The "chili pepper" knows everything.
We spent yesterday morning on the ramp outside the C2 gate at McCarran International Airport in the company of Rico Villalobos, ramp supervisor and 20-year veteran of Southwest Airlines ground handling operations.
Villalobos, stout as a pushback, explained the printout he handed us that listed the morning's work. Toward the middle of the page was an icon that looked more like a chili pepper than the clipboard it was meant to be.
"Everyone also calls it a chili pepper because it's 'hot,' " he explains. "Click on the icon and you can see how much luggage, for example, you can expect. Or, maybe, there's some freight to consider."
And while Southwest is not considered to run a hub-and-spoke operation, Rico says in Las Vegas you wouldn't know that.
"Sure, plenty of passengers are certainly coming to Las Vegas, but a lot of passengers are also transferring here to other destinations," he adds.
The chili pepper tells the supervisor, for example, what to expect in the belly. That way, the right number of baggage carts are ready to greet the plane and quickly handle the local bags and the transfer bags. The biggest cause for a delay in ground operations is simply not having the right number of carts ready to go.
"If we have two carts and then realize we need six, well, then we have to figure out where those empty carts are going to come from," Rico says. "And, then, it's just a domino effect. That one mishap delays not only one plane, but backs up onto every other arrival. The difference between two and six is huge."
When Rico was a rookie baggage handler, Southwest had three gates and 40 daily flights at LAS. Twenty years later, Southwest has 20 gates and flies more than 220 daily flights to the airport. His ramp agents typically do six turns in an 8.5-hour shift.
With its liberal policy of "Bags Fly Free," that means considerable more planning for ground handling, particularly at such a popular destination as Las Vegas. Rico mentioned it's plain to see the difference as a result of Southwest's acquisition of AirTran. Ground handlers can expect to handle twice the baggage on a Southwest flight than a typical AirTran flight.
Obviously, there's much more to the job than baggage handling – although we did get to witness a box of 250 tarantulas waiting to be loaded on the outbound flight.
We'll have considerable more to say on our visit – and a different way to tell it. We filmed our visit and will present a "Day In The Life ... " in an upcoming webcast. We'll keep you posted.
In the meantime, we're in Las Vegas for the Cygnus Aviation Expo, which officially opens tomorrow. We'll also be filming our editorial booth visits so let us know what you have to see. We'll certainly also see everyone at the Networking Event.
