Of course, commercial and private aviation careers in the sky are mostly that of pilots, flight engineers and cabin crew. But did you know (prior to the pandemic) there were other roles on offer to work onboard? Let's take a look at some of the roles that were available and may still come back in the future.

Cabin Services Assistant

This role has been advertised recently with Emirates. It is not a cabin crew role but one purely of cleaning and product presentation, so no cabin crew training is necessary. The cabin services assistant is responsible for the cleanliness of the Airbus A380 first class shower as well as the business class lavatories.

Nanny

Gulf Air offers a 'Sky Nanny' service for children under the age of 12. The role includes helping the family to board and disembark the aircraft and keeping them entertained during the flight. Etihad Airways has 'Flying Nannies' too, which are trained to the famous 'Norland Nanny' standard (who are the preferred nanny training service for the royal family in the UK). Both airlines require that the nanny is fully trained as cabin crew first, before being trained for the nanny role.

Chef

Gulf Air has 'Sky Chefs' in first class (Falcon Gold) on the A330 and A340 international routes. The chefs have worked at fine dining establishments and offer personalized service and gourmet meals. They are also required to take full cabin crew training. Turkish Airlines has a 'Flying Chef' service on some of its long-haul routes. They present business class passengers with an award-winning dining service featuring the best of Turkish cuisine and global concepts. Saudia also has onboard chefs, working in both the business class and first cabins on selected long-haul routes. These are also qualified cabin crew.

Austrian Airlines had flying chefs too, in long-haul business class. Garuda Indonesia had onboard chefs on some of their long-haul flights in the first and business class cabin. Etihad Airways used to have an onboard chef for its diamond first-class passengers. Food and beverage managers also used to feature onboard, who were also trained cabin crew.

Butlers and more

Etihad Airways have some of their cabin crew trained as butlers for The Residence - a private suite in the sky onboard the A380. They are trained at the Savoy Hotel in London. Four Seasons operate the 'hotel in the sky', a private Boeing 757 with just 52 business class seats. All of the staff members onboard are Four Seasons trained and alternative roles include executive chef and onboard physician. Crystal Skye has a similar concept onboard their Boeing 777, and the cabin crew are called 'Sky Butlers'. They also have onboard entertainers, mixologists and a security manager. In the past, Virgin Atlantic had cabin crew who also worked in upper class as inflight beauticians/therapists.

Since the pandemic, many of these roles have all but disappeared, although there are a few airlines that still have onboard nannies and sky chefs. Most of these type of roles are double duty and most of them require cabin crew training. Some airlines will ask for the crew member to have flown for the airline for 6 months before training them in another onboard role. It is a good thing as it also allows the cabin crew job to become more diverse and offers a form of promotion. It is interesting to see that some roles require no cabin crew training at all, which may be helpful to some, who might not normally be able to apply due to the strict requirements. Within time, we may see some new roles appearing onboard as airlines continue to develop their product and improve the customer experience.