A former Emirates flight attendant from Crewe swapped life in the skies for the stage after becoming a professional belly dancer, earning up to £100 per hour at events.

Lizzie Abou Chedid, 37, spent almost a decade working as cabin crew for the Dubai-based airline before the Covid-19 pandemic brought global aviation to a standstill.

Already a trained belly dancer since the age of 18, the unexpected downtime gave Lizzie the opportunity to fully commit to her passion.

During lockdown, she trained daily via Zoom with her mentor, Leyla, 43, focusing on becoming both a performer and teacher. When restrictions eased in Dubai, Lizzie quickly began securing paid work at events.

Lizzie Abou Chedid at her home studio in Crewe (Photo: SWNS).

Following the birth of her son Khalil, now four, in October 2021, Lizzie and her husband Naji, 52, returned to the UK in August 2022.

She had already resigned from her Emirates role earlier that year, in March, and now works part-time as a belly dancer while being a full-time mum.

Lizzie performs at restaurants and corporate events across Manchester and Liverpool and also teaches three classes a week. Altogether, her dancing brings in around £8,000 a year, including £500 a month from teaching.

She said: "I always had a fascination with belly dancing. My teacher had been having weekly classes doing online Zoom classes, I was training every single day. She trained me and it became an obsession.

"We turned the spare room into a little studio for me. That was it, train, train, train and then with Dubai we came out of lockdown a lot sooner than a lot of other places.

"I was immediately asked to do group gigs or bits on my own. A friend of mine recommended me to [...] an agency in the UK without me knowing which was really sweet of her.

"It went from there, I'm really busy I do one to two gigs a week mostly in restaurants and so some corporate things and occasions like weddings and birthday celebrations. I absolutely love it. My husband always says to me if I'm a bit moody 'you need to go and dance'."

Lizzie Abou Chedid performs at restaurants and corporate events across Manchester and Liverpool and also teaches three classes a week (Photo: SWNS).

Lizzie originally moved to Dubai in 2013 after securing her Emirates job. She met Naji at a friend's wedding in 2018 and the couple married just three weeks before the first Covid lockdown began.

As tourism in Dubai slowly resumed, Lizzie's mentor encouraged her to train professionally, opening the door to paid work at a time when there was a shortage of performers.

"That was a far off dream I thought would never happen," she said. "I thought am I not too old now to be a performer, I was 31. The tourism industry [in Dubai] wanted to pick back up and get people back in and there was a shortage of dancers. I was still flying at this point too.

"I would do maybe a flight a month or one every two weeks. I carried on teaching whilst pregnant which is great, belly dancing whilst pregnant is so good for you. I went back to performing when he [Khalil] was two months old".

Since relocating back to the UK, Lizzie has signed with a British agency and now fits performances around family life, often spending weekends travelling to gigs.

She said: "For a 20-minute performance I'll be paid £100 but factoring in the drive which might be an hour to where I dance, and my costumes are $500 a piece.

"With my teaching and performing I earn £8,000 per year. I wouldn't say it's amazing pay because I don't think anyone in performing arts is paid enough.

Lizzie Abou Chedid when she was a flight attendant for Emirates (Photo: SWNS).

"Covid was a saving grace for me. Because we were grounded we weren't flying as an airline and operation ground to a halt.

"It was the first time in eight years that I'd had time to sort of get into a normal sleep pattern, have rest and also have time to attend online lessons and I suppose train harder and to focus.

"Because a lot of the time I would attend classes but I was usually tired or I'd miss some due to travelling. It was a combination of being rested, and having time to focus and up my game so to speak."

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