The gift has arrived!!

Well I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email notification that the gift was express shipped to me by FedEX as promised. For those unaware of Airboy, here is the link to that thread announcing my win. http://240plan.ovh.net/~redcandy/airboy/2009/04/28/1000-comments-we-have-a-winner-thank-you-all/Fortunately I had to get off one stop before my final stop on the train home, and soon I was heading back to the station to take the train home with the box in hand. (I had another shipment sent to me by FedEX and that pick up point was two hours away from home, by transit!!)

When I got home I was thrilled with the contents, an IKEA photo frame and a Emirates mouse pad. Airboy is sure an IKEA fan, and I should have suspected the gift would be from there lol. Thank you Airboy firstly for posting my comments on your blog, and then for my winning this prize and in some way being instrumental in contributing to your comment count to the 1000 mark and more!!!

Here is the prize, the IKEA photo frame and the stunning Emirates mouse pad!!




And why not take this opportunity to promote the arrival of the Emirates Airbus A380 on June 1, 2009. All of Toronto eagerly awaits the beast, more importantly because it's never been here before. Fortunately I was able to spot the Singapore Airlines version of it up close and personal while spotting in Sydney, Australia. Here is the gift with the 1:200 version of the Airbus A380 from Risesoon in Taiwan!





And finally why not promote Emirates with the 1:200 fleet pics, after all Airboy promotes Emirates on his blog http://240plan.ovh.net/~redcandy/airboy/ :). All them models below are from the Emirates store in Dubai, picked up on various trips there. The gift of the A380 in the other pics was a gift by another FA in Emirates. Aren't Emirates FA just the best with gifts hee,hee!!



Thanks once again Airboy, and thank you all for reading!!

Some 24 hours later, and with some more time today, I managed to set the photo frame correctly. Yesterday American Idol's finale was on, and in trying to get the pics up too it was all a rush!! For now the Shanghai paper cut will do :)

Winner on Airboy!!

I completely forgot to post my win on Airboy here on my own blog! In all honesty, Melissa's blog was the very first one I came across http://www.tampaxtowers.blogspot.com/ and it was through her's that I discovered Airboy: http://240plan.ovh.net/~redcandy/airboy/ And in due course I discovered other FA's like Clauderic http://www.clauderic.blogspot.com/, Carine http://dubdubcarine.blogspot.com/, Traytable http://traytables-travels.blogspot.com/ and still so many more to discover. Love reading about all your lives as FA's!! Keep them coming

Airboy is seriously the most funniest person I've come across and with the photos, videos and other links, I was soon hooked. And so began the posting of endless (and hopefully not senseless) comments. And sometime last week, the countdown to the 1000th comment on his blog was soon approaching, with a surprise gift to the person who posted the 1000th comment. Well that day, I was posting quite a few comments, but with no real intention of being the one to post the 1000th comment, but it landed up being me!! http://240plan.ovh.net/~redcandy/airboy/2009/04/28/1000-comments-we-have-a-winner-thank-you-all/Well soon I shall be getting that surprise gift and it will be revealed on this blog spot.

Only in summer can you do this!!

Well it was another great weekend, and another opportunity to go spotting. And hopefully some more weeks of this summer time activity. Of course, there are other events in the city which will distract me from this past time, and who knows maybe use this blog to highlight Toronto's other activities, which are definitely non-aviation related. After all Toronto is such a multi-cultural city, it's got events from Bollywood themed shows, to Salsa and Tango on the street, to the beating drums of African music!

Here are some pics from Sunday's spotting trip. The day before they were landing on 24L so I made sure when I went on Sunday, I had my camera with me and I was terribly disappointed. They were landing on 33L instead. So I walked for 40 mins till I got to the 33R where they were taking off, and was thrilled that this new vantage point was great to experience take offs! These pics hopefully to some justice to the roaring jets overhead. Enjoy the pics! It's great to see the Boeing 747-400s but it won't be long before they will be replaced with the Boeing 777-300ER. That PIA is going nonstop to Lahore, and would definitely be the long haul flight I would like to take some day. That Boeing 777-200LR is one magnificent beast! PIA has those operating non-stop Pakistan to Canada, and Emirates has them on the UAE to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston, where as Qatar Airways has them Qatar to Houston. And of course not forgetting our own Air Canada using them on the Canada-Far East and Canada-Australia routes. Super long hauls are here to stay! (I know some cabin crew dread those routes!!)

It's past midnight and a new decade!

Well now the big 40's have kicked in and it's now time to consider what lies ahead. To have dreamt of being an FA was well fun and a bit of wishful thinking. Well to begin with customer service, hospitality industry were industries I should have been in to have gained some experience, and without that I just didn't make the mark. However fortunately I still have my accounting and administrative career to pursue, so here's to it with full force. Yes time has been wasted not pursuing my current career path, but a dream of flying was pursued instead though as a passenger. Miles and miles of annual long haul flights, enough to say I have been around the world, though not at the same time. Different sectors, different airlines, different cabin crews, yet one thing that unites them all, the Passion of Aviation!! Well needless to say tomorrow will be spent spotting just as I did today. After all the warm days of summer are to be enjoyed while they are here!!

Various Trip Reports - Swissair, Singapore Airlines and Malaysia Airlines

SWISSAIR (YUL-ZRH-DXB-KHI) SR 135/ SR 394 (1999)

http://www.luchtzak.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4692&start=0

SINGAPORE AIRLINES SQ 11 (LAX-NRT-SIN) (2000)

http://www.luchtzak.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4628

SINGAPORE AIRLINES SQ 18 (SIN-SEL-YVR) (2000)

http://www.luchtzak.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4658

MALAYSIA AIRLINES MH 95 (LAX-TPE-KUL)/MH 94 (KUL-TPE-LAX) (2002)

http://www.luchtzak.be/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4440
(The return trip is followed after some comments)

Trip reports on Etihad Airways

Etihad Airways - EY 502 (YYZ-AUH via BRU) - November 2005

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/607686-etihad-airways-ey-502-toronto-abu-dhabi-via-brussels-november-2005-a.html


Etihad Airways - EY222/501 KHI-AUH / AUH-YYZ via BRU. December 2005

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/607704-etihad-airways-ey222-501-khi-auh-
auh-yyz-via-bru-december-2005-a.html

(Again don't forget to click on the letters in blue to see the pics. You don't want to miss out on the pictures of the cabin crew by this crazy paparazzi!!). Enjoy!!

Trip Reports on Emirates

Here are some trip reports from my flights on Emirates!!

Emirates EK 202 A340-500 JFK to DXB

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/605099-emirates-ek-201-a340-500-jfk-dxb.html

Emirates EK 600 DXB To KHI/ EK 601 KHI-DXB

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/605832-ek-600-dxb-khi-ek-601-khi-dxb.html
(See Ben you might find some nice passengers like me on a flight to and from Karachi :) )

I'm not copying and pasting it all in here again. You may have to trouble yourself to open it in another browser. Also within the trip report you will see words highlighted in blue. Click on them and you will see the relevant photos. Enjoy!!

The list keeps on growing

Thanks to Traytable within a week my list of "followers" has grown from 1 to 4. It's also motivated me to write more. So here is some more from a "I dreamed of being an FA" person :)"

Today it's been a bit crazy! It's the comment countdown at Airboy's blog, and seriously he kills me! He must be such fun on the flight. I hope I didn't come across as being too desperate for being the 1000th person to comment LOL

I know the job of an FA though considered glamorous, is actually hard work. Irregular hours, changes in your body clock and as Airboy commented "the Layover blues"! I know when I travel long haul which I do at least once a year to visit family back home, it takes me days to recover, at least from all that adrenalin rush once on board. I'm a bit of a snob and snicker when people consider a flight from one end of Canada to the other a red eye, or they get jet lag! Some of my flights require me to go to Los Angeles only to use that as a spring board to the start of a long haul. Just six hours in a plane and it's a real waste of time! Give me 10-14 hours NONSTOP and I'll be as content as baby that has just been fed..burp!

Back to the jobs of FAs, I admire how you can deal with so many people, smile and be the same way when the passengers deplane! I've nothing against FAs that don't want to be up there, and actually want to be the first ones of the plane when it lands. I've had some of those and I ask myself, who hired them? LOL. Sometimes I think I was just so bent on becoming an FA because I loved planes. Now when I think of it, my job would require me to also smile constantly, keep my composure and then be prepared to do it all over again, wow! (But then those hiring would have detected I don't have those qualities lol)They say things happen for the best and now I'm glad in a way I never became an FA! I have an FA friend and an absolute jewel of a guy, that when I see his patience levels, I know I am still far behind in the patience department.

For now I think I'll just be content to sit in my "window" seat, headphones on my head, watching the clouds go by or gaze at the stars at night, including those inside the cabin on the ceiling, sipping my champagne (well some serve it in Economy lol) and have my camera in hand for those unexpected photo opportunities. And on my next flight, FA's you better watch out!!. I behaved myself on Lufthansa and Qantas by not photographing the cabin crew, but now I deeply regret that. After all FAs are the ones that make your flight what it is and what better memory to have of your flight, than to walk away with fond memories on film of the group that made it all possible!!! Here's to all the FAs out there! Wear you uniform with pride, hold your head up high and know that someone somewhere is admiring you!!

Another day spotting, another purchase

Well the day yesterday turned out to be a major disappointment. It started off warm and sunny, and then gusts of wind, dark skies, followed by the most horrible rain ever! I managed to get two of these beauties,
which were landing on Rwy 24R while I was at Rwy23 which was being used actively for take offs, with just the baby A319, A320s and there was just one LAN Chile departing which I managed to quickly snap before I jumped on the transit bus which would take me to Rwy 24R, which I passed earlier but decided to carry on to Rwy 23 instead. Rwy 23 is usually the most active and I was desperate to nail the Etihad Boeing 777-300ER which just started the afternoon arrivals with the start of the summer schedule about a month ago. The Etihad 777-300ER has got to be one of the nicest looking jets out there. And then there was a lot of buzz too with the arrival of the EK A380 on June 1st. Heaven knows how many spotters will be out there to commemorate the arrival of this beast for the first time to Toronto.



This MH 744 from Skymarks is the latest purchase, and which now completes my Malaysian Airlines fleet of aircraft which I have flown on, namely the Boeing 747-400 (LAX-TPE-KUL v.v), the A330-300 (KUL-KHI v.v) and the Boeing 777-200ER (EWR-DXB-KUL v.v)Malaysia Airlines happens to also be my favourite airline with who I believe has the World's Best Cabin Crew, which is also no surprise considering Skytrax has voted them the best for the past many years. They have the most genuinely warm, friendly crew with service from the heart. I'm so glad to have flown them consecutively for two years both via the Pacific from Los Angeles and via the Atlantic from New York.

Some random pics from a previous spotting trip

OMG I have a follower!

I don't usually sign in here, and only do when I have to comment on some blog, where the anonymous function is not allowed. So I happened to sign in here today, and lo and behold I have a follower, Traytable :). Why thank you so much for your kind comments (the first to leave me one actually) and for following my blog. I think I should let the FA's know how rejected FA's continue with their dreams, by just continuing to dream LOL. But at 40, it's time to wake up really and realise the dream will only continue to be a dream in your mind!

Some of you might know me as M on Airboy's site. I'm also a die hard fan of his site, and am a regular reader of Melissa's blog (who will always be the very first blogger for me) from where I found Airboy, and then Clauderic and Carine who both happen to be from Montreal. And of course the Flying Kiwi who flies on the A380 only. Traytable I'm adding you now, but I've known you from the comments you leave on the blogs I've mentioned above.

Tomorrow it's supposedly gorgeous weather in Toronto, with a slight chance of showers, but not enough to keep me indoors. It's off to Pearson for spotting and Rwy 23! I might have some pics to share!

Cabin crew pics - Chased by the paparazzi!!

When I flew Etihad in 2005 I was pretty excited to fly with such a brand new airline. They had only recently started flights to Toronto, and they were fantastic. Beginning with the Cabin Manager, who welcome us on board, to the last leg back to Toronto, it was photo after photo of this great airline's crew. The route was YYZ-BRU-AUH-KHI v.v. They now fly nonstop using the Airbus A340-600 and are rumoured to begin with the Boeing 777-300ER from summer'09 with day arrivals and night departures. They seemed really interested in ready to pose and that made it so much easier for me. I only repeated this madness of chasing the cabin crew for pics with Emirates and have flown Lufthansa and Qantas after that but did not take any photos with the latter two!!
Much to the surprise of the cabin crew being photographed as well as to those who I showed the pics to, I was told by some other cabin crew friends that it never happens to them!




I must have really caused quite a riot on those flights requesting these photos. The Etihad flights were on the Airbus A330-200 and Boeing 767-300, while the Emirates flights were on the Airbus A340-500 (out of JFK) and the Boeing 777-300, unfortunately not the 773ER! So the next time you know see somebody with a camera wanting to get a pic of you as cabin crew, feel like a celebrity! The complete details of these pics are at Etihad Airways and Emirates . Oh and while you are at it, you could view the trip pics of Lufthansa and Qantas

Plane spotting and model collecting

I've been in Toronto since 1996 but it was only recently (the past 3-4 years) that I discovered the joys of spotting, plane spotting that is!! If you like spotting and have gone spotting in Toronto then you definitely know of Rwy 23, located near the famous Wendy's and Country Style fast food outlets on Airport Road . It's marvellous how close you can get to the jets. The other location at Rwy 24 is just as amazing, but you just get to view them passing overhead before touching down seconds later as they do at Rwy 23, but no opportunity to poke your face into the fence!!



However this joy of getting to the planes so close as they come over your head was recently changed when I visited Sydney and was able to get up close and personal with the jets taxiing on their way to Rwy 34L.  No jets going over your head but the joy to see them pass by so close and perhaps wave first to the International captains and be waved back at most of the times, was such an awesome experience.



I just had to make the pilgrimage to the same spot again before I left Australia. A quick search using the Sydney buses website and very soon the route using a single bus from Circular Quay and I was on my way!!



And unlike Toronto where spotting is only feasible in the summer, unless you have a nice warm car to sit in on a cold winter's day (which I don't since I use transit here too to get to the spotting place) Sydney seems to have the best weather most of the time! So many other spotting locations in the world and hopefully will be able to be spotting at them in the near future.

The next closest thing to not being able to fly in a blink of an eye, and be transported to a convenient spotting location with the same measure of a blink of an eye is, you guessed right, being able to have a model plane close at hand, to ogle over!!




Which brings me to the next level that this obsession has taken me to, plane collecting! In a matter of just a year and more I went from a mere ten or less models to over a hundred!
Again, no major feat considering there are others out there with not hundred, but thousands of models, oh well make that a thousand and more!!  It's great to have these models close at hand but the madness had to stop. It's been a long while since I did get some models, and I hope to keep it this way. But with new long sought models being announced it won't be long before I am on my way to adding some more to the existing collection. 

So here's hoping to come across others who are equally passionate about collecting jets, and going around hoping to spot planes too!!

How it all began

Have you ever been obsessed with something, to the point that it completely takes over your life? Well Aviation has done that to me, to the point that now when people think of me, they think of something aviation related. As a child I grew up fascinated with planes and finally flew on a plane in my early teens. Then I flew short haul in 1994 and since then for almost every year after that, till present I have flown on one long haul flight! In today's travel of jet setting individuals that is nothing to be compared with, however just to get up to 39,000ft once a year is very therapeutic for an obsessed aviation crazy individual like me. It might beg the question, what have I done to perhaps get into the Aviation Industry? Well, I did work for an airline (ground) but a 9-5 job is a 9-5 job. What I really always wanted was to be a flight attendant. However it just never happened!! Anyway I am creating this blog to hopefully identify with other individuals out there, who never really got their wings to fly, but have to make do whenever an opportunity arises to get up there in the clouds, sip your drink, listen to your headphones and watch the clouds go by!! (Of course being a flight attendant would mean you would be the one serving, not the one being served)