Crosscheck?
Ramp? Ground stop? Who comes up with these things?
Finally, decoding the insufferable jargon of air travel :)
Finally, decoding the insufferable jargon of air travel :)
THE EXPERIENCE OF AIR
TRAVEL IS UNIQUE in that people subject themselves to a long string of mostly
anonymous authorities. From the moment you step through the terminal doors,
you’re hit with orders — stand here, take your shoes off there, put your seat
belt on, do this, put away that — and a flurry of information. Most of it comes
not face-to-face, but over a microphone, delivered by employees, seen and
unseen, in a vernacular that binges on jargon, acronyms, and confusing
euphemisms. There are people who make dozens of air journeys annually and still
have only a vague understanding of many terms. To help, I’ve compiled a
glossary, focusing on those expressions most easily misunderstood, or not
understood at all. In no special order:
• DOORS TO ARRIVAL AND
CROSSCHECK
Meaning: Occasionally
heard as “disarm your doors and crosscheck,” and announced by the lead flight
attendant or purser as a plane approaches the gate. The intent is to verify
disarming of the emergency escape slides attached to the doors. When armed, a
slide will automatically deploy the instant its door is opened. Disarmed, it
needs to be deployed manually. On departure the slides are armed to facilitate
an emergency evacuation. (You might hear this as “doors to automatic.”) Upon
docking, they’re disarmed to keep them from billowing into the boarding tunnel
or onto the apron during servicing.
Crosscheck is a generic
term used by pilots and flight attendants meaning that one person has verified
the task of another. In the cabin, flight attendants crosscheck one another’s
stations to make sure the doors are armed or disarmed as necessary.
• ALL-CALL “Flight
attendants, doors to arrival, crosscheck and all-call.”
Meaning: Often part of
the arming/disarming procedure, this is a request that each flight attendant
report via intercom from his or her station — a sort of flight attendant
conference call.
• LAST MINUTE PAPERWORK
“We’re just finishing up some last minute paperwork and should be underway
shortly…”
Meaning: Everything is
buttoned up and the flight is ready for pushback. Then comes the wait for “last
minute paperwork,” which winds up taking half an hour. Usually it’s something
to do with the weight-and-balance record, a revision to the flight plan, or
waiting for the maintenance guys to deal with a write-up and get the logbook in
order.
• FLIGHT DECK
Meaning: The cockpit.
• FIRST OFFICER (also, COPILOT)
Meaning: Second in
command on the FLIGHT DECK. The first officer sits on the right and wears three
stripes. He or she is fully qualified to operate the aircraft in all stages of
flight, including takeoffs and landings, and does so in alternating turns with
the captain.
• FLIGHT LEVEL “We’ve now
reached our cruising altitude of flight level three-three-zero. I’ll go ahead
and turn off the seat belt sign…”
Meaning: There’s a
technical definition of flight level, but I’m not going to bore you with it.
Basically this is a fancy way of telling you how many thousands of feet you are
above sea level. Just add a couple of zeroes. Flight level three-three zero is
33,000 feet.
• HOLDING PATTERN
Meaning: A
racetrack-shaped course flown during weather or traffic delays. Published
holding patterns are depicted on aeronautical charts, but one can be improvised
almost anywhere.
• GROUND STOP “Sorry
folks, but there’s a ground stop on all flights headed south from here.”
Meaning: The point when
departures to one or more destination are curtailed by ATC, usually due to a
traffic backlog.
• EFC TIME “Good news,
we’ve been given an EFC time of 30 minutes after the hour.”
Meaning: The expect
further clearance (EFC) time, sometimes called a release time, is the point at
which a crew expects to be set free from a HOLDING PATTERN or exempted from a
GROUND STOP.
• WHEELS-UP TIME
Meaning: Similar to the
EFC TIME, except it refers to the point when a ground-stopped plane is expected
to be fully airborne. The crew and ground team must be sure to get the flight
boarded and pushed in order to be at or near the runway as close to this time
as possible.
• AREA OF WEATHER “Due to
an area of weather over New Jersey, we’ll be turning southbound toward
Philadelphia…”
Meaning: This typically
means thunderstorms or a zone of heavy precipitation.
• AIR POCKET
Meaning: Colloquial for a
transient jolt of turbulence.
• FINAL APPROACH “Ladies
and gentlemen, we are now on our final approach into Miami.”
Meaning: For pilots, an
airplane is on final approach when it has reached the last, straight-in segment
of the landing pattern — that is, aligned with the extended centerline of the
runway, requiring no additional turns or maneuvering. Flight attendants speak
of final approach on their own more general terms, in reference to the latter
portion of the descent.
• THE FULL, UPRIGHT AND
LOCKED POSITION
Meaning: Upright.
• TAMPERING WITH,
DISABLING, OR DESTROYING “Federal law prohibits tampering with, disabling, or
destroying a lavatory smoke detector.”
Meaning: Tampering with.
• THE OFF POSITION
Meaning: Off.
• FLOOR AREA“Please check
the floor area for any personal items before deplaning.”
Meaning: The floor.
• DEPLANE
Meaning: Deplane is used
to describe the opposite of boarding an aircraft. There are those who feel the
root “plane” should not be used as a verb, fearing a chain-reaction of
abominable copycats. Imagine “decar” for getting out of your car, or “debed” for
waking up. In fact, dictionaries date “deplane” to the 1920s, and while it’s
not the slickest sounding word, I’m known to employ it myself. Like
“stewardess,” it’s a term of occasional convenience. There are few snappy,
PA-friendly options with the same useful meaning. “Disembark” is the most
elegant one, and it’s rather clumsy.
• DEADHEAD
Meaning: A deadheading
pilot or flight attendant is one repositioning as part of an on-duty
assignment. This is not the same as commuting to work or engaging in personal travel.
• EQUIPMENT “Due to an
equipment change, departure for Heathrow is delayed three hours.”
Meaning: An airplane. (Is
there not something strange about the refusal to call the focal object of the
entire industry by its actual name?)
• DIRECT FLIGHT
Meaning: Technically, a
direct flight is a routing along which the flight number does not change; it
has nothing to do with whether the plane stops. This is a carryover from the
days when flights between major cities routinely made intermediate stops, sometimes
several of them. Most airline staff are smart enough to realize that if a
passenger asks if a flight is “direct,” he or she wants to know if it stops,
but check the fine print when booking.
• NONSTOP
Meaning: That’s the one
that doesn’t stop.
• GATEHOUSE “If there is
a passenger Patrick Smith in the gatehouse, please approach the podium?”
Meaning: An idiosyncratic
way of saying the gate area or boarding lounge. Gatehouse has a folksy touch
that I really like. They should use it more often.
• PRE-BOARD “We would now
like to pre-board those passengers requiring special assistance.”
Meaning: This one, on the
other hand, has no charm. It means to board. Except, to board first.
• FINAL AND IMMEDIATE
BOARDING CALL
Meaning: A flamboyant way
of telling slow-moving passengers to get their asses in gear. It provides more
urgency than just “final call” or “last call.”
• IN RANGE “The flight
has called in range, and we expect to begin boarding in approximately 40
minutes.
Meaning: This is a common
GATEHOUSE announcement during delays, when the plane you’re waiting to board
hasn’t yet landed. Somewhere around the start of descent, the pilots will send
an electronic “in range” message to let everybody know they’ll be arriving
shortly. How shortly is tough to tell, as the message is sent prior to any
low-altitude sequencing and assumes no inbound taxi congestion. What they’re
giving you at the gate is a best-case time for boarding. As a rule of thumb,
add twenty minutes.
• RAMP “We’re sorry, your
suitcase was crushed by a 747 out on the ramp.”
Meaning: Ramp refers to
the aircraft and ground vehicle movement areas closest to the terminal — the
aircraft parking zones and surrounds. In the early days of aviation, many
aircraft were amphibious seaplanes or floatplanes. If a plane wasn’t flying, it
was either in the water or it was “on the ramp.”
• ALLEY “It’ll be just a
second, folks. We’re waiting for another aircraft to move out of the alley.”
Meaning: A taxiway or
passageway between terminals or RAMPS.
• APRON
Meaning: Similar to RAMP,
above, this is basically any expanse of TARMAC that is not a runway or taxiway
— i.e. areas where planes park or are otherwise serviced.
• TARMAC
Meaning: A portmanteau
for “tar-penetration macadam,” a highway surfacing material patented in Britain
in 1901. Eventually it came to mean any sort of asphalt or blacktop. You hear
it in reference to airports all the time, even though almost no ramp, apron,
runway or taxiway is actually surfaced with the stuff. Real tarmac becomes soft
in hot weather, and would turn to mush under the wheels of a heavy jet. (I
think of Paul Weller’s invocation of “sticky black tarmac” in the gorgeous Jam
song “That’s Entertainment!”) Like many words, it has outgrown its specificity,
and there are linguistic traditionalists who are bothered by this. I am not one
of them.
• AT THIS TIME “At this
time, we ask that you please put away all electronic devices.”
Meaning: Now, or
presently. This is air travel’s signature euphemism.
• DO “We do appreciate
you choosing American.” Or, “We do remind you that smoking is not permitted.”
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