Sunday, March 15, 2009

A View from the Ground Up

I'm sure that the majority of you have been on an airplane before, right? For those of you that have, stop and think for a minute about the view that you all have from either the airport windows or even the airplane windows. You as passengers see us from the top down. I imagine that from your perspective, the airplanes look pretty big. And the employees on the ramp look a little like ants running around in a scurry of activity. We, and I mean me as a ramp agent, feel like fish in a giant fish bowl! We are surrounded by windows with eyes screening us from every direction!
But you never actually see what we as employees see working next to the airplanes! I would like to show you what it looks like to be sitting in front of one of our own planes from inside our push back tractors waiting to push the jet back from the gate. It's a whole new view!!! The yellow coiled cord you see is connected to our headset that we use to talk to the pilots. They tell us when we are clear to push them back.

Sitting inside the push back-my view looking out.

As it turns out, I had written a post similar to this one which was about 2 years ago, and had put other pictures in. Check this out for other "ground up" photos. Our push back tractors were different--no cabs. And I'm seeing that I still had long hair! Sheesh!

Anyway, that's just one of the many things we do on the ground. It's just to show you the difference between your view from inside the terminal or the airplane and my view from the ground up!

2 comments:

Kevin Moberg said...

It is interesting to point out that we passengers are not the only voyeurs at the airport or in the airplane--that we're being stared at, too, by the airline employees!

Cool to see the planes from a new perspective. I'm getting jaded and no longer even pay much attention to the impressive details visible from inside the plane. I'll pay better attention on my flight back from FL Tuesday.

(No, I won't try to leap down onto the tarmac to see things from your perspective!)

Anonymous said...

I've had the pleasure of seeing the view from Sandy's perspective and it's awesome! I've watched her in action and have been escorted to the baggage room, the tarmac, the breakroom and the belly of the planes. Even got to sit in the Captain's seat in the cockpit one time and he put his hat on my head. But was there FILM in my camera?? NO!! Did I realize it at the time??? NO!!!
But ohhhhhhh the sunrises they get to see each day! It's a great job to have and I often wish that I too, had gone into that line of work. I'd be in much better physical shape than I am...I can tell you that! Hee!!