Worked as aircraft technician in France before becoming hawker
At 18, Alain attended hospitality school Lycee Hotelier de Toulouse and graduated with a Chef de Rang 3 to 4 Luxe certificate (which according to Alain, qualifies you to work as front-of-house staff in three to four-star hotels.)
But he wanted something different. So Alain enrolled in a weeks-long flight steward diploma crash course.
“Stewarding was the middle ground of [F&B and hospitality],” he explains. Unable to land a flight steward job, a relative in the industry got him a job as a part-time aircraft technician. What was supposed to be a placeholder job eventually became full-time, and he worked his way up to become team leader. “I was good at it,” he says proudly.
“We repaired seats, installed or changed oxygen masks, wired up monitors,” he says. “Installing paper walls was one of the worst because there can’t be any bubbles.”
He tells 8days.sg he took no pay cut switching to the hawker life. When asked if he’d return to his aircraft tech job, he says, “If they’d take me back, no problem.”
“Being a technician is peaceful, the airplane seats don’t talk back,” he jokes. “It can get chaotic as a hawker, which is not really my thing, but I enjoy taking care of others [with food].”
Dining and Cooking