Behind-the-scenes video by a former Emirates flight attendant that garnered over a million views has reportedly triggered the firing of an entire crew from one of her flights. While this flight attendant had apparently left the job prior to releasing the footage, the airline apparently pursued action against other cabin crew members who had worked with her.
@trelemorele1 Did you know that because of one YouTube video whole crew was fired? Many rules broken by one person #flightattendant #cabincrew #cabincrewlife #cabincrewemirates #emiratescabincrewtraining #fyp #plane #amandaking @Amanda king ♬ Baby – Justin Bieber
According to airline crew site Paddle Your Own Kanoo, YouTube creator Amanda King provided an in-depth look at the realities of working for the Dubai-based carrier.
She talked about salaries and layover routines, and then posted a video that caused an uproar: “Things you DONT see as a Passenger” about the fateful trip to Shanghai.
She shows crew baking a cake onboard for crew members and allowing her boyfriend into the crew rest area.
She also admitted to swapping her assigned crew jumpseat with a coworker to sit closer to her boyfriend during phases of flight where she had specific duties. Showing where safety and emergency equipment were located onboard was also a problem for Emirates management. Other crew members abided the rules violations, and failed to report them (snitch).
Delta Air Lines recently barred flight attendants from posting to social media in uniform over concerns about associating their brand with the content, often shared to TikTok.. and OnlyFans.
In the early days of blogging, and before modern social media, Delta Air Lines flight attendant Ellen Simonetti became a poster child for the new online world colliding with work expectations. She started a blog, Queen of Sky: Diary of a Dysfunctional Flight Attendant in September 2003 but a year later was suspended and later fired for posing in uniform and on planes, combined with her online commentary (she never expressly identified her employer by name). Some of her photos were mildly suggestive. Part of the issue at the time was that in what was then a wild west of expectations, other flight attendants were escaping discipline for similar activities. Now the risks and consequences are clearer. At a minimum, posting online can serve as pretext for dismissal if an airline wants a reason.
Update: An Emirates spokesperson says that no one was fired over this.
Emirates is aware of the video mentioned and had investigated the matter at the time. We can confirm that no crew was dismissed as a result.
I work in an industry where I had to sign a contract not to post photos or videos online of my workplace. And I don’t. This should be standard in all employment. If you want to be an “influencer”, then quit and go do that.
So not only does she break airline policy she puts it online. That’s some kind of stupid.
I don’t understand why employees of any employer think it’s okay to use their employer’s name to create and post social media or to spend part of their working hours on creating social media content that is wholly unrelated to their job duties. If you want to be a YouTube content creator or social media influencer, quit your job.
Looking forward to more articles of stupid people getting fired for, wait for it, being stupid.
But she didn’t post it until after she took a different job. Emirates built employee morale by firing the rest of the crew who still worked there, tho, simply for cooperating and not reporting her.
Free expression, including speech, should be a human right; yet, it should also have reasonable limitations.
We aren’t free from the consequences of our speech, and others often use their own speech to disagree.
Also, if you incite immediate harm and actually cause such harm to others (like shouting ‘fire!’ in a crowded theater, causing a stampede, deaths), that should not be protected either.
Within the context of employment, sure, when you’re ‘in-uniform’ or ‘on the job,’ the employer may reasonably require you limit your expression as you are acting as an agent of that private entity then and there. No more flair, please. Personally, I’d stay off socials.
But there must to be a balance. Like, I don’t personally condone the misbehavior that Gary is reporting on here, but if you are an employee of any company the ‘job’ is not your entire ‘life,’ nor should it be. Outside of work, unless you live in an oppressive regime, you should be able to say what you want, even if others disagree, unless, again, see above, it incites harm to others.
Or, forget all that silly nuance, go back to ‘might makes right’ and ‘rule of the jungle’, and ‘fight! fight! fight!’
Yup, there’s the ‘paradox of intolerance’. Regrettably, we’re about to learn some hard lessons on that one yet again. *deep sigh*
Be safe out there, everyone.
I understand and agree with some of the comments, but everyone seems to have missed that she did not post this until after she quit. She was no longer an employee.
How long do you think the company you used to work for should have control of you?
In las vegas, the few “hot” cocktail waitresses left are encouraged or required to post social media of their antics at clubs and the venues they work in. Visit to find most current staff are middle aged women. Still no males serving on the casino floors.
She probably thought she was abiding by the rules by bringing her boyfriend (mentioned a lot) who supposedly doing all the filming while she was working but that was a double- edged sword. Now it looks like she’s giving unwarranted perks to non-employees. Not to mention the other violations about filming safety equipment. Wonder if her boss approved the filming in general but then was surprised with the “Final Cut”. The video is actually well done so shows she has some passion and talent but that passion probably overrides that part of her brain that would otherwise say “I shouldn’t do this”
Adding to this – people may not understand that flight attendants are like quasi public safety officers not bartenders or waiters. They are paid even during downtime to be available for emergencies. Emerites is ultimately owned by the UAE and the brand reflects on the country itself and influences the faith investors or travelers place in an organization that operates in a traditionally unstable part of the world. If you think that’s taking this too far and people should just relax that’s fair but I suspect management cares about this and knows their own jobs are at risk for allowing it.
@Dk — Well said. Most folks did not pay attention in their high school civics class, and clearly have not experienced much personal hardship in their lives–how privileged they are to so often and so quickly ‘punch down’ others. Perhaps, soon, they will learn the lessons of history.
@Evan — This is a good point as well. We in the ‘West’ should not take for granted the rights and privileges we currently enjoy (and hopefully will keep) in our relatively ‘free’ societies. Parts of the UAE, like Dubai, may seem on the surface more welcoming to an international community, and their regime certainly has promoted themselves as such, namely for the wealthy. However, for most others, they are not in that ‘club,’ especially the ‘workers’ who are practically trapped there, often living in squaller, frequently toiling 7 days a week in usually 110+ degrees Fahrenheit, all to build a new ‘Babylon’ for these theocratic oil oligarchs. ‘And some, I assume, are good people.’
I find it disingenuous of the airline to fire the whole crew while only a few were complicit. But that is the culture of the company. As for having an issue with baking a. Cake on board, really? You have a problem with that? If no company ingredients were used, what is the issue? Certainly not a ban on the crew having a pleasant moment?.
I found it odd that she would put a lot emphasis on ” Zac” when it should have been minimal. In my day working for an airline if your significant other was on the flight you were on you treated them the same as any passenger and definitely would not let colleagues know as you were watched if you gave them extra attention. A little less attention on him would have been beneficial.
I found great FAs on Emirates and too many that could care less about passengers
Perceived anti American bias though who knows it could be other distractions
I like the hard product on an A380 in first and business but no longer fly them as the customer service in Dubai was poor despite gorgeous lounges.
@Douglas — Sadly, we’ve been discussing a lot more examples of ‘collective punishment’ (arguably, very ‘mild’ degrees) in this industry and elsewhere. See the comments on Gary’s other post (‘American Airlines Flight Delayed 4 Hours Due…’ from February 8, 2025). It’s not a ‘great’ sign when we devolve into this as a ‘method’ either of management, or of treating others, generally.
@Dwondermeant — You’re find ‘wonderful’ and sometimes horrible examples everywhere. Clearly, Emirates A380 is where they shine–it’s got a freaking shower (for First)! Sure, Etihad does, too, so there’s another UAE-based carrier focused on opulence. But, seriously, Emirates needs to upgrade its remaining older 777 cabins, because that 2-2-2 is not as fun in Business–still nice, but it’s dated. Same goes for Turkish 777, 2-3-2, as opposed to their newer 787 and a350 with 1-2-1. For best business hard-product, I’d go with Qatar’s Qsuite, ANA’s The Room, and JAL’s a350-1000, over Emirates these days. Singapore’s long-haul Business is nice, too, but some cannot handle the ‘angle’ of that seat, and it too has become dated (supposedly, they’re upgrading cabins, 2026). Likewise, I’m personally excited to try the new Lufthansa Allegris once it’s fully come on line. Keep traveling luxuriously and report back with your findings, please.
They’re there for my safety and they failed. Any who knew of the FAs antics with the boyfriend and didn’t report it needed to be fired. The possibility that the FA would have shown favoritism
or expected favoritism over other passengers from the crew for the boyfriend in the event of an emergency cannot be tolerated.
She lost me at “I’m Vegan”. Great choice Emirates on letting this wokester go, good riddance.
The stooge commenters defending Emirates as if they can do no wrong is astounding.
Emirates punished a whole crew of people based on the actions of one person who was doing a lot of work to promote the airline. She spoke highly of their destinations and her opportunity to fly to so many places in her job, the accommodation (even though she received one of the worst buildings due to their ‘random’ allocation), the pay. In terms of brand representation, Emirates logically should have capitalised on the the content that put them in a good light, despite their historic negative treatment of employees. Instead, they’ve decided to collectively punish workers who had no power/awareness of the situation and have damaged their reputation as an airline and an employer on a wider scale.
Interesting how this article (and others) are using images of another former Emirates employee (the blonde woman) who also resigned from the airline and began making social media content on the back of Amanda’s success. How hypocritical!
Hi, this is Ellen Simonetti, former Delta flight attendant mentioned in the article (my sister forwarded this to me). I was suspended in September 2004 and fired 2 MONTHS later, not a year later. It was a blessing in disguise for me, although my ego was very upset at the time. I discovered I’m actually a homebody!
Aloha from Maui
@Ellen Simonetti — Glad you made the most of it! There are certainly worse places in this world to end up than Maui. Hope you and yours are doing alright following those awful fires in 2023.