airports
I've now worked in the airline industry for going on five years. It is NEVER as glamourous, or as exciting, as Airline or Airport on the tellybox... but...


1: NEVER trust any check-in staff or dispatcher who guarantees your bag is on the aircraft if you turn up late to check in for a flight. An on-time departure is less paperwork and less hassle, so a bag isn't important enough to wait for.

2: Equally, if you have a hold bag and there aren't a lot of bags on the flight and you're late to the gate, we won't think twice about offloading you. We don't know you, and because you have an important meeting in Birmingham doesn't mean anything to us. If the flight's busy, we're more likely to be more lenient because it takes an age to go thru all the bags looking for yours because you couldn't be arsed to appear on time. If you have no bags checked in you're off as soon as departure looms - sorry, but its true.

3: It is not the gate staff, check-in staff or dispatcher's fault for late running or tech aircraft, or crew being late to the aircraft, or the aircraft diverting somewhere else, or the manky bastards getting off the plane meaning it needs gutted by the cleaners, or the aircraft being parked remote from the terminal and needing coached or causing you to walk outside in the pissing rain - you only have to walk to the plane maybe 50 yards, we have to wait in the rain for 200 of you bastards to get on it, with 200 individual moans about not having a jetbridge. We are creatures of comfort and we don't like it either, so give us a break.

4: Begging to get on a flight you've turned up late for doesn't impress us. Get there on time or get there by some other means. We're not all bastards, but some of us like the feeling of power to ruin your trip. Muahahahahaha etc.

5: If you are pissed/stoned and giving us hassle at check in your bag will be on standby - its easier to dump it and go as soon as departure time comes if you're not there. If you start at the gate your bag will be put to one side for the same reason.

6: Believe it or not you cannot smoke when you're outside on the ramp with the aircraft - theres jetfuel, nitrogen for tyres and other flammable things to contend with. Staff have to go outside the building to smoke just like you lot, so don't even ask and certainly don't try it.

7: On a number of airlines I won't mention on a forum as public as this, I know what the maintainance standards are and how often aircraft break down. There are certain aircraft that are permanently running with defects, sometimes major. I pray for most of you to make it to the other side.

8: Live fish? Throw the boxes in with the bags! Cats that stink of piss? In with the bags! Dogs that shit everywhere? Guess where they go! The remains of people who die on holiday are also loaded with your bags around them so they don't slide about the hold and so that the bodies don't come out the coffin. I've seen it, and its not pretty when it happens.

9: If you reach the end of your trip and your bag isn't there, it probably wasn't loaded at the other end. This relates to point 1 in many ways - you mean nothing to us. Don't moan if your bag doesn't make it, cos its gonna be hundreds of miles away where we can do sweet Foxtrot Alpha about it.

10: Requesting your prams for your darling shitlings as soon as you get off the aircraft might make your life easier, but it doesn't make ours easy. Wait til the carousel like every other mug who had to put up with your screaming brat during the flight. Added to that its a health and safety risk for us to carry such items without proper training, giving us another get out clause to not bother our collective arses.

11: Anyone asking you to move your seat for trim issues who looks official, be it someone in a yellow vest or the captain, is actually serious. We can't let the plane go if its out of trim, we're not doing it out of badness, and it will crash and burn if you don't. This applies to all aircraft, be it an 8 seater Twin Otter turboprop or a 480 seater Boeing 747, so don't look at us as if we don't know what we're doing if you're on a Jumbo and we ask you to move. They are not pretty when they tip backwards for being arse heavy, or indeed when the nosewheel landing gear collapses for being nose heavy.

12: No bag is supposed to travel without a passenger unless its been checked and scanned thoroughly. It could be anything if it hasn't. You'd be surprised how many bags make flights when the passengers don't...

13: Moaning gets you nowhere. Be nice to us and we're likely to do you a favour. The last one definately isn't a dirty secret, it applies to every service industry, but no c**t seems to know it!



Seem to have gone on a bit of a rant there... *insert length gag etc*
(clearasmud, Sat 29 Sep 2007, 21:11, Reply)