In booming Gulf, some Arab women find freedom in the skies

Source: International Herald Tribune

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates: Marwa Abdel Aziz Fathi giggled self-consciously as she looked down at the new wing-shaped brooch on the left breast pocket of her crisp gray uniform, then around the room at the dozens of other Etihad flight attendants all chatting and eating canapés around her.

It was graduation day at Etihad Training Academy, where the national airline of the United Arab Emirates holds a seven-week training course for new flight attendants. Downstairs are the cavernous classrooms where Fathi and other trainees rehearsed meal service plans in life-size mockups of planes and trained in the swimming pool, where they learned how to evacuate passengers in the event of an emergency landing over water.

"I never in my life thought I'd work abroad," said Fathi, who was a university student in Cairo when she began noticing newspaper advertisements recruiting young Egyptians to work at airlines based in the Gulf. "My family thought I was crazy. But then some families don't let you leave at all."

Flight attendants have become the public face of the new mobility for some young Arab women, just as they were the face of new freedoms for women in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. They have become a subject of social anxiety and fascination in much the same way.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/22/africa/22abudhabi.php

are overloaded. Lots of people going there. I wish I had a list... Who cares, or why are they so full?

it's all temporary. There's a massive building boom right now and they need people of all skills. My company has an office there to service our ME and northern Afrika clients.

I'd bet money that in 50 years (TOPS!) Dubai will be reclaimed by the sands. I really don't see it as thriving because of the politics of it. There are only two classes in Dubai, UBER-RICH/installers (like myself and my company) and the (near) slave labor/builders.

and that's it.

The poverty that has been reported to me there is ... it's really unbelievable. and the discrimination outside of the built area is beyond the pale.

I'm all for taking as much money from Dubai as possible, because it'll be gone in 50 years.

I feel for the people, the servant class, left after construction is complete. This will NOT be a place for the average upper income person even. This will only be a place for the stupidly rich. BUT... it 's also a great place to use experimental technologies, they're looking to use a lot of solar and wind tech to power Dubai, so maybe - ecologically - it won't be such a disaster.

I'm not kidding and neither are they, this is what is planned for our future. How's your trust fund doing?

my understanding is that, while production cuts may reverse the decline in prices, falling demand will keep a lid on prices...

for these young women to have a chance at least a bit of a life. The uniforms are quite nice and pretty conservative. I wish the ladies involved the best of luck and great flying!

*yawn*