Airport Ground Crew
Most airports have groundcrew handling the loading and unloading of passengers, crew, baggage and other services. Some groundcrew are linked to specific airlines operating at the airport.
Many groundcrew at the airport work at the airplanes. A tow tractor pulls the aircraft to one of the airbridges. The ground power unit is plugged in. It keeps the electricity running in the plane when it stands at the terminal. The engines are not working, therefore they do not generate the electricity, as they do in flight. The passengers disembark using the airbridge. Mobile stairs can give the ground crew more access to the aircraft's cabin. There is a cleaning service to clean the aircraft after the aircraft lands. Flight catering provides the food and drinks that we enjoy on flights. A toilet waste truck removes the human waste from the tank which holds the waste from the toilets in the aircraft. A water truck fills the water tanks of the aircraft. A fuel transfer vehicle transfers aviation fuel from fuel tanks underground, to the aircraft tanks. A tractor and its dollies bring in luggage from the terminal to the aircraft. They also carry luggage to the terminal if the aircraft has landed, and is being unloaded. Hi-loaders lift the heavy luggage containers to the gate of the cargo hold. The ground crew push the luggage containers into the hold. If it has landed, they rise, the ground crew push the luggage container on the hi-loader, which carries it down. The luggage container is then pushed on one of the tractors dollies. The conveyor, which is a conveyor belt on a truck, brings in the awkwardly shaped, or late luggage. The airbridge is used again by the new passengers to embark the aircraft. The tow tractor pushes the aircraft away from the terminal to a taxi area. The aircraft should be off of the airport and in the air in 90 minutes. The airport charges the airline for the time the aircraft spends at the airport.
Read more about this topic: Airport Infrastructure
Famous quotes containing the words airport, ground and/or crew:
“It was like taking a beloved person to the airport and returning to an empty house. I miss the people. I miss the world.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“The crew was complete: it included a Boots—
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods—
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes—
And a Broker, to value their goods.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)