Narrative:

Was situated in aft galley when a cabin crew member walked to the aft and observed an odor in the aft section of the aircraft. Was unaware of the odor until I appeared in cabin and walked forward. Detected oil odor. Dissipated near the 2L door and forward. Reported odor to the lead purser and flight deck. Maintenance summoned to aircraft. One member (unnamed) also detected odor. Stepped off aircraft due to fumes. Passenger boarding had not commenced as the aircraft was being repaired because of faulty fuel filters. Contacted the local union due to concerns over the odor as the front end crew did not write up the odor and maintenance dismissed the cabin crew's concerns. During this time period the cabin crew gathered in the front section of aircraft; and unbeknown to us; maintenance closed the 2L door and fired up the engines with crew onboard. This caused several crew members to feel ill. After door was reopened; crew voluntarily asked to be taken off the trip as we felt unsafe to fly aircraft transatlantic with the problem. Company sent cabin crew to emergency care to be evaluated where several crew members were treated with nebulizers and albuterol injections. I suffered from severe headache/tingling of limbs/dizziness and an ongoing cough. Company did not cancel flight; but replaced us with reserve crew and original flight deck crew. Had to be seen by company physician to return to work; although company forced us to use sick time and did not pay us for the occurrence. This in turn absolves any wrongdoing on their part. Maintenance should have taken a more serious approach to dealing with this problem and the flight deck should have written up this problem instead of dismissing our concerns.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An A330 Flight Attendant reported detecting an oil odor in the aircraft from the 2L door forward during preflight. Maintenance subsequently ran the engines with closed doors for another reason after which the reporter became ill and sought medical attention.

Narrative: Was situated in aft galley when a cabin crew member walked to the aft and observed an odor in the aft section of the aircraft. Was unaware of the odor until I appeared in cabin and walked forward. Detected oil odor. Dissipated near the 2L door and forward. Reported odor to the lead purser and flight deck. Maintenance summoned to aircraft. One member (unnamed) also detected odor. Stepped off aircraft due to fumes. Passenger boarding had not commenced as the aircraft was being repaired because of faulty fuel filters. Contacted the local union due to concerns over the odor as the front end crew did not write up the odor and Maintenance dismissed the cabin crew's concerns. During this time period the cabin crew gathered in the front section of aircraft; and unbeknown to us; Maintenance closed the 2L door and fired up the engines with crew onboard. This caused several crew members to feel ill. After door was reopened; crew voluntarily asked to be taken off the trip as we felt unsafe to fly aircraft transatlantic with the problem. Company sent cabin crew to emergency care to be evaluated where several crew members were treated with nebulizers and albuterol injections. I suffered from severe headache/tingling of limbs/dizziness and an ongoing cough. Company did not cancel flight; but replaced us with reserve crew and original flight deck crew. Had to be seen by company physician to return to work; although company forced us to use sick time and did not pay us for the occurrence. This in turn absolves any wrongdoing on their part. Maintenance should have taken a more serious approach to dealing with this problem and the flight deck should have written up this problem instead of dismissing our concerns.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.