AFT
As a business traveller, long hours of travel, changes at multiple airports and shifting between time zones are part of routine. The complicated codes of aviation ‘language’ can puzzle even the most frequent of travellers. Here is a list of some aviation terms that may help simplify and demystify your next trip or help in conversation with fellow aviation geeks.
Bumped off
To be bumped off from a flight, is to be denied boarding on the plane, when you have a confirmed reservation. This often happens on overbooked flights to popular routes.
Codeshare
A codeshare is an agreement in which two or more airlines publish and market the same flight. A flight is operated by one airline while seats are sold for the flight by all cooperating airlines using their own designator and flight number.
Deadhead
Deadheading is the practice of flying an airlines’s own staff free of charge on a normal passenger trip so that they can be in the right place to begin their duties.
ETA
Estimated time of arrival is the time when the aircraft is expected to arrive at a certain place.
Flight Level
It is an aircraft’s altitude at standard air pressure expressed in hundreds of feet. For instance, the plane is 18,000 feet above sea-level, means flight level 180.
Gate checking
It is a practice that allows passengers to check-in their bags directly at the gate. It is mostly used on small planes when there isn’t enough space to take the cabin bags of all passengers.
Holding pattern
It is a pre-determined manoeuvre which keeps the aircraft within a specified airspace, while awaiting further clearance from air traffic control to land. It is a manoeuvre designed to delay an aircraft already in flight, when the destination airport is too congested.
Immigration
It is a place at an airport where government officials check the legal documents of people entering that country. The immigration officer typically checks your documents before you pass the security check at the arrival and departure sections.
Jump seat
It is a foldable seat for crew members. Plane crew sits on it near the emergency exits during take-off and landing.
Knots
It is a unit of speed used to state the speed of the aircraft. The ISO standard symbol for the knot is kn.
Legacy carrier
In the United States, a legacy carrier is an airline that had established interstate routes before the beginning of the route liberalisation permitted by the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 and so was directly affected by that Act.
Manufacturer
An aerospace manufacturer is a company or an individual that is involved in the various aspects of the manufacture of an airplane from designing, listing, selling to maintaining the aircraft.
Narrow-body
Aircraft that have a single aisle through the passenger cabin, which separates the seats on either side by one aisle. For example — Boeing 737 and Airbus 320.
Oversold
It is when popular flight routes are often overbooked and people are bumped up to a higher class or denied boarding.
Pushback
It is an airport procedure during which an aircraft is pushed backwards away from an airport gate by external power. Pushbacks are carried out by special low profile vehicles called pushback tractor or tugs. This usually done when a plane cannot move on its own power.
Quebec
It is used to say the letter Q in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Remote bay
It is an area in which passengers are escorted from the gate out on to the tarmac using a staircase to board or exit an airplane, rather than a jet bridge when an airplane is parked far away from the terminal building.
Standby
Flying standby (sometimes referred to as ‘same day flight changes’) means buying a cheap ticket for the next flight with empty seats.
Tarmac
Airport runways are referred to as tarmacs.
UM (unaccompanied minor)
This term refers to a child who is travelling alone without a parent, guardian or responsible adult. The ground and cabin crew are responsible for the UM.
V1 (take-off speed)
It is defined as the speed beyond which the take-off should no longer be aborted. If pilots experience any serious aircraft malfunction after V1, they have to continue or they could severely damage the plane.
Wide-body
A wide-body aircraft is a passenger airplane that can accommodate two passenger aisles. The seats are configured around two aisles. For example — Boeing 777 and Airbus 380.
X-ray
It is used to say the letter X in the NATO phonetic alphabet.
Y class
It refers to a full fare economy class ticket.
Zone-wise boarding
The aircraft is divided into various zones. The flight is boarded from back to front in a zone-wise fashion to avoid chaos in the aisle during boarding. Zone numbers are mentioned on the boarding cards.
Natasha Nitturkar
