from a anonymous writer:
I used to work at Kansas City International Airport. These are my stories and stories I’ve heard. Ramp agents basically do all ground services for the planes. In my case the only thing we didn’t do is fueling. This is a long post my stories are at the end.
When you first start you have to be escorted everywhere until you get a badge. You can only escort a max of 2 people. The guys next to us had 7 people working for a 3 man job with only one person with a badge. I’m surprised they never got caught cause TSA does random badge checks down the airport.
United was the source of a lot of horror stories. One time they managed to back their plane into a delta plane costing millions of dollars and two planes full of pissed off people. Also, somehow they managed to get an entire crew of people using fake names. While they were in the middle of a turn, they had the FBI come and take their entire crew away. I have no clue how they handled that one.
One of our jobs was pumping all of the shit out of the lavs. It just so happens that the lav port on the planes we saw the most were not top notch. You have to triple check every time to make sure the hose is on correctly. One of our guys failed to secure it and took a shit shower. He almost got in trouble for running across the ramp stripping all of his cloths off where everyone inside could see. When we stole the contract from that group of 7 we kept one person and he was some ex-army dickhead. You know that blue stuff in the toilets? We fill that while dumping the shit and Mr Armydick didn’t clamp that hose down turning him into a member of the blue man group. His face was stained blue for three days.
The wind at 4 in the morning in a flat area is freezing during the winter. I would move just outside the blast zone of the engines when they were on for warmth.
Now my turn. I have two stories that I was directly involved in. Both involve pushing back the plane.
When you push back a plane you have two people behind the plane watching the sides and back and stopping traffic. The left engine gets turned on before you even leave the gate. One time with the plane half way out of the envelope a truck decided he didn’t want to wait and drove behind the plane forcing me to slam the brakes, rocking the entire fucking plane. Before I can get shit from the captain I tell him some idiot decided to drive behind him and he was damn near speechless and told me to continue the push.
Another time I forgot to put the pin in the tow bar that connects the tractor to the plane. I got all the way through the push without the bar falling off until it was time to stop. I hit the brakes and the plane kept rolling. I panicked and couldnt get the words out to tell the captain to brake. The plane stopped on it’s own and started rolling back towards me. He noticed the moment I finally said it and braked just before we made contact. The plane was delayed four hours because that airline pulled all of its mechanics and we had to wait for someone who was authorized to look at it for five seconds and say “yup, your good”.
Side note: The wind at 4 in the morning in a flat area is freezing during the winter. I would move just outside the blast zone of the engines when they were on for warmth. Dangerous, but feels amazing.
