When a Plan Doesn’t Go As Planned

May 28, 2019
A little first hand experience provides plenty of appreciation for the job done by ground support staff.

Serving as editor of an aviation magazine comes with its fair share of air travel. And, as John Grant noted in this month’s Industry Expert Column, a lot of resources are required to get ground support equipment where it’s needed so airlines can pushback on time and airports can keep passenger traffic flowing.

But sometimes, things don’t go as planned. That’s the situation I found myself in last month as I prepared to visit our Lifetime Achievement award winner Dewey Kulzer outside of Dallas.

When you’re based in Wisconsin, you’ll occasionally find yourself blanketed in snow – even in April. When our latest snowstorm blew into the area, suddenly my direct flight from Milwaukee to Dallas was cancelled.

So instead of flying out the next morning, I quickly got rebooked and left for the airport immediately. The weather was affecting our departure, but an air start helped get the plane humming, we pushed back and deicers cleared the wings to send us on our way.

However, I didn’t make it far as much of the Midwest was impacted by the same weather system. So, the rebooking process began again, but this time in the terminal at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE) with frantic, stressed passengers around me.

But when you cover aviation – and ground support in particular – you get a different appreciation for the process. Airline agents worked with passengers to get rebooked on alternate flights and used radios to call down to baggage handlers to ensure luggage was being pulled from planes and routed to new connections or inside to the carousel.

The weather was out of our control, but the people working to remedy the situation were in top-notch form.

So, while my travel itinerary didn’t go as planned, I was thankful to get to Texas the next day and meet with Dewey Kulzer, as planned. His story was one worth hearing, and I hope you enjoyed reading it.