildly and pointing at the elderly gentleman next to him. I'm definitely not going to get away with playing both deaf and blind this time. The other passengers around him start shouting and pointing at him too. I can feel my adrenaline rising, this doesn't look good at all.

I run to the man. He's grabbing his neck and gasping for breath. He's got a tracheotomy hole in his throat and some plastic thing sticking out of it. He's hissing and grabbing at the thing with his hands. He's panicking. He can neither talk nor breathe. I'm trying to put the thing back in, but I can't. I don't even know what I'm doing. The guy who was pointing at him is trying to tell me something. He's stammering and talking so fast and unintelligibly that I can't understand a word he's saying. This is a matter of seconds, we have to do something!

Diary of a Flight Attendant | 55

“I didn’t know you liked beer,” I tell her appreciatively.

“I didn’t. But my boyfriend is from Germany and it kind of grew on me,” she nods her head in satisfaction.

We all line up at the bar after going through the security scanning gate. The security guards peek into my and Alisha’s bag and wish us a good time.

We get our beer in plastic cups. We are forced to stand in a crowd at the stalls. There’s nowhere to sit, so we decide to walk around town rather than stand still.

“I have to get beer and chocolate somewhere,” Alisha announces. That’s the least of it. There are beer and chocolate shops on every corner.

Back then we could still bring alcohol from destinations without having to pay taxes and other fees in Dubai. These often exceeded the price of the bottle itself. Apparently, the airline thought they could make money off of us that way.

The result was a black market for alcohol among the crew. Flight attendants started bringing alcohol in huge amounts from their holidays and then selling it to their colleagues in Dubai.

“Why didn’t you have a beer?” I ask Antonio curiously.

“I’m more of an Aperol Spritz guy. You know, Italian,” he shrugs.

“And I’m Czech,” I raise my beer.

“And I’m an atypical Indian,” Alisha joins in. Amir, who has been shuffling behind us the whole time, is silent and finishes the rest of his beer.

We come to the statue of a little boy peeing – one of the symbols of Brussels. From time to time the statue is dressed up in different outfits. We’re lucky, today is the day and the exact hour when it happens.

Some guy climbs up a ladder and starts dressing the boy statue. The tourists pull out their cameras. At that moment, the man takes out his cell phone, turns around on the ladder and takes a selfie with the little boy for fun. Then he takes a photo of the tourists themselves. The tourists are amused and start clapping for him. We were very lucky today. I didn’t even know about this tourist attraction. I love these coincidences. Sometimes they’re extreme. For example, when I went to Argentina to see the cemetery where Evita is buried. You may have come across these photos on my Instagram account. Just like I came across miles of roadblocks in the city. There were police and soldiers patrolling every corner. I curiously asked a shopkeeper in a convenience store, just after a couple of cops had left. He said someone had reported a bomb.

The beers are finished and we're about to eat. I look left and right on a pedestrian crossing to see if it’s safe to cross. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Amir looking at my ass. I turn to look at him. He doesn’t mind at all and continues, “Nice ass, I can tell you’ve been working out.” Alisha raises her eyebrows and looks at me. I return her horrified look and hope Amir notices it and gets the message.

In the restaurant, Amir sits right next to me. He asks me if I would like a drink and runs his index finger from my knee up to my crotch. I catch his hand just in time and take it off my thigh. “Amir, this is too much,” I tell him in a firm voice with a frown on my face. He seems to have finally gotten the message.

For the rest of the evening he is visibly disappointed, but he keeps talking to me anyway. At least now he’s careful to avoid double entendres. After the meal, we all go back to the hotel.

Diary of a Flight Attendant | 105