I was a new station attendant, also known as a “rookie” or “FNG,” at Toronto ramp. As I was straight out of training and had no bid, I was on relief status, which allowed me to learn all the different aspects of ground handling. One day, I found out I would be working with the infamous Roy Westwood and his crew. While I didn’t have any issues with Roy personally, I had heard that he had a tendency to do things his own way.
On this particular day, we had an arrival at the gate and Roy parked the plane. I started to chalk the wheels of the aircraft, as I had been trained to do, but then Roy approached me and began yelling at the top of his lungs, telling me that only he was allowed to chalk and remove the chalks on the aircraft. I was a bit surprised by his outburst, but I didn’t let it get to me.
As we offloaded the plane and prepared for the outbound flight, I started thinking about how I could get back at Roy for his behavior. When no one was looking, I rammed the chalks with another chalk so hard under the wheels that it would be impossible to remove them. As we loaded the plane for departure and were ready to go, Roy went to remove the chalks and couldn’t do it. He was sweating and turning red in the face, and it was funny to see the steam blowing out of his ears.
Despite the chalks being there, Roy decided to push the plane back anyway. He spoke with the pilot on his communication headset, telling him that we were ready for pushback. I was wondering how we could push back with the chalks still there, but Roy, being the way he was, just pushed the plane over the chalks, knocking over the flight attendants in the process. It was a true story that I would never forget.
