- Going to step onboard
a Boeing 777-300er. - Timing is super
critical on these flights. - This is a fresh piece of meat. The steak was cooked exactly medium, the way I like. Privacy is the best in first class. Incredible, incredible. I can see clearly, the Emirates A380's in the sky over there. Vampires. (both growl) That was the jackpot, isn't it? (soft electronic music) - The breakfast menu, sir. - [Sam] Thank you very much. - You're welcome. I like to try the masala omelette. Good morning from the
Etihad First Class Lounge in Abu Dhabi, today flying first class to Los Angeles, and a quick breakfast, and a quick spa in the
First Class Lounge here. (bowl rings) What a great way to start my day. See you next time, always a
pleasure here, see you, yeah. I'm leaving the lounge rather quickly because there is a U.S. pre-clearance of immigration and custom at Abu Dhabi, so you get pre-cleared, and then there's another lounge to enjoy before boarding the flight. Super, super crowded, the airport, at the morning here. This is one of the problem here, the constraint, and the
airport is beyond the capacity. I can't wait until the Midfield terminal, which is a brand new terminal, open. We just don't know when, at this point. It was a breeze. 15 minutes through security check, and the pre-clearance in
the USCBP here in Abu Dhabi. Good, how are you? - Very well, how about you too? - [Sam] There you go. - Thank you so much. Welcome back, please enjoy. (computer beeps) We will make announcements
once we get there. - [Sam] All right, thank you so much. - I'll take you to your area. How is your day? - Yeah, very good, good morning. Oh, I have an area here fenced off. Very nice. I got to say, it's a pretty small lounge. Nice to have a small area for first-class passenger. There's only four flights a day, LA, Chicago, Washington, and New York. In the lounge, Mahesh, Miraja from, which part of India are you guys? - Sort of Hajirbag. - Hajirbag, going to Los Angeles as well. Tell me, what do you think about that U.S.
pre-clearance in Abu Dhabi? - I like it here. That way, I don't have to deal with the crowds in Los Angeles. - Absolutely, a time-saver, actually. Don't have to deal with
the crowd when we arrive. You can just go out. - Yes, absolutely. - See you later on board. - Okay, see you later. - Bye. - Okay, bye, see you, bye-bye. (soft electronic music) This is always the most exciting moment. Going to step onboard a Boeing 777-300er just in a moment. Look at this. - [Flight Attendant] Thank
you for boarding, Mr. Sam. - Hello, nice to see you. - Nice to see you. - Back to my second home in the sky. - Thank you very much. May I assist you to your seat? - Hi, how are you? Hey. - Welcome aboard.
- Nice to see you. - How are you? - [Sam] Oh my god, I've flown
with you before, didn't I? - First time.
- You're a French-speaker? - No, I'm from India. Unfortunately, I don't speak French. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, I'm showing my age here. Look at this. As you can see, this is
not the latest products. The Etihad First Class
has a better product on the A380 called the apartment, but still, this one here, I like it too because it's spacious, one, two, one. Today, we only have two passengers. - Your mimosa. - [Sam] Where are you from? - I'm from Jordan. - [Sam] Jordan. - Yes, so been here for almost 10 years in the country, so. - [Sam] You cook the best mansa. - Oh, you know mansa. - [Sam] Of course, I know mandi, mansa, I know all the Middle Eastern food. I love Middle Eastern food.
- So you like lamb. - [Sam] Yeah, I love all
the rice dishes, actually. - That's amazing. - I'm a rice-eater myself, so yeah. - Boarding? Good morning, Sam. Welcome aboard this flight, 171, Etihad Airways to Los Angeles. My name is Bilal. I'm captain, pilot in command aboard this Boeing 777-300er. Registration alpha,
six, echo, tango, romeo. I have senior first
officer Gaman Prit with us. Our flight time today to
Los Angeles should take us about 16 hours and 10 minutes. Initial cruise altitude of 30,000 feet, and then we'll be going on step climbs of 1,000 or 2,000 feet to finally establish an altitude of 36 or 37,000 feet towards
the end of the flight. We're expecting good weather today, maybe occasional turbulence. Our flight track today
should take us initially over the Arabian Sea, then on
a northerly track over Iran, the Caspian Sea, then into Russia. We'll be probably overflying
the area of Moscow, and then we go nearby
to the west of Murmansk, on to Finland, and then we
go into the polar region. The most we'll fly north will be 85 north, and then we'll start going
into a southern track to go into Canada. We will hit civilization right about Vancouver, British Columbia, and then we'll fly along the west coast of the United States into Los Angeles. - Last month, I flew, we flew over literally 90
degree north over the pole, and today, it's going
to be 85 degree north. What dictates the routing? - A factor we consider in
the routing is basically minimum time, minimum fuel. There are other considerations
that come into play when it comes to flying
over these regions, namely, you have the
cosmic radiation levels, and also the suitable availability of en route diversion airfields. We are dictated by a diversion time of 207 minutes where we
would be flying ETOPS, and the availability of airfields that we can divert to
in case of an emergency. - [Sam] Is this flight
very weight-restricted? - Most of the year, it's
not weight-restricted. We do come into a period of the year during the summertime
where the temperature in Abu Dhabi rises very
quickly in the morning. Sometimes, a temperature rise of two to three degrees might
impose a weight restriction of about five to six
tonnes on the payload. - [Sam] So if you have one-hour delay, would temperature rise a couple degrees? - Correct. - [Sam] You have 6,000. - Kilos of weight penalty that we need to take off the aeroplane. - [Sam] So timing is critical. - Timing is super critical on this flight. - Some Arabic coffee? - [Sam] Yes, please. Thank you. You know my trick,
thank you so much, chef. - Mr. Chui, I've got
your pair of amenity bag with loungewear and slippers. I have taken the liberty of choosing the most
comfortable size for you. If you need a different
size, please do let me know. - [Sam] This is why first class
flight attendants different to all the others. - Mr. Chui, this will be
the menu for you today. My chef's special for
you today is going to be the beef tenderloin,
cooked the way you like it. - [Sam] Cooked any way I like? - Yes. - [Sam] Rare, medium rare, well done, can you do all? - Absolutely. - [Sam] Wow, great, thank you so much. - Fantastic, please. - We are taxiing to the
active runway for takeoff. The weather deteriorated. It looks a little bit
foggy, hazy out there. (plane whirs) (soft electronic music) I've flown this same route last month, and now I'm doing it again because last month, the
flight was just so scenic. Today, we took a different route. We fly directly over the water instead of flying up
north, the coast of UAE. We can see Dubai, the Palm Jumeirah, and then the World Islands, the city, the skyline,
so quite disappointing in that way, that we didn't
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is sponsored by Surfshark. - Would you like to change
into your loungewear now? - [Sam] Okay, let's go change. - Sounds good. - [Sam] Whoa. - Your loungewear. - [Sam] Thank you. - You're most welcome. - I just changed from my black outfit to the Etihad sleepwear black outfit. It's really, really long, like, very Arabic kind of
thing, but very smooth. Some really nice brand Acqua di Parma. I put the lotion on my face just to keep it moisturising. Very nice smell, really. - This is my personal favourite. It tastes really good with
the butter and olive oil. - [Sam] Yeah. - So may I offer you our caviar for today? - [Sam] Yeah, beautiful. - Served with our Bellinis,
and for our condiments, we have our sour cream, egg yolk, egg white,
parsley, and chopped sweets. May I close the door for you? - [Sam] Oh, yes, thank you. - [Chef] You're welcome. - Well, I had a beautiful brunch. Wish every morning is like this. Caviar and champagne for breakfast. Cheers. (glass clinks) - I'm going to show you where I'm going to cook
your chef's special. I heated up the pan. - [Sam] Look it here, you
actually got a real piece of meat coming, this is
a fresh piece of meat. - [Chef] It's fresh piece of put. Butter to it. - [Sam] Oh, nice. - [Chef] And touch of sea salt. This will go to our oven,
and it will be cooked. - I guess the biggest complaint from people onboard is
the steak is always dry, it's always really overcooked. - One of the secret, whenever you grill a
steak or you roast it, is, you have to rest it
half the time you cook it so all the juices stays inside, and it will stay juicy and succulent. See if the steak is cooked by touching it. - [Sam] Oh, you're feeling it. - [Chef] Feeling it. - [Sam] Look at that. Look at this dish. - [Chef] It's beautiful, right? And then I do have also
some of the confit shallots, so they give this nice
sweetness to the dish. This is my last trick, is, I take some of this butter which, all the flavour, you see, and I'm just going to go
drizzle on top of this. - [Sam] Oh, I like that. - And voila. This is my chef's special
for you today, Sam. It's the steak cooked medium with all the flavoured butter and paprika, herbed mashed potatoes, and some beautiful seasonal vegetables. May I offer your our Bordeaux blend? It's a Petit-Figeac, 2012. - Yes, please. This is divine. The steak was cooked exactly medium, the way I like it. The juice, truffle oil,
and beautiful plating. It makes such a difference, actually, having a chef onboard in first class. The bed is good. It's long and wide, I think long enough to fit a six-foot-six, and also, this is the difference
between business class and first class. First class, you got much bigger seats, and much bigger bed than business class, and business, you share
with 40 other passenger, so the privacy is the best in first class. I think I'm going to take a nap and talk to you guys later. I'm having dinner right now. It's 7:00 p.m. Abu Dhabi time. Incredible, incredible. You see that? There's a trail. That is an A380. We are kind of catching up,
so we're a few miles away, but I can see clearly, the Emirates A380's in the sky over there. (lively orchestral music) - I'm from a region called Transylvania. - [Sam] Transylvania? Never heard of that. - Well, it's from a
place, a very cool place, where we have a lot of vampires. - Vampires, whoa. - I'm from Kenya, Mombasa. Today, I'm with Sam, and he's
a very powerful character in Kenya, Mombasa. - In Kenya as well, I'm powerful? - Yeah, his name, his name is Chui. - Chui, yes. - Chui means leopard. - Chui means leopard? - Yeah. (both growl) (speaks in foreign language) (Sam speaks in foreign language) - What's (speaks in foreign language) - Welcome to Kenya. - Oh, great, I look
forward to visit Kenya. - So what do you think about Etihad? - My first flight with Etihad was 2006, and I've been with Etihad
almost from day one. It's a family, I live in the UAE. The thing I come here is to appreciate about what cabin crew does. That's why I came here for a chat, because you guys are all talented people. What I want to do is, I want to bring the best out of you, because the Etihad I know is very bubbly, very spontaneous, the passenger love it. I want to bring back the
good old days of Etihad, just makes Etihad goes
even better in the future, and this is why I'm doing all these video, and I'm not even taking money, I'm doing all this for free, honestly, you know, because I enjoy
Etihad, what it was. It gives me a lot opportunity when my first big video on
Etihad was the residence on the A380, and that's my cornerstone, that I became a YouTuber. It's really, it means a lot to me, and I want to see Etihad
goes to the next level. - Much love, Chui. - Much love eh? - Much love, AY, Etihad. - I'm actually busy working on my footage. Chef, what did you bring me? - So I decided to surprise you and make you a green tea latte. It's kind of off the menu, but I hope you will enjoy it. - [Sam] This is the beef burger slider. - [Chef] It is, and it
has an Asian influence, so it has a sriracha mild. - Good comfy food, burger. - Yoghourt mousse with some fresh berries and peach, with raspberry sauce. Enjoy. - After 16 hours, now, we're
on descent to Los Angeles. Man, what a beautiful flight. Did you see the footage where we're flying parallel, and eventually took
over the Emirates A380? That was one of my greatest
memories from the window view. It's a beautiful flight. Our crew have wonderful hospitality. I'd really like to thank the crew. - [Computer Voice]
Approaching minimum space. Minimum. - [Bilal] Continue, check. - [Computer Voice] 100. 50, 40, 30, 20, 10. (Bilal mutters) (soft electronic music) - Hi, Sam, good to see you again. It's a pleasure to have
you in Los Angeles. I don't know if you noticed, but we were flying along Emirates 215, bound for Los Angeles, and it was a nice coincidence to be able to cross paths with them. At one stage, we were 1,000
feet below just below them, so that's about 300 metres away. I don't know if you managed
to catch the experience. It's one of those special
things about flying, and flying for a living. I really hope that you enjoyed the flight, and we really look forward to seeing you onboard Etihad
Airways sometime soon. - That was the jackpot, isn't it? It was amazing. We'd been trailing him. When I woke up, I opened the window shade, and I see there's a trail, and I knew something's
in front of us, close. I bet your TCAS came on. - Actually, it did not, but if you want to have something funny, when I spoke to him in
the air-to-air frequency, when we got close, I told him you had a really beautiful aeroplane, and then he said, "Are you
sure about what you're saying?" I told him, the 380 is an acquired taste. - [Sam] That's the beauty of flying. Thanks for flying me, Captain Bilal. - Thank you, Sam, it's a pleasure, and we look forward to
seeing you onboard soon. (bell dings)
