your travel spirit guide

Plane spotting

I’m off to London for the week again and thinking about all the people involved in getting a plane off the ground.  It’s really staggering.  Like the credits of a Disney-Pixar movie, I feel that the list would go over forever. 

Going off of the incredible statistics found for Heathrow in this article, it truly takes a village to get a single plane off the ground; now imagine multiplying that by the 1,400 flights a day that take off from Heathrow. 

This is especially fascinating (from the above article):

“A total of 27,260 separate items have to be stocked on to a Boeing 747-400 before it departs on a long-haul flight.  With space at such a premium careful calculations are made to ensure sufficient quantities for 377 passengers are carried without waste and to keep down fuel costs.  The items loaded include no more than 233 toothpicks, 58 loo rolls, 2,000 ice cubes (five per passenger), 1,263 items of cutlery, 340 safety cards, 1,291 items of crockery, 650 paper cups, 337 blankets, five first aid kits, 220 drinks stirrers, 735 glasses, 99 full bottles and 326 quarter bottles of wine, 435 sickness bags (1.15 per passenger) and 164 bags of nuts in Club World.” 

And that’s just stocking the plane.  Think about the ground crew, fueling, cleaning, directing, etc.  the list goes on. 

Although I get very frustrated when my flight gets delayed, it’s honestly shocking more delays don’t happen with so many humans working on a single goal.  Considering this, it’s truly a miracle the plane gets off the ground at all-even slightly on time. 

So-here’s to everyone who has helped get any of my planes off the ground.  From the gate agent to the mechanic to the janitor to the baggage handler- thank you all for so many safe flights.  I’ll try and keep my cool a bit more with my next delay.