A380 Archives - Circles in the SandCircles in the Sand

“Have you flown in this cabin before?” The flight attendant smiled and handed me a glass of bubbly.

“No, I haven’t,” I said. “First time.”

“Well, let me give you a tour,” she replied, flashing another megawatt smile. I suddenly wished I had more make-up on, and imagined her applying her curvy, crimson pout, mushing her lips together to press the lipstick in, and blotting the excess with a tissue. The result – a sharply angled Cupid’s bow and bold pop of Emirates red that matched her shoes and the details on her creaseless uniform.

She leaned towards me and began her tour of the armchair of a seat, pointing out the panel of buttons, vanity table, sliding privacy door and personal mini-bar.

I nodded enthusiastically at everything, gripping the thin stem of the champagne glass a little too tightly in case it was all a dream. The details, the fresh flowers, leather chair that reclined to a bed and acres of walnut trim, almost felt unreal.

“And would you like to take a shower before landing?” she asked. “You know we have a spa on board.”

Ever wondered how celebs get off planes looking as fresh as a daisy? Here’s how …

I’d taken a peek inside after climbing the stairs to the A380’s top deck with my roller-luggage banging against my leg. My eyes had widened as I took in the enormous teak-and-marble shower suite, bigger than your average bathroom with two dedicated attendants, shiny taps and no shortage of rolled, fluffy, white towels and bottles of sweet-smelling lotions. The scent of Bvlgari perfume hung in the air. I knew I wouldn’t be taking a shower, though – however inviting the clever back-lighting and full-size window on the world were.

“That’s okay,” I said, a hint of regret in my voice.

She raised a thin, finely arched eyebrow.

I decided not to explain, thinking my fear of hitting turbulence – or, worse, an emergency – while wet and naked in the shower might sound silly.

“Well, just let me know if you need anything. It’s dine on-demand,” she said, passing over a menu and bestowing on me a final red-lippy beam that didn’t quite stretch to her eyes but lit up her young, dewy-skinned face in a flourish.

Left to my own devices, I wanted to giggle uncontrollably that I was sitting in first-class, after ten years of hollow-eyed travelling with young children in economy. I drained my champagne, feeling the bubbles hitting my bloodstream in an effervescent rush, took my shoes off, and got comfy, which wasn’t difficult in the expansive seat. After take-off, I was offered pyjamas to change into. Pyjamas! Flying really didn’t get any better than this.

I decided to try to see who else was in the cabin. My husband has told me of all kinds of celebs who have been on his plane in first – some of whose names/films/music he even remembers (he doesn’t get to meet them). I peered out of my cabin, but it was impossible to see who my companions were – Emirates first-class is all about privacy, peace and quiet. You’d be forgiven for thinking you were on a private jet. Determined not to waste a moment of this precious seven-hour flight by sleeping, I slid my door shut and watched movies on the huge, flat-screen TV.

Knowing exactly how lucky I was to experience first (and feeling rather out of place!), I was a model passenger. I didn’t bother the flight attendants once. If truth be told, I hadn’t quite ‘got’ the dine-on demand thing. I was expecting meals to be brought round on a trolley and didn’t think to ask for food. The staff leave you alone; responding to passengers’ whims via call buttons; privacy, as I mentioned, being king.

With about 35 minutes to go, I opened my door, and a flight attendant asked with surprise, “Did you want anything?”

“No, thank you,” I lied.

“You sure? Tea, coffee, a croissant?” (I’d missed the caviar!)

My stomach betrayed me with a growl so loud I thought she might have heard over the sound of the engines. A passenger – the only one I’d seen all flight – got up to change out of his pyjamas, and my hunger got the better of me.

“Oh, okay! A croissant please.”

(“That’s all you had?” my husband asked, incredulously, afterwards!)

Of course, we started descending all too soon, and, of course, I wanted to do that Jennifer Aniston thing and ask the pilot (DH) to ‘fly this thing around for a bit longer’.

Many moons may have passed, but in an entirely different life two countries ago, it was my job in women’s magazines that people were interested in.

It helped that at the time I was seeing someone who ‘worked in computers’. Not many people knew exactly what he did – and nor did I – so people would turn their attention to me and ask questions about working in media.

They loved hearing about the problem page I did for a health & beauty magazine. Were the problems made up? (yes, some of them!). What kind of letters were in the postbag? (some corkers!) Did readers reveal explicit details about their sex lives? (yes, eye-opening).

Then, when they found out I also worked for the Mirror newspaper, they’d be really curious about the stories I wrote. Again, were they true? How did you find those basket-weaving, identical twins who gave birth at Butlins?

I’d tell them about my baptism by fire into the world of tabloid journalism and explain how I had to find a whole class of teenaged school girls, with a willing head teacher, and persuade them to keep diet diaries for an attention-grabbing feature on osteoporosis.

Love, sex, food, fashion and family - in women's magazines, these are familiar territories

The original brief was to have the girls X-rayed – but as this wasn’t ethical (not to mention entering nervous breakdown territory for me), the diet diaries were the easier option. “Just don’t mention smoking,” said the head. And I didn’t – until the article got rewritten so the intro described the schoolgirls as ‘living on crisps and cigarettes’ and the headline blared ‘Junk-food generation: Crippled by the age of 35’. Not quite the publicity the principal had in mind for her fee-paying school.

People also wanted to know about the press trips I was lucky enough to go on. Monaco, Germany, France, Prague, Portugal – the French one involving travelling by private plane to the launch of a nasal douche (a squirter the manufacturer was convinced would become as popular as toothpaste – it didn’t, not in the UK at least!) and the Monte Carlo trip accompanied by a ‘sexpert’ to report on the launch of a condom with an applicator (try keeping a straight face during *that* demonstration!).

But, as I said, this was all a long time ago. Turned out Computer Boyfriend wasn’t just working in the tech industry – he was also working on another girlfriend. We broke up. I was reunited with my teenage sweetheart, who became my DH. We moved to Florida five days after marrying and the rest is history.

Nowadays, given that my work is more of a side show, and the rest of my time is spent attempting to control and entertain two small boys, wiping bums, soothing tantrums and refereeing fights (on far less sleep than when I was working under the tightest deadline as a freelance journalist), it’s DH’s job that everyone’s interested in.

Where do you go? people ask. Do you ever have celebrities on board? (Hilary Swank, Natalie Imbruglia, Gerard Depardieu are a few he’s mentioned). Have you ever had a near crash? Seen a UFO? Isn’t it on auto-pilot the whole time? And from guys: ‘Do you get to hang out with the flight attendants at the swimming pool?’

On his most recent trip to Germany, there were even spectators when the plane came down to land – and people videoing the aircraft’s arrival and departure (the A380 has only recently started flying into Munich and is still turning heads). I’ve watched the video footage on YouTube.

Where we live there are more pilots than you can shake a control stick at, so when we’re at home, it’s all very routine, very normal. It’s when we’re mixing with people outside the aviation world that the interest is sparked. But the thing I find funny is how DH views office life. He’s only ever spent three days in an office – three days – and that was just ‘work experience’ when he was a teenager.

He watches programmes like The Office with the same fascination that I watch shows like Airline or Pan Am. Consequently, he thinks that in officedom we spend our whole time hitting on each other, photocopying body parts and hiding the stapler. When I told him that at work, someone had actually stapled my co-worker’s post-it notes together, he thought this was hilarious.

I’m quite truthful with him, pointing out the realities of office life – because don’t you think that his fantasy version of the 9-5, complete with a hot secretary in a short skirt, office cubicles and a resident prankster, is the equivalent of a cockpit kitted out with a remote control, take-away pizza, pin-up poster girl and fluffy dice?