Passenger Plane. No Luggage.

A friend was telling me of a prior job he had. We’ll call him Garrod. He once had employment as a luggage slinger. He worked at an airport slinging it into departing aircraft and out of arriving. He shared with me an amusing anecdote.


Early 1990s

He was a luggage handler at the local airport. He wore blue jeans, an orange t-shirt, bright yellow vest, clear goggles, and ear plugs to protect his fragile ear innards from the jet engine noise. He drove one of those cool looking open-air carts across the tarmac.

On his last day of work, it was not scheduled to be his last, he was driving his cart fully loaded with luggage for two separate flights. The two planes had a scheduled takeoff 20 minutes apart, but the first wasn’t yet ready for luggage boarding as it was still unloading from the prior leg of its tour. No problem, this is fairly common. Proceeding to plane number two he commenced tossing the bags into the plane. Having completed the loading of the one airplane, he turned back to hit the other.

Returning to where the first plane had been he encountered empty tarmac. Reviewing the work order he saw that he was in the correct space. Something was amiss.

He asked a colleague of the plane’s whereabouts and was answered with an audible-free upraised pointed blue-gloved hand at an airplane quickly moving down the runway. The plane took off, the gloved hand returned to its resting position, colleague went back to his own task. The plane was now in its rapid ascent.

Feeling an inward crumpling sensation he hit the accelerator and drove the cart back to the loading station.

“Hey,” said his supervisor, “you’ve still got bags in that cart, toss those things into the appropriate bird.”

“That’s why I came back,” he responded. “The plane took off. That one wasn’t ready so I loaded the second plane first. I had enough time, I thought. I’m really sorry about this.”

“Sorry? There’s really a plane up there with no luggage? Oh boy, I bet they’ll be surprised at their fuel efficiency without luggage weight,” sounding pleased.

“Look, I’ll just go home,” my friend not wanting to be chewed out.

“What do you mean you’re going home,” supervisor confused.

“I screwed up . . . badly. I don’t want to cause any trouble for you. You don’t have to fire me, I’ll just quit,” he said modestly.

“Fire you? Don’t be a dolt. We’re union,” encouraged the supervisor.

“Thanks for the support, but I really think I’m done,” now walking away thinking of what line of work to engage next.


Luckily for me we ended up at the same place of work. You’re a treasure, Garrod.
-klem