Cockpit Confidential (43 page)

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 must plan to be at or near the runway as close to this time as possible.

Example:
“Due to an area of weather over New Jersey, we'll be turning southbound toward Philadelphia…”

Meaning: Typically, thunderstorms or a zone of heavy precipitation.

Meaning: Colloquial for a transient jolt of turbulence (
see turbulence
).

Example:
“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.

Meaning: upright.

Example:
“Federal law prohibits tampering with, disabling, or destroying a lavatory smoke detector.”

Meaning: tampering with.

Meaning: off.

Example:
“Please remember to take all of your belongings before deplaning.”

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 available, and it's rather clumsy.

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 (
see commuting
) or engaging in personal travel.

Example:
“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 real name?)

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.

Meaning: That's the one that doesn't stop.

Example:
“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.

Example:
“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.

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.”

Example:
“The flight has called in range, and we expect to begin boarding in approximately forty 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.

Example:
“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 “on the ramp.”

Example:
“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.

Meaning: Similar to ramp, this is basically any expanse of tarmac that is not a runway or taxiway—areas where planes park or are otherwise serviced.

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.

Example:
“At this time, we ask that you please put away all electronic devices.”

Meaning: now, or presently. This is air travel's signature euphemism.

Example:
“We do appreciate you choosing American.” Or, “We do remind you that smoking is not permitted.”

Meaning: An irritating emphatic, otherwise with no grammatical justification. What's wrong with “Thank you for choosing American” or “Smoking is not permitted”? People wonder if this is how airline employees talk to one another. “I do love you, Steve, but I cannot marry you at this time.”

 

Patrick Smith is an airline pilot and the host of
www.askthepilot.com
. For ten years, he was the author of
Salon.com's
popular Ask the Pilot air travel series, from which portions of this book are taken. He has appeared on more than two hundred radio and television outlets, and his work is cited regularly in print publications worldwide.

Patrick took his first flying lesson at age fourteen. His first job with an airline came in 1990, when he was hired as a copilot on fifteen-passenger turboprops, earning $850 a month. He has since flown cargo and passenger jets on both domestic and intercontinental routes.

The author's self-published punk rock fanzines and poetry journals of the 1980s and '90s are considered among the more curious works of literature ever produced by a native of Revere, Massachusetts.

Patrick travels extensively in his spare time and has visited more than seventy countries. He lives near Boston.