Staging Allegiant Flight 425 Service to Las Vegas

Staging a flight is what the ground crew does right before the plane lands and taxis into a gate. It's setting up cones, driving out the tugs and the belt loaders to get them ready to work the incoming flight.

Tonight, I decided that I wanted to work one of our Charter flights that flies in twice a week with the ground crew outside as opposed to being the gate agent, who boards inside. I've never done this before. So 15 minuets before flight 424 lands, I ask Bob if I could tag along with him so he could show me the ropes. It went a little something like this...

"Hey Bob, do you mind if I follow you around for Allegiant?" -Me

"I don't care, I'm just gonna go get the carts, I'll be in the back in just a minute." -Bob

"Well, can I go with you?" -Me

"Oh yeah." -Bob

Here he kinda chuckles all the way to the bag room where we park the bag carts and opens the door for me.

So we're driving these carts over to an area where we keep the cones and parking chalks for Allegiants planes. He stops and reaches between my legs...

"lets me just go between your legs..." -Bob
He pulls the parking break, which is actually between my legs. The tugs are really small.

"Alright! So we need some of these. (cones)" -Bob

"How many?" -Me

"I don't know...4. And all of these. (chalks)" and he throws them in the back. "I suppose they're gonna want ice."

"Oh yeah. How many?" -Me

"I don't know...4." -Bob

Moments later we're back in the tugs and we're driving to gate 2.

"So how do you know where to put this stuff? (cones and chalks)" -Me

"Lets see... there's a drain around here somewhere... ah! There it is. Ok. There's the drain so lets put these... right.... here!" He just picks some random place. "Close enough. Now these other ones...." We're driving on the ramp to the opposite side of where we just placed the cones at this point. "go somewhere by a red line...hmmm.... wait... this isn't right."

"It looks really far away. Is this right? I think it should be closer to that line way over there." -Me

"Yeah, you're right! This other line threw me off." So we get a bit closer to said line. "Ok, I think these go... here!" He puts the chalks and cones down. He then looks over at the other set of cones and chalk that he originally put down. "Wow, those are way off." He gets back in the tug.

I laugh and ask, "is this gonna be ok?"

He answers, "I don't know... oh well." He drives to the front of the line and puts the last cone down off to the side. "We'll put this one right here."

I'm laughing, "Sure why not?"

So... the point is... it is never a dull moment if you're with Bob, the plane made it to Vegas and I still don't know how to stage an Allegiant flight. LOL. I guess you just had to be there.