In a way, Mr Ng himself is a living archive of this relatively young industry.
He often finds himself awed by the advancements constantly being made in aviation design and technology.
He still recalls how plane toilets did not even have suction up until the 1980s. Instead, a flap lifted to let excreted waste fall through to a collection tank.
The first time he worked a galley with an in-built microwave, he marvelled: “It’s almost like a kitchen now.”
Gone are the days of flying being a “luxury”.
“Everybody would dress up for flights, prim and proper. Not everybody could buy a (plane) ticket,” he said pensively.
Now, budget airlines make air travel more accessible to all, and it is not unusual to see passengers in sweatpants, shorts and flip-flops.
“Today, everybody travels, everybody has a passport,” he said.
LAST FLIGHT
In July, Mr Ng embarked on his very last flight as a steward, a seven-hour trip from Adelaide, Australia to Singapore. He had expected it to be an emotionally affecting journey, but it ended up being “a normal day in the office” for him.
He had only recently become aware of a nickname colleagues had used to refer to him for a long while now: “legend”.
“They know me as this guy who has a company staff number … nobody else has,” he said, referring to a number assigned to employees. His batch number had five digits and started with “1”, while current batch numbers have six digits, indicative of how long he had been there and his seniority.
However, everyone’s story comes to a final chapter someday, even that of legends.
For Mr Ng, loneliness is not the enemy, not when there are squash games to play, gyms to visit and new languages to learn.
What about moments when he’s bored? “I’ll just go to JB (Johor Bahru across the Causeway),” he quipped. “That’s what Singaporeans do.”
He flipped through all the passports he had held over the last 46 years. Save for the odd visa or two, most of them were comically devoid of the colourful immigration stamps a well-seasoned traveller would have collected over the years.
He attributes this to his almost exclusive use of the crew lane, a dedicated immigration channel that allows airline employees to bypass regular passport control and the usual stamps.
“My passport is very clean,” he said with a laugh. “No ‘chops’ at all.”
For Mr Ng, then, the real reckoning of retirement centres on his personal identity.
Having spent his entire adult life working as a cabin crew member, he admitted that by now, his “steward self” and his core self have become one and the same. “I am who I am today because of the 46 years (I spent) in the line.”
Thoughtfully, he added: “I think it’s better to have more time to myself now.”
He is looking forward to getting started on checking things off his bucket list, which he would have less time to accomplish if he had stayed another year as he had originally planned.
“(Retirement) is not the end of the world. It’s just discovering your second life.”
