HOW TO SPEAK AIRLINE: A GLOSSARY FOR TRAVELERS
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 subject to 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 the baffled flyer I’ve compiled a glossary. Not every word or phrase is included — some, as you’ll see, are presented tongue-in-cheek — but I’ve focused on those most easily misunderstood, or not understood at all. (Note: Many entries are covered elsewhere on this site as part of larger discussions.)
• CROSSCHECK “Flight attendants, doors to arrival and crosscheck.”
This one goes first because I’m been asked about it more often than any other word or phrase. “Crosscheck” is a generic term used by pilots and flight attendants meaning that one person has verified the action of another. It’s common, for instance, during the read/response choreography of the cockpit checklist. In the cabin, it pertains to the verifying the arming or disarming function of the emergency escape slides that are attached to the doors. When armed, a slide will automatically deploy the instant its door is opened. Disarmed, it needs to be deployed manually. After leaving the gate, the slides have to be armed in case of an emergency evacuation; upon docking, they’re disarmed to keep them from billowing into the boarding tunnel, or onto the apron, when the doors are opened for servicing or DEPLANING. The flight attendants crosscheck one another’s stations to make sure everything is in the right position. The exact phraseology varies airline to airline. Some don’t use “crosscheck” at all, but say only, “doors to arrival/departure,” or, “arm doors,” or, “doors to automatic,” or something to that effect. (Note: contrary to what many people think, these announcements are made exclusively for and by the flight attendants, not the pilots.)
• ALL-CALL “Flight attendants, doors to arrival all-call.”
“All call” is another variation on the doors procedures, above. Each cabin crewmember reports to the lead flight attendant or purser that the doors and slides are properly set.
• LAST MINUTE PAPERWORK “Good morning from the flight deck. We’re just finishing up some last minute paperwork and should be underway shortly…”
Everything is buttoned up and the flight is ready for pushback. Then comes the wait for “some last minute paperwork,” which winds up taking half an hour. Usually it’s something to do with the weight-and-balance record. Or, it might be a revision to the takeoff performance data. Or, it could mean waiting for the maintenance guys to deal with a write-up and get the logbook in order. Whatever is going on, the pilots aren’t trying to fool you. They don’t know exactly how long these things are going to take. It should be quick, but it’s pretty much out of their hands.
• FLIGHT DECK
Meaning: the cockpit.
• FIRST OFFICER (also, COPILOT)
Second in command on the flight deck. He (or she) sits on the right and wears three stripes. The first officer 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.
• CAPTAIN
The pilot in command, ultimately responsible for the aircraft and everybody in it. He (or she) is one with four stripes and the larger paycheck. (Unless it’s a regional airline, where he’s the one with four stripes and a slightly smaller food stamps allocation.)
• ATC “Unfortunately, ATC has assigned us a holding pattern for at least the next 45 minutes.”
Meaning: air traffic control — a collective term for the many personnel who guide, supervise, and coordinate the movement of aircraft. These aren’t just the people you see in movies hunched over radar screens; ATC has many responsibilities, and the controllers themselves are in many different locations, some of them nowhere near the airport. They function separately as “clearance delivery,” “ground control,” “TOWER” “approach control,” “departure control,” “center,” and assorted others. A given flight contacts each of these in sequence. Air-to-ground communication is normally via two-way radio, but satellite and other computerized link-ups are increasingly common, especially for flights across the oceanic and on trans-polar routes.
• TOWER (or, CONTROL TOWER)
The control tower oversees only takeoffs and landings — i.e. traffic on the runways, or in the immediate vicinity of the airport. Attempting to keep things simple, airline staff often use the word interchangeably — and wrongly, most of the time — as a general reference to ATC. The tower itself does not assign or coordinate delays.
• HOLDING PATTERN
A racetrack shaped course flown by aircraft during weather or traffic delays. Most holds are flown “as published” on aeronautical charts, but can be improvised almost anywhere.
• EFC TIME “We’ve been given us an EFC time for 30 after the hour.”
There’s no reason passengers have to hear this, but pilots tend to forget that most of their customers aren’t fluent in ATC argot. The expect further clearance (EFC) time, is the point at which a crew expects to be released from a holding pattern. Any time ATC assigns airborne holding, it assigns an EFC time in conjunction. It might be amended (most are), but an initial time is always given. It helps with fuel planning, and is needed in the event of a communication failure.
• KNOTS “The winds at St. Louis are from the southeast at eight knots.”
Used both at sea and in the air, a knot is nothing more than a mile per hour. Eight knots means eight miles per hour. Except they are nautical miles, not statute miles. The nautical kind are slightly longer, at 6,082 feet versus the statute mile’s 5,280. Thus, eight knots in an airplane is slightly faster than eight miles per hour in a car. To be precise, multiply by 1.15. (Incidentally, the homonymic between knot and nautical is, well, not the right idea. The original definition of knot goes back to when lengths of knotted rope were tossed from a ship to figure distances.)
• FLIGHT LEVEL “We’ve now reached our cruising altitude of flight level three-three-zero. I’ll go ahead and turn off the seatbelt sign…”
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.
• AREA OF WEATHER “This is the captain speaking. Due to an area of weather over New Jersey, we’ll be turning southbound toward Philadelphia…”
Different from the generic “weather,” this typically means a thunderstorm or zone of heavy precipitation.
• AIR POCKET
“Air pocket” has no precise meteorological meaning, other than a transient jolt of turbulence. (Turbulence itself is self-explanatory, but see chapter two FAQ for an in-depth discussion.)
• WAKE TURBULENCE
If you can picture the cleaved roil of water that trails behind a boat or ship, you’ve got the right idea. With aircraft, wake effect is exacerbated by a pair of vortices that spin from the wingtips. Higher pressure air beneath the tip is drawn toward the lower pressure air on top, resulting in a circular flow that trails behind the aircraft like a pronged pair of horizontal tornadoes. Encounter with wingtip vortices can be uncomfortable, but are only dangerous in extreme cases. (See chapter two FAQ for greater details.)
• WINDSHEAR
A sudden change in the velocity and/or direction of the wind. Windshear is one of those buzzwords that scares the crap out of people, but in fact it’s very common and rarely hazardous. Thanks to better training and equipment, there hasn’t been a major windshear accident in the United States in over two decades. (More info is available in chapter two.)
• APPROACH (or INITIAL APPROACH) “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve begun our initial approach into Frankfurt…”
When invoked by the cabin crew, “approach” is nothing more than a way of referring to the descent for landing. “Initial approach” is merely the early part of it. To pilots “initial approach” is meaningless, but “approach” in general is often more specific, referring to a published procedure known as an INSTRUMENT APPROACH.
• INSTRUMENT APPROACH
There are several kinds, but basically an instrument approach is a charted series of altitudes, headings, and speeds that an aircraft follows toward the runway, using or ground-based radio facilities (or, more and more commonly, GPS signals) for precise low-altitude guidance. By far the most widely used instrument approach is the ILS (instrument landing system), whereby a planes tracks a pair of electronic beams — one vertical, the other horizontal — down to the runway threshold. Instrument approaches are invaluable during low visibility, but are assigned even in good weather to better organize the flow of traffic.
• VISUAL APPROACH
If the weather is above certain parameters of ceiling and visibility, crews are frequently assigned visual approaches, exempt from the step-by-step protocols and course-tracking instrument approach. Ordinarily, ATC will guide and sequence traffic until relatively close to the airport, but as the name suggests, final maneuvering to land takes place based on what the pilot sees outside. Some visual approaches, including several into LaGuardia and Washington-National, are more regimented. They need to be flown exactly as depicted on charts, referencing landmarks on the ground. Next time you’re landing at LGA, should you find yourself barreling in over Queens, tracking the Long Island Expressway, followed by a sharp left turn directly above Shea Stadium, that’s the “Expressway Visual” to runway 31.
• FINAL APPROACH “Ladies and gentlemen, we are now on our final approach into Miami.”
As pilots see it, an airplane is on final approach when it has reached the last, straight-in segment of the landing pattern. Aligned with the extended centerline of the runway, there are no more turns or maneuvering. Flight attendants speak of final approach on their own, more general terms, in reference to the latter portion of the descent.
• CLEARED TO LAND “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been cleared to land. Please stow your carry-ons and return all seat backs to their full, upright and locked position.”
Upon receipt of this ATC directive, a plane is allowed to continue its approach and touch down without further instruction or clearance. It can come seconds before touchdown, or many miles out, depending on circumstances. Typically it’s received at or around the time you hear the landing gear clunking into place. The cleared to land announcement made by flight attendants, quoted above, is almost always bogus. In reality, the cabin crew hasn’t the slightest idea when the flight has been cleared to land. I don’t know how or why this habit got started, but it never fails to irk me. The announcement often comes in conjunction with the approach “dings” from the flight deck. These mean the equivalent of “prepare for landing.” Actual landing clearance is, almost always, several minutes away.
• DING
Different dings mean different dings — er, things — varying airline to airline. And no, there isn’t any we-are-now-about-to-crash signal. The chimes heard after takeoff, and again prior to landing, are normally made when passing 10,000 feet, below which attitude the flight attendants are not supposed to contact the cockpit unless for a reason pertaining to safety. Once the dings are acknowledged, they are free to call up and complain about the temperature.
• 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.”
Another example of fatty verbiage that serves no purpose other than to bore passengers. Meaning: tampering with.
• GO-AROUND (also, MISSED APPROACH)
Now and then, for any of various reasons, spacing between airplanes falls below the minimums and a plane must abandon its approach, or “go around.” A variant of the go-around, spoken of somewhat interchangeably, is the “missed approach,” whereby a plane pulls off the same maneuver for weather-related reasons. (If, in the course of an instrument approach, visibility drops below a prescribed value, or the plane has not made visual contact with the runway upon reaching the minimum allowable altitude, the crew must climb away.) Having to go around does not, except in highly extraordinary circumstances, imply that you were close to hitting another aircraft. The limits are set for that reason — to keep you away from any jeopardizing encroachment. And although the abrupt transition from descent to ascent is dramatic to the senses, it is perfectly natural for an airplane. (Go-Arounds are covered at length in chapter two.)
• AT THIS TIME “At this time, we ask that you please put away all electronic devices and place all cellular phones in the off position.”
Meaning: now, or presently. This is air travel’s signature euphemism.
• THE OFF POSITION
Meaning: off
• DEPLANE “Please remember to take all of your belongings before deplaning.”
“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, ever, fearing a chain-reaction of abominable copycats. Imagine ”decar” for getting out of your car, or “debed” for waking up. In fact, Dictionary.com dates “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.
• DO “We do appreciate you choosing United.” Or, “We do remind you that smoking is not permitted.”
Meaning: none. This bizarre emphatic has no grammatical justification. What’s wrong with, “Thank you for choosing United” or “Smoking is not allowed”? Is this how people imagine that airline employees talk to one another? “I do love you, Steve, “but I cannot marry you at this time.”
• DEADHEAD
You’ll frequently see uniformed crewmembers riding in the cabin, repositioning to pick up a flight or traveling back to their base. In airline-speak, they are “deadheading.” This travel is part of the crew’s assigned rotation, and he or she is on the clock for purposes of pay and duty time limitation. Deadheading is not the same as commuting to or from work on your own time i.e. a pilot who lives in one city, but is based in another), or when engaged in personal travel. The latter is called “non-revving,” from the term “non revenue passenger.”
• EQUIPMENT “Due to an equipment change, our departure for Heathrow is now delayed three hours.”
Meaning: an airplane. There’s something strange about a collective refusal to call the focal object of the entire airline industry by its real name. Doing so adheres to one of the central canons of airlinese: puff up an ordinary noun to make it formal and important.
• DIRECT FLIGHT
Most passengers make the mistake of equating direct with NONSTOP. Technically, a direct flight is a routing along which the flight number does not change; it has nothing to do with whether or not the plane stops. Occasionally, a direct flight even requires a change of planes. Most airline staff are smart enough to realize that if a passenger is asking whether or not a flight is “direct,” he or she is actually asking whether or not it stops. But beware of the fine print when booking.
• NONSTOP
That’s the one that doesn’t stop.
• GATEHOUSE “If there is a passenger Patrick Smith in the gatehouse, would you please approach the podium?”
An idiosyncratic way of saying “the gate area,” a.k.a. the 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.”
This one, on the other hand, has no charm. It means to board. Except, to board first.
• FINAL AND IMMEDIATE BOARDING CALL
A fancy, if grammatically over-the-top way of telling slow-moving passengers to get their ass in gear. They seem to think this provides more urgency than just a “final call” or “last call.”
• GROUND STOP “Sorry folks, but we’ve just gotten word of a ground stop on all flights to Newark….”
When the air traffic backlog becomes heavy enough, it can affect even those flights still taxiing or yet to leave the gate. Ground stops, as the name implies, preclude taking off toward a particular airport or region.
• WHEELS UP TIME “…. ATC has given us a wheels-up time of 12:30. Until then, sit tight and we’ll keep you advised of any changes.”
Sometimes referred to as a “slot time,” this is the time, assigned by ATC and very much subject to change, that a ground-stopped flight will be accepted into the airspace system. It’s not a leave-the-gate time, but rather an actual lift-off time, so boarding and push-back have to be planned accordingly. Missing your slot can entail being dropped to the bottom of the queue.
• IN RANGE “The flight has called in range, and we expect to begin boarding in approximately 40 minutes.
This is a common GATEHOUSE announcement during delays, when the outbound aircraft that hasn’t yet landed. Somewhere around the start of descent, the pilots will send an electronic “in range” message to system control, to let everybody know they’ll be arriving shortly. How shortly is tough to tell, as the message is normally sent prior to any low altitude maneuvering and sequencing, and assumes no inbound taxi congestion. What they’re giving you is a best-case time for boarding. As a rule of thumb, add a bare minimum of fifteen minutes.
• RAMP “We’re sorry, but your suitcase was crushed by a 747 out on the ramp.”
“Ramp” refers to the aircraft and equipment movement areas closest to the terminal — the aircraft parking zones and surrounds. In the early days of aviation, many aircraft were seaplanes or floatplanes. A plane was either in the water or it was “on the ramp.” So, a ramp is a parking place for planes that aren’t in the water. Today, that’s just about all of them.
• APRON
See RAMP, above, with a slight and not altogether explicable caveat: while a ramp is always an apron, an apron isn’t always a ramp. Both are large expanses of TARMAC, but the latter isn’t necessarily a parking area. Confused? Me too.
• TARMAC
Wikipedia tells us the word is 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 Jam song “That’s Entertainment!”) Like many words, it has outgrown its specificity. There are linguistic traditionalists who are bothered by this. I am not one of them.
I digress, but “Tarmac” is also the title of an extremely famous poem I wrote some years ago. I’m unsure why I chose to title it such, though it might have something to do with the opening, which is set at London’s Heathrow airport. It goes like this:
TARMAC
At the far end of Heathrow is the row of hangars
where they load up the cargo planes. You walk
across the asphalt, and hide from the rain
under the wing of a 747, silver and red.
Below the windscreen is the emblem of a woman,
a Union Jack trailing from her hand. Through the mist
are the lights of Terminal Four, where you can walk
from airplane to hotel, without even stepping outside.
You remember a thirty-dollar breakfast in there, the pilgrims
headed to Mecca, one morning in the spring of ‘92.
Now a British Airways jet roars past, The engines rev,
your adrenaline surges, then it’s gone in a blast of heat,
a vortex of fog trailing from each wingtip. Up on the fin
is a crest, and if you bother to read small print it says:
“To Fly, To Serve.” A noble enough ambition, you think.
Seven hours away, the twin blue towers
of the Whitestone Bridge, camouflaged against a noontime sky.
Sitting at the gate, it strikes you, like a New York fist in the nose,
that your very first trip to Manahattan, was seven years ago
this very afternoon, and how you were no less excited
than Neil Armstrong must have been,
skipping across the surface of the moon.
That strangely warm day — men and women in shorts
in Gramercy Park, old snow melting in the gutter. What
do they mean anymore, these fragments of city and memory?
The cab driver who knew the capital of every country on earth.
The taste of lemon on your girlfriend’s breath. None of it
the romantic gray Gotham of the movies, and today the fifty people
on the two o’clock shuttle aren’t burdened by history,
yours or theirs. The order of the day, in this so different life,
is only to get home. Outside, seagulls circle like buzzards.
Gleaming yellow taxis slam shut their doors.
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author’s featured photo
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