Cabin crew or flight attendants are some of the greatest people around as far as I am concerned. They work extremely hard and I have a lot of respect for the profession. Life as a Qantas flight steward back at the dawn of the jet age was very different to today.
Warner Gibbs recently visited the Qantas Founders Museum in Longreach, Australia and the team there interviewed him. There are five short videos of him recounting some of his memories from those days which are worth checking out.
Qantas Flight Steward Memories
The first video is about Mr. Gibbs flying on the Douglas DC-4. He mentions going to Cocos Island via Darwin, looking after the crew while transporting spare engines to the outstation.
Following on from this is a video about another DC-4 trip, this time with passengers. After that he switched to the Lockheed Super Constellation, and tells a story about a couple of go arounds as well as a memorable experience with an engine failure.
Part three is about his first operational trip, where he positioned to Singapore on a Boeing 707 and then operated as crew on a Constellation on a trip to London.
What is interesting is how many stops they had and how long the trip was. Overall it was a 22 day trip, something which is completely unheard of today!
A Poignant Story and The Boeing 747
Another memorable passenger is mentioned in the next video. His care for this passenger shows the level of service flight attendants provide on board. Warner also tells how the meal service was operated.
Finally there is a slightly longer video, where he went to the London base for two years. While there, they flew London to New York and London to Bermuda. They would have six or seven days in Bermuda and three days in New York. A hard life!
Warner also was part of the first Boeing 747 crew. He mentions a hair raising experience going down the Upper Deck slide, which wouldn’t be for the faint hearted! Part six is available on the Qantas Founders Museum’s YouTube channel.
Overall Thoughts
Working as a Qantas flight steward at the dawn of the jet age must have been incredibly interesting. Mr. Gibbs worked as crew from June 1961 until he retired on 26 October 1990.
These stories are only a taste of the experiences he must have had back then. I thought they were excellent little snippets about the working life in airlines back then.
What did you think of the videos? Hopefully you enjoyed them! Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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Featured image via AirlineRatings.
Your posts never disappoint. This fit in with your “does anyone remember” series perfectly. Thanks!
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thanks very much 🙂