Me, Myself and the job

This blog aims to be a small insight to the other side of the aviation industry, almost behind the scenes, following the ground crews who work tirelessly to get the aircraft away. Bring with you on this short trip into my job multiple pens, a calculator, an accurate watch and a radio. You'll be lost without them. A sense of humour and some chewing gum will also help.

What do I do? Let's start at the beginning. It’s often said aircraft make no money while on the ground. Well I can positively say that far from making money, they cost a fortune while sitting on the ground covering the cost for the different number of companies involved in servicing the aircraft.

When an aircraft arrives on stand no sooner have the engines spooled down than the apron becomes a hive of excitement as many different parties move into place to prepare the aircraft for departure.

For a full turn-around, that includes passengers off and new ones on, inbound bags offloaded and outbound bags on-loaded, the cabin cleaned, the toilet and other waste emptied, the aircraft water supply topped up, re-cater with fresh meals and duty free, re-fuelling, and probably a complete crew change. Don't forget the engineers too. To make it even more complicated all of these services are provided by different companies. There’s the ground handling agent who handle the passengers and bags, the cleaning company, waste services, the fuel company, a cargo company, catering people, the airport, the airline’s crew and reps. As such someone needs to be aircraft side to co-ordinate all these different groups of people to ensure it all comes together.

That’s where I come into the picture, it’s my job to make sure all this happens and to a strict deadline in order to get the aircraft away again and on-time. Call me what you will, Turn-around co-ordinator, Team Leader, Dispatcher, Dispatch Agent, Magical Wizard, Useless Toss*r... I’ve come across them all before.

I am the last link of a very long chain with the aircraft’s departure hanging from it. If one link breaks, it’s my job to find a way around it and still get it away on-time or as close as possible. It’s a challenge, but unfortunately the challenge also comes with taking the abuse when it does go wrong in being answerable to the aircraft captain and airline as to why it hasn’t left yet!

Despite that, still I stand, 5ft 10ft, highly trained and lowly paid, but hey, it beats a normal job...

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