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Old 08-17-2015 | 05:13 PM
  #68  
Probe
Don't say Guppy
 
Joined: Dec 2010
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From: Guppy driver
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If you want to see a first world airport, vs a 3rd world one, I would suggest this. Unfortunately where I currently fly I can't be any help on this. Maybe I will search on Youtube.

Sitting in the cockpit, in ORD, La Garbage, or Heathrow, pull out your smartphone and record 30 seconds of video. That video will show hundreds of people, ground support equipment, safety equipment. It is seemingly strewn everywhere. Some moving randomly, some probably hasn't moved in 8 years. They are like garbage dumps.
The Hold Short line has a lineup of 15 jets, all burning gas.

Go to the vast majority of Chinese airports. There are aircraft on the ramp. If the aircraft is going somewhere soon, there are 3 or 4 baggage handlers loading bags, and then they completely disappear. Including ALL of their equipment. The fueler fuels, and completely disappears. There is probably only 1 tug in use (supertug), for the whole airport. 2 if there are 2 runways.
The ramp is quiet, sedate, and nearly empty. It is almost like the airport is closed.
One tug can push back enough aircraft fast enough to feed one runway. If you work for a Chinese airline, once you push back, you will not come to a stop until you lineup on the runway, 75% of the time.

All of this is done with the smallest number of ground staff you have ever seen at an airport.

There are a very, very few exceptions to this. PEK and PVD you will have a line of aircraft at the hold short, usually foreign as they screw all the foreign carriers. CAN can also have a few aircraft waiting, but usually only 2 or 3. Did I mention they screw ALL foreign carriers by making them wait till all Chinese aircraft takeoff first?

The airline I worked at had 35 aircraft at the time. They had just enough pilots and FA's to staff the planes. They had 3 schedulers for the crews. All the crew. We had 4 dispatchers. I don't know if we had more than 100-150 total employees for the rest of the airline. I don't know if we had a total of more than 30 total employees per aircraft. The vast majority of those are crew. UAL currently has about 115 employees per aircraft. I believe Southwest used to have about 40.

It was, by far, the leanest, smoothest, most reliable operation I have ever been involved with in aviation. I have never seen anything like it, before, or since. UAL, and US airports are 3rd world by comparison.

And, the medicals are insane. The air is dirty. You WILL see a woman holding her baby in her outstretched arms and watch him relieve himself. At the bottom of the air stairs. It definitely isn't perfect.

But they run an aviation system to the highest level I have ever seen, at least in some ways.
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