Virgin crew member with SVG roots makes historic trip

Having worked with Virgin Atlantic for the past 16 years, a flight attendant with Vincentian parentage thought it extremely important that he be a part of the cabin crew that travelled to St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) on the international carrier’s inaugural flight to the destination this week.

Desmond-Franklyn Ambris- Braide was born in London, England, to a Vincentian mother, Audrey Ambris and a father who is from Montserrat.

“I came to school in St Vincent in the Belair Primary School and I was living with my uncle and Auntie Angie, in Fairbairne,” the 41-year-old told SEARCHLIGHT of his childhood in this Caribbean nation.

While he cannot remember in what year he returned to England, Ambris -Braide said he has journeyed back to the multi-island state without fail every year, sometimes multiple times per year.

And to fly back to his childhood home on a direct flight for the first time was “really, really amazing”.

“It’s well overdue,” he said. “It’s just good to not have to get off the aircraft and just come straight. No getting off in Barbados, change, queue up, recheck in, all that stuff. It’s really really good that there’s a direct service now. It’s really long overdue.”

Virgin Atlantic’s flight on Wednesday, October 13 marks the beginning of a twice-weekly service on Wednesdays and Sundays from the Heathrow International Airport in London, England, to the Argyle International Airport (AIA), in SVG.

The flight attendant acknowledged there are constraints that would have existed having direct transatlantic flights to the decommissioned ET Joshua airport.

He added that the AIA has proven to be much better to accommodate international travel.

Now that there is a direct flight into SVG, Ambris -Braide told SEARCHLIGHT he cannot wait to fly back for the Christmas break.

Asked whether he would be working the Heathrow-AIA route in the future, the flight attendant said, “I usually do a lot of Atlanta, a lot of Nigeria, a lot of New York. At the moment, we’re not staying in because we’re shuttling over from Barbados, but the second we do night stops, I will be on every single one. I’ll be going to Chillspot and Lady J in town”.