A Day in the Life

Driving Seat: Captain Alex Carson-Holloway & First Officer Mitch Brady

Welcome Aboard

TO MOST AIR TRAVELLERS, the flight crew are just friendly faces and a voice on the intercom telling you to ensure your tray table is folded away and your seat is in the upright position. But from getting you on board and settled, up in the air on time, and safely and comfortably to your destination, there’s a lot more to what they do than you might imagine. A day in the life of an Air Chathams flight crew is a moving feast of scheduling challenges, technical responsibilities and people skills – and any of the crew will tell you that no two days are the same. To begin with, when you’re feeling pretty chuffed that you’ve made it to your early morning flight with just enough time to grab a coffee, rest assured your flight crew have been up and at ‘em well before you left the house.

“Early starts are pretty much part of the territory,” says Air Chathams’ flight attendant Nicki Hayes, “but there is a lot to do before we get airborne, and when it is safety related it can’t be rushed. Getting everyone settled and comfortable for the fight is really important, but safety is the main focus for all of us. The irony is that sometimes it can take more time getting across Auckland than getting across the country!”

Nicki originally trained for a tourism career, but the lure of flight caught her attention and she has now been with Air Chathams three years. “I did a level three general tourism course, which covers hotels, travel agencies but also flight attending. I really like working with people – making them happy and helping them – so I’m just a people person I guess.

Flight Attendant Nicki Hayes at Whanganui Airport

And I have a love of flying and have always loved looking up at planes in the sky – so flight crew seemed a perfect fit. I like how everything has a procedure, a step-bystep process, and I like knowing that process and making sure it is carried out perfectly. There is a fair bit of responsibility to the role and you have to be happy being in sole charge, but I have a love of flying and we have a great team at Air Chathams – it’s like a family.”

Part of Nicki’s regular team are Captain Alex Carson-Holloway and First Officer Mitch Brady, and it’s fairly obvious that the love of flying is what brought them to Air Chathams. Like Nicki, Alex and Mitch will be in early, and often working late, with the myriad of jobs that go on behind the scenes to keep everything running to schedule.

“Getting everyone settled and comfortable for the fight is really important, but safety is the main focus for all of us.”

In addition to logging flight plans, getting flight clearances and checking communications, they will also do a visual inspection of the aircraft before buckling in and beginning the start-up procedure and preparing for take off.

“No one is just a number and everyone has pride in what they do, and you just don’t get that at bigger companies.”

From Left: Mitch, Alex, Nicki

Alex has been flying with Air Chathams for five years and before that flew surveying aircraft here and overseas, so has plenty of experience in the left hand seat (that’s where the captain sits for any non-plane spotters). “I’d always had an interest in aviation,” he says, “and was quite keen on the maintenance side but realised my hands were too big for working with aircraft engines! I was always skinning my knuckles so decided to be a pilot instead, and what I love about Air Chathams is the variation we get from day to day: different weather, different routes, different people, different aircraft. There are always lots of challenges – fog seems to be a regular factor in Auckland at the moment – but when you have a great support crew then working through those challenges and making sure we get people where they need to go is all part of the fun.”

Talk to any of this flight crew and it’s a common refrain that working for Air Chathams is like being a part of one big team, virtually one big family that covers and connects the country. “The great thing about Air Chathams is that it is the perfect sized company – you can be really involved and it really is like a family,” says Mitch. “You can go to anyone at any level of the company and talk about how we can do what we do even better. No one is just a number and everyone has pride in what they do, and you just don’t get that at bigger companies. Air Chathams has a real Kiwi can-do mentality, and I think it sets us apart.”