Bittersweet: My Last Emirates Flight With Toby

What an amazing story. Toby sounds like a fantastic person all around, and how wonderful that you got to travel together on his final trip for Emirates. Thank you for sharing this!!

Will Toby be staying in the aviation field? Or will he be opening an entirely new chapter?

can you tell us what is he gonna do next ( i am just curios) , i find this a great story ...

This is such a sweet post.

Hi Lucky, I tried to find the review of your first Emirates flight: "I took my first-ever Emirates A380 first class flight in December 2012".

Would it be possible to add a link to it? I'm sure your delight came through in the review 🙂

Thank you!

It would be great of you could get Toby to post some trip reviews here on OMAAT, would be amazing to get some ex-Emirates Purser perspectives.

To Toby Nostrovia !

Thanks Ben for sharing such a great story! Best of luck to Toby!

Excellent story.

My wife and I do a particular long-haul route four times a year. There's a flight attendant who routinely works it and we've "worked" with him more than once. It turns out that he lives just a few miles from us. What are the odds?

This is a random question, but isn't it awkward to get on friendship terms with someone, but have this person serve you and be at your service on a flight he's working? I'm asking because I'm in a similar-ish situation and became great friends with someone at a restaurant, and whenever she is my waiter it's kind of weird since the relationship nature changes and they have to be professional.

Best of luck to Toby for his next play!

Ben, I think you have captured one of the most wonderful aspects of modern travel. This is a great story.

Apologies- thud is the trip report https://onemileatatime.com/bling-it-on-emirates-first-class-london-heathrow-to-dubai/

Link to Dec-2012 A380 LHR to DXB

https://onemileatatime.com/bling-it-on-emirates-first-class-london-heathrow-to-dubai/

@ Clem -- Hah, that's a great question. Keep in mind that the purser at Emirates really primarily manages the crew, so on an A380 they're not directly serving any passengers aside from greeting them, etc.

That being said, I think Toby and I get a bit of a kick out of it. He's his usual professional self, and I play the role of a very difficult and demanding first class passenger. 😉

@ Chandan Bhat -- Stay tuned! 🙂

@ MKW -- He's very much staying in the travel space. Stay tuned!

Can you please explain how you found award space on this flight? All emirates seemed to be completely booked out for basically the whole schedule. Do they open up extra space for you?

Thank you! Enjoyed the report. Lucky gave an honest opinion about the service.

Is Toby an Aussie? Melbourne originally? Can’t tell with the mask, but I would swear he was the purser on my DXB-BNE flight last month. Amazing dude.

Is he really retiring from a dram job for many of being forced to retire as they do with so many FAs after reaching a certain age?

Is this the same Toby that has been handling all of my bookings via Ford? If so, he’s absolutely wonderful and Emirates is losing a gem. Cool to learn about his now-past career!

@ John delaney -- 100% voluntary! Say what you want about Emirates, but they do let people stick around for a long time, and Toby is nowhere near reaching that threshold anyway.

@ edan -- Yep, that was him! Happy you had a good impression! 🙂

@ Len -- It is indeed, and perhaps that's a good foreshadowing of what's to come for him.

@ Brandon -- No, no space was opened for me. I went to emirates.com and booked the award space that was available. Emirates does often make award space available closer to departure on this route.

Hi Ben.. Toby has been this professional throughout his aviation career..it’s in his blood! We’ve been lucky enough to be part of his career since the beginning when he sent me his CV to submit to bmi just before his 19th birthday.. prior to that, we’d known each other via telephone while he worked for a travel agent.. his professionalism knows no bounds & it will be a great loss for EK.. our only saving grace is that he is like family to us & we know he’ll always be a great part of that family.. we know he’ll be successful in his future career & that travel will always be a massive part of his life.. but it’ll still be a sad day when he hands in his wings ❤️❤️

Nice pics lucky! Didn't realize they were allowing guns on planes these days

Great story, Ben - now I'm wondering if you're still friends with the female SIA cabin staff member you mentioned several times in some of your Reviews from years ago. You had a meal with her at Changi Airport, if I remember correctly

Sweet story. Also - this guy is quite easy on the eyes:)

I love you even more having read this post (in a non threatening, non stalking, non creepy way) ....... and all Melburnians ARE absolutely gorgeous !!!!!!!

Although I've not (yet) become friends with any cabin crew, I like to meet some cabin crew again. As a regular IB long haul flyer, I know several IB "sobrecargos" (i.e. pursers) and even one or two captains (before the pandemic, IB captains used to come to the J cabin to greet passengers personally). Or also a couple of BA and AC cabin crew I got to know, although I'm flying these airlines less frequently now, due to a change in work.

Welcome Toby to the OMAAT family, or maybe PointsPros.

What an amazing friendship you have, thank you for sharing! Many are jealous of you and Toby’s friendship - I am one of them! I’ve only flown Emirates, with full admiration of the aircraft and its service.
Good luck, Toby!

if you try to search for any award space for the next few days or any other day that can be loaded nothing comes up. When did you book the flight?

I'm a huge fan of this blog, but this just doesn't seem believable to me. The only awards that are available are 142,500 one way in business class (not first) and have $1100+ fuel surcharges and none of those seats are available for June (i bring this up b/c you said that they make award space available closer to departure).

@ Brandon -- I booked our flight on May 26 for a May 31 departure, so I booked five days in advance. At the time only three of the 14 seats were assigned in first class. As of the time that I'm making this post, I see award space on the same flight on June 10, roughly the same amount of time before departure.

If you're wondering why there's not otherwise award space, it's because the flights are really full. I've never seen premium transatlantic demand like I've seen for this summer. As of the time of this post, the June 6 flight shows 11/14 seats occupied, the June 7 flight shows 10/14 seats occupied, and the June 8 flight shows 11/14 seats occupied.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting by saying that my story isn't "believable?" I've already told you that no one opened award space for me, and I'll say it again -- no one opened award space for me. I don't think I've ever had contact with a single person in Emirates management, at least not in the past many years. I found award space the same way everyone does, by being really persistent. And fortunately I'm good at that.

How about you do a report on how bad the EK Business Class level of service, meals, conditions of planes has become. Also let pax know exactly how dated their lounges are.
Fellow pax on my recent flights were actually calling it Business Cattle, and TBH, I'd have to agree.

@ I'm 42 -- I've documented how I think Emirates business class isn't great, including in this report:
https://onemileatatime.com/reviews/emirates-business-class-777/

While Emirates has a great first class, I largely agree with you that the business class lags, especially compared to airlines like Qatar Airways.

I would just like to say that Tobias is as kind and loving to his family as he is to everyone he meets .. he is the most amazing son and I am extremely proud of him..