'IT'S LIKE A MIRACLE: when I go up to a crying baby or child, they just stop and smile - they must like me,' says Pansy Mau Pui-man.
Which is just as well, because Mau is a so-called sky nanny and her job is to do just that: avert a crisis on board when a screaming child threatens to disturb the peace of every passenger within earshot.
Mau is one of 174 sky nannies employed by Gulf Air - a sizeable proportion of its 1,917 cabin crew. Like her sky nanny colleagues she earned her title by doing a one-week stint at the Norland College in Bath, England, where nannies to the British royal family, among other top-tier clients, learn the ropes.
Back in Oman, she honed her skills caring for the specific inflight needs of children on board at a series of in-house workshops. The result, claims Gulf Air, is an army of sky nannies ready to ease the long-haul pains of parents.
They promise to lend a hand for the whole journey, assuming the roles of child helper, carer, entertainer and family confidant in the case of any difficulties.
'We're also cabin crew,' says Mau. 'But the needs of babies, children or their parents always come first.'