From Czech Au-Pair to Cabin Crew – My Story

As a little girl I have always dreamt of seeing the world, and thanks to a bit of luck, hard work and passion I made my dream come true for 9 years working as a cabin crew.

It was amazing being able to see so many wonderful places with the free time that the job offers and the near zero travel costs.

It all started when I finished high school

I wasn’t really sure what to do being a young Czech girl. So, I decided that first I would improve on the English that I learnt from school.

I started investigating on how I could work in the UK or USA, while improving my language skills at the same time.

I came across an agency that sends people to the UK as an au pair where the family covers your costs and gives you some spending money. In return you look after their children and do a little house work.

There weren’t many opportunities in Czech Republic to do anything like this, or to improve my English with native speakers, so I decided to go for it and embark on my first adventure.

Things were going fine, the family was nice enough, but it was a lot of hard work for a very small amount of pay. Also, I was only really travelling around England in my free time, so I could hardly say I was following my dream.

But one day, by luck I saw an advertisement in the paper (back then the internet wasn’t what it was today!) where it literally described what I wanted to do with my life.

‘Want to travel the world and get paid for it? Do you want to meet new people and new cultures? Come to our Ryanair open day…’

When I read that I got very excited and started preparing myself for the open day. I bought a new suit jacket, make up and nail polish and updated my CV.

When the open day came, I was very excited and nervous. I didn’t know what to expect and wished that I was better prepared, or had some idea of what questions they would ask and what else would happen on the day.

There were over at least 100 people there that day, mainly British, with some foreigners like myself who were in the country studying English.

They told us they could only take 80 of us, so unfortunately some of us were not going to have the chance of becoming cabin crew this time.

First the assessors put us in groups, and asked us to create something that would protect an egg from breaking from a height. Then they took us one by one for a personal interview.

I was very nervous during the interview and don’t even know how I got through to be honest!

I got selected to become cabin crew with Ryanair and haven’t looked back since, being a flight attendant has been the best thing that has ever happened to me (apart from my family of course!).

I truly encourage anyone who has a passion for travel and doing new things to give it a go, or at least investigate the career of cabin crew more.

Fast forward to today

I am still that young Czech girl in heart. But I have travelled the world, saved up enough money to buy a house, have a beautiful family and am back living in Czech Republic.

If any of my fellow Czech people are uncertain which direction to take, or what career to follow, being cabin crew (even just for a few years) is a great way to experience the wonders and cultures of the world!

Thank you to Zuzana Sherlock (Nemcova) for sharing her experiences of life as cabin crew with us!