'Fly, sleep, eat, study, repeat': Ex-flight attendant details a life of layovers and exams

Wanna be a flight attendant? Brace yourself for a routine that leaves little time for a social life, says a former Singapore Airlines cabin crew member.

In a YouTube video posted by Hazeline Foo, she documents how the job can be pretty taxing, especially if you're juggling school at the same time.

Foo, who worked for six years as an air stewardess, told AsiaOne: "There's no social life. Just flying, sleeping, eating, studying, doing assignments."

She revealed that when she wasn't on a flight, she spent her layovers and days off studying and working on assignments.

In her video, she showed what a typical layover was like for her. During a layover in Mumbai, she checked into her hotel at 11pm.

She spent the next morning and afternoon studying for her exams up until 6.45pm, when she began preparing for her overnight flight.

"I had an hour and a half of sleep, so I guess I'll be fine tonight," she told the camera positively.

When she reached Singapore at around 7am, she showed her viewers just why overnight flights are called the "red eye".

"My eyes turned red after not having any sleep for a night."

After finally getting a good five-hour rest, Foo had the next day off to bury her nose in the books again.

But not really.

She explained that she was on a half-day standby from 12am to 12pm, and the day after, she was on a full-day standby from 12am to midnight. This meant that she could be called up for any flight.

And as luck would have it, just as she was about to head out for dinner around 6.30pm, she got called up for an overnight flight to South Korea, in six hours' time.

"I'm happy to go to Korea, but it's such a short notice," she said.

"It's kind of like taking my day off away. It's like a fake day off."

Thereafter, the layover routine, this time in Seoul, simply repeated itself - hotel, sleep, study, return flight. Though when she had trouble sleeping the next afternoon, she did get out for a stroll in Myeong-dong, Seoul's famous shopping district.

Foo went on to explain that this was a "common struggle" for her.

"It's just so difficult to manage the sleeping time well."