Airlines, Airplanes, Airports

Welcome fellow travelers to Airlines, Airplanes, and Airports. This will be my final blog for the school year. So I am going to talk about two crazy trips. The first one was troubles with yours truly, American Airlines, and the second will be my trip this summer.

My first trip was with American Airlines, before Air Canada had direct service between SJO and YYZ. We had a planned a trip from SJO to MIA then onwards to YYZ. Our plane was delayed in SJO so we got to Miami late, even though the attendants said we had made up time in the air. BBBBulcrap. We got to Miami and they told us to run to the gate. Well, if George W. (W stand for: what the hell is this idiot doing in office) Bush did not take away transit, we would have not missed our plane. AA decided to send us to LGA to catch a plane to YYZ.  When we got to LGA our plane was broken so they had to send a new one. We finally made it to YYZ and midnight as opposed to 5 o’clock.

A Korean air 777 or 747 will take off with full throttle from SFO on its way to ICN and then on to PEK. This will be journey for the summer. I will have to fly from SJO to ATL and then to SFO with my dad. But on the way back I have to go from PEK to ICN, to LAX, to ATL, and finally back to SJO. Big trips for little people. It is going to be beautiful to see the new terminal 3 in PEK, they say it resembles a dragon.

So this is me, your author, who’s name I think you do not know leaving. I will be posting during my trips and during my train ride through Mongolia. Do not skip because thing will get better. Peace Out.

Please enjoy the following presentation.

When you take off or land you can always see numbers like 400 or 300 speeding by, or on your ticket it shows you are departing from SJO to YYZ. These signs that you see all over the terminals and airports can mean many things, some being important to you, other only being important with pilots.

Lets start with airport codes. When landing at an airport a pilot might say, “we have begun or decent into JFK.” Meaning that he is landing at Idle wild airport or in other terms, John F. Kennedy airport. When a pilot says he needs to stop for an emergency at LAX does not mean he needs laxative, it means that he is landing at Los Angeles Airports. You can usually guess what the three letter FAA code stand for, but sometimes, in the cases of Toronto (YYZ), O’Hare (ORD) which commemorates Orchard Field, or Osaka (KIX). Now at this point things have to get humorous, Sioux City asked the FAA to change their name from SUX to something not as dirty. Not like the Finns, the Syrians, and the Japanese mind. Helsinki’s international airport has he three letter code HEL. When landing in Damascus expect to see signs saying DAM all over the place. At Fukuoka, well you might have already guessed, FUK will be your destination. Most people or at least I would try to avoid flying from FUK-DAM-HEL.

When zooming down the runway you see those signs with numbers. You cannot help to wonder what it is. Theses signs represent how many meters are left on the runway for the plane to use. At JFK’s runway 13R-31L, do not be surprised to see the numbers 6000 and 5000 go by while you are still in the air. Other signs around the runways stand for the runway numbers and the signals needed for the control tower.

Special Thanks to Patrick Smith and Ask The Pilot.