Son Follows Mom’s Footsteps, Becomes Emirates Flight Attendant

A former flight attendant for Emirates flew to Dubai to surprise her son during his own cabin crew graduation ceremony for the same airline.

Australian mother of Hungarian descent, Sue Abdul, said that she was “holding back the tears” during the ceremony of her son Karim Hollosi, who joined Emirates two decades after his mum.

Recruited in Dubai, after walking into the operations center while on holiday, Sue reminisces about her time as cabin crew: “In 1994, we were about 500 cabin crew with this new airline, Emirates. And now Karim’s experience is such a contrast to mine – he travels to exotic destinations, with colleagues from around the world, and lives in a Dubai that is very different from the city that I knew.”

Karim and mom

Karim joined the Emirates’ Cabin Crew team in June 2014. For Karim, the love of flying was in his genes. “Both my parents are passionate about flying so is a bit unsurprising that I find it in my destiny as well.  From the stories I heard growing up, Emirates grew to be a natural choice for me,” he said.

Sue says it was evident from a young age that he just might follow in her footsteps: “I was recently cleaning up and I found all of Karim’s old notebooks from when he was a kid. Each one of them had something about Emirates and little airplanes drawn on them.”

In a surprise visit to Dubai to attend Karim's cabin crew graduation ceremony, Sue says it was an emotional moment that left her feeling proud. “After 20 years, I look back on those days with affection and nostalgia, and I am happy and feel reassured to know that Karim is going to have a great future here.”



Recruited from over 135 countries and speaking more than 55 languages, Emirates is proud of the service delivered by its cabin crew. In total, Emirates employs over 19,500 cabin crew members today who have all trained at the Emirates Aviation College Cabin Crew Training.