Your Flight

The airlines and travel agencies were, in the beginning, linked by phone or special telex machines, but then along came the CRS – Computer Reservation Systems – such as Worldspan, Galileo, Amadeus and Sabre. These involved a central computer hub with live connections to the computer reservation system of each airline (and hotels, railway companies and car rental were also to be included, giving a one-stop travel shop). Yet these systems were only to be used by travel agents and millions of pounds, dollars and other currencies were pumped into them. But then along came the internet to change the world and travel agents have, for normal air travel, largely gone out of business. Making an on-line reservation is now (or should be) very simple. Everyone now has an e-ticket (little more than a receipt but with sufficient barcodes to get you through security check-ins and onto the plane). The "old-fashioned" tickets are no longer used anywhere in the world. Today the airlines each have their own on-line reservation system, through which you can also book hotels and car-rental at your destination.

And then comes the day of your flight. Getting to the airport may be quite straightforward if you live in an area served by good public transport – other people will have a more difficult journey, maybe involving driving and thus the expensive on-airport parking or an extra hour to locate and get from the off-airport parking to the check-in desk. Most airlines now ask you to check-in anything from three hours to an hour prior to the scheduled take-off time. This is to allow you to check in, get through security and to the gate in plenty of time.

At busy times at some airports the queues at check-in and security are so long that you need this time; yet on other days you will get through really quickly and have to spend two hours in the departure lounge (nowadays little more than a very expensive shopping mall – including highly overpriced food). Then you just wait for the boarding call when you make your way to the gate and get on the plane.

But in the meantime many more things are going on. The plane itself will be arriving from somewhere else. In some cases particularly on short-haul and budget flights the plane will only arrive about 30-40 minutes before your take-off time. On most long-haul flights it will have arrived maybe three or four hours previously. It has to be unloaded of its incoming passengers, baggage and freight, cleaned, refuelled and re-provisioned with food and drink. There might also be a small engineering problem to be taken care of.

At the check-in desk you may have had some baggage to go on the flight and this will be making its way to the plane (hopefully yours !). Baggage handling is very high-tech these days and involves a highly sophisticated handling system. At check-in a tag will be added to it which has a machine-readable bar-code (like items at the supermarket). That tag includes not only identification details for your particular bag but also information on its destination, including, sometimes, a bag transfer if your flight involves changing planes at some airport en route to your final destination. Once you wave goodbye to your bag it disappears below ground into a complex sorting system. The barcode is automatically read (and unlike the supermarket where the barcode must be facing upwards to the scanning device, most airline barcode readers have 18 different scanners so whether the bag is upside down, on its side, on its end or partly hidden by another bag, that barcode can still be read as it flashes past at about 20 mph, the speed of the subterranean baggage handling belts.

Just as with postal sorting offices, the bag is then dropped into a plastic bin on wheels and will whizz along until it reaches the gate at which your plane is waiting (or is expected to arrive), passing an X-ray facility on the way, as a security check. Some bags are pulled out at random for extra checks. When the bag arrives at the departure gate it might go into one of several piles – for a direct flight and manual loading (most short-haul flights), it will be put on a small truck, taken to the plane and loaded by hand: for a longer-haul flight it might be put into containers and these loaded directly into the plane; and if your flight involves a transfer the bags will be loaded separately. Some airlines try to please you by putting a "Priority" or "Rush" sticker or tag on your bag but these seem to make no difference as they all seem to come off the carousel at the same time at the destination airport.

Meanwhile the crew will have arrived at the airport (unless your flight is being operated by the incoming crew). For a crew operating from their base airport they too have to reach the airport and get through a security check-in (not as lengthy as yours) to the crew area. Pilot and co-pilot will meet to check the weather reports for their route and an alternate airport, file the flight plan (though this is normally done by the airline itself) and to prepare themselves for any eventuality. The cabin crew will meet and be told their specific duties for that day by the Flight Manager – a position that used to be called Chief Purser. With the larger planes the crew can be over 20-strong so this becomes a management job; with smaller short-haul flights there might be about five or six. Some flights are made with just one cabin crew member (apart from the flight deck). The cabin crew are normally on-board the aircraft 30 minutes prior to take-off, though longer on long-haul flights. Pilot and co-pilot would like to have 45 minutes on board prior to departure to deal with the mass of paperwork and other pre-flight formalities.

And at the same time the baggage is being loaded, fuel pumped into the plane's fuel tanks, catering services, freight and anything else loaded. There is, in charge of every flight whilst it is on the ground, a "Despatcher" whose job it is to ensure that everything (including passengers) is on board on time so that the plane can depart on schedule. Co-ordinating all the various activities to make sure this happens is quite a challenge. Imagine that, at a busy airport you have 40 flights departing within a one-hour time-span.

You have to ensure that your particular aircraft is refuelled on time, the baggage loaders are there at the correct time, the catering arrives on time, the push-back truck is ordered for the exact period you need it (taking into account any delays for any reason), and any freight is ready to load at precisely the right time. And that freight has to be loaded in such a way that the plane is balanced – too much in the rear and it will tip over. And 39 other Despatchers with their planes are all doing the same !

Finally though, you board the plane and find your seat. The pilot will be on the radio asking the control tower for permission to push-back and start engines in preparation for taxiing out to the runway. Despite what many people think the departure time is "door-close" time, not the actual take-off. At some airports the two are close together but at somewhere like Heathrow or JFK the door-close time could be up to 30 minutes before the plane leaves the runway. But the doors close, the plane is pushed back, engines start up and the crew go through the safety features.

Prior to the flight the Captain and co-pilot will have calculated their take-off speed, taking into account the weather, the weight of the airplane and a few other factors. They will also have decided who is "pilot in charge" for that flight. Normally the Captain will fly the first leg (say, London to Barcelona) and the co-pilot will fly the plane back. The other is always assisting, reading off the check-lists, communicating with air traffic control and generally assisting. This is all part of the pre-flight planning they do before boarding the aircraft. On reaching the end of the taxi-way (and by which time the flaps and slats on the wings have been set to take-off mode) the pilot will be given permission to turn onto the runway and take off.

The Captain has asked for permission to push back and taxi, and will be directed to the take-off runway in use. There is a start-up check-list the pilots need to go through before they start engines. Runways are marked according to their directional heading. For example a runway heading due west (270°) is designated "27" – the final zero is left off. Where there are two runways side by side they will be designated "27 L" (left) and "27 R" (right). All flights also have "slots" which enable them not only to take off but also to pass through the airspace on a specific route within a definite time-span. Just as with a railway where you cannot have two trains converging onto one track at the same time, so you can't have two planes vying for the same space – one of the trains would have to stop at a red signal whilst the other passes: difficult for planes !

At this point, after a series of last-minute checks by the pilot and co-pilot (one reads the list, the other checks each item) the throttle levers will be pushed forward to almost full throttle (though they keep maybe 8% in reserve rather than going flat-out), the pilot in charge will have the controls whilst the co-pilot reads off the speed as they accelerate.

Take-off speed varies according to the plane, the weather and the altitude of the airport. An airport at higher altitude (Madrid, for example which is almost a mile high) or in hotter weather will demand higher take-off speeds than one at sea-level in cold weather. As the plane races along the runway the pilots need to reach V1, the speed at which they must make the decision to go ahead or abort the take-off. An abort would only happen if the plane had travelled too far down the runway, was not accelerating properly or for any other major reason. After V1 is passed the next critical speed is Vr, which is when the plane is "rotated", the nose being angled up by 10-20° by pulling back on the control column, altering the angle of the elevators on the rear "wing" and allowing the airflow over the wings to lift the plane.

The plane's angle of climb is carefully controlled, the undercarriage is retracted and, once a certain speed is reached, the flaps are retracted to "clean up" the plane. All the time the co-pilot is speaking to and receiving instructions from ATC, telling them to turn left or right, climb, level out or whatever to ensure safety in the relatively crowded skies close to major airports. An average take-off speed for a Boeing 737 is about 150 mph; a heavier plane like a Boeing 747 closer to 180 mph. Concorde used to need to reach about 240 mph before becoming airborne.

Once safely into the flight, normally once 10,000 feet has been reached, the seat-belt sign will be switched off any any on-board services commenced, including meal service (especially on a long haul flight though meals have been removed from most short haul flights these days, sadly, to be replaced by re-heated "snacks" that taste of nothing healthy.

If you're lucky or rich enough to be "up-front" you might get a decent meal – in "cattle class" you'll probably wish you brought your own! It's obviously more important to get things moving on a short flight than on one that is going to take eight hours. The pilots are continually talking to ATC above the various places they pass along the route (see our section on Air Traffic Control) and you are, hopefully, enjoying the flight.

Closer to the destination airport the cabin crew will come round and clean up the cabin in preparation for landing. The pilots would have received permission to descend and will be informed which runway to use for landing, together with weather conditions on arrival (wind strength, cloud cover, temperature and so on). The plane descends, flaps are extended to give more low-speed stability and control, as well as to increase the "drag" of the plane, slowing it down, undercarriage will be lowered and locked into position and the plane "locked" on to the glide path towards the runway. Planes are also "trimmed" before landing by an adjustment of the elevators at the rear of the plane. This angles the nose upwards, allowing the plane to maintain better stability and also to land on its main undercarriage first, rather then the nose-wheel.

On light aircraft the plane is slowed down until a few feet off the runway at which point it is deliberately "stalled" (not the engine cutting out – see our section on Learning to Fly). With a big jet the plane is flown onto the runway, often making for a slightly harder landing but a safer one – for a far more in-depth look at how a big jet is landed got our special feature "Landing a Big Jet".

The plane is flown above stall speed so that it is still at airborne speed as it touches down. Once the undercarriage has hit the runway the pilot will raise the "spoilers" on the wings, which both slows the aircraft and upsets the air flow over the wings, stopping the plane becoming airborne again. Reverse thrust is often used to slow the plane (though not on all aircraft – the BaE 146, in particular, has no thrust reversers; nor do two of the four jets on the A380 Superjumbo) and brakes are used, though sparingly as these heat up very rapidly. Most braking is automatically pre-programmed according to the airport and conditions. Then the pilot turns the plane off the runway and follows the control tower's instructions to the arrival gate. There, an arrivals marshaller will be waving what looks like two red table-tennis bats (or illuminated wands at night), getting the pilot to line up the nose-wheel with the markings on the ground and to stop in exactly the correct place so that the air bridge can be moved into position, enabling passengers to disembark. The bags are off-loaded as is any freight, the passengers pass through arrivals (maybe Immigration and Customs) and move on to collect the baggage from the carousels. Then the whole process starts all over again. In fact it already has, as the next batch of passengers probably checked in a few hours ago.