Not all Airline Tragedies Occur in the Air

“6.30 on the 24th should be fine, I’ll check with my wife and KK later”, I saw myself typing in the e-mail, already abbreviated by bad text habits.

KK………that’s airline speak for “will confirm”

My ex-airline colleague, Mike, replied saying he’d be “AVA” (available) on that day and should have an ETA (estimated time of arrival) at my place around 1830 hrs (6.30ish)…..maybe ARNK. (arrival unknown)

As many of you would know, the world is full of us non-flying airline tragics, often one time employees of airlines who persist in speaking in an indecipherable string of abbreviations and although many tragics have moved on to other careers, at least in body, their spiritual vernacular remains in the past, in a world of two or three letter abbreviations.

Airline people (and more tragically past-airline people) revel in speaking in code. They shoot messages and talk to each other in an over-shortened dialogue, which means nothing to anyone who’s not “in the club”.

PAX MOLONEY FLT QF462 ABX/MEL 24J ETD 1455   REQ FR Y AND LSML DALPOS TKU.

Translated, that would have meant “Passenger Moloney, who is travelling on Qantas flight 462 from Albury to Melbourne which leaves at five to three, requests a seat in the first row of economy, although his seat has been pre-allocated as 24J. Please feed him a low salt meal and do all possible to make him comfortable. Thank you very much”

The spooky thing about this message is that the recipient- the check in person at Albury Airport, (ABX for Albury-what’s that about?) would know exactly what the cryptic message meant and could follow the instructions to the letter, or number.

In addition, the same agent would be able to look into my PNR (passenger name record) and check all my other details too- like my FFQ status (frequent flyer), TTL (ticket time limit) and whether they had LMTC (left a message to call me)

Airline tragics insist on extending the language beyond operational requirements and talk in abbreviations in everyday life, for example…….they don’t go to Hong Kong for holidays, they go to HKG on rec (recreation) leave and of course they fly on QF or CX not Qantas or Cathay and they stay at  HTLs (hotels) like the Shang (Shangri La Hotel) or the Pen (Peninsula Hotel) if the rate was good enough and they’d try and UG (upgrade) to J (business class) from Y (economy) if they could, so long as their YPs (young passengers) weren’t travelling with them.

Lunchtime conversations between the tragics in the staff canteen are very short, with two or three alphabets worth of discussion and they’re done.

Tragics love to reminisce in code too.

We bang on about the good old, pre-security days of working in places like Essendon Airport, taking lunch time walks around the tarmac under the wings of DC9s and B727s, dodging UCPLs (Universal Cargo Pallet Loaders) and other tarmac vehicles.

On one of these reconnaissance meanderings in the company of a couple of other card-carrying tragics, the idiocy of the language became evident.

We were proud abbreviators and knew how to cut down every word. We knew every city and airline code and each acronym, real or imagined and we’d strut around authoritatively, out-abbreviating each other and making up new and obscure additions to our language.

If a new abbreviation came into the conversation we’d nod approvingly and defer to a colleague with a more sophisticated command of the truncated language.

The Airline Operations Manager, an arch dyed-in-the-avgas tragic, held court on these walks with his coded knowledge.  We’d point and poke at aircraft  (we never referred to them as planes and the very serious tragic would refer to them as “metal”) picking out their features like the RR (Rolls Royce) or P&W (Pratt and Whitney) engines and comment the activity of the LAMES (Licenced Aircraft Maintenance Engineers) working on A/F (airframe) issues.

We would always have pleasant, predictable but focussed conversations, including, “The paintwork on that 727’s BRT looks odd”, he’d say with conviction.

We’d all nod knowingly, each of us clueless as to what a BRT was but equally not prepared to admit our ignorance, continuing talking in monosyllabic abbreviations and initials until the agony of not knowing a new abbreviation was too much to bear.

“What’s a BRT?” I had to ask, exposing my lack of knowledge.

“The Big Round Thing with blades hanging from the wing,” he said pointing to the massive engine.

I felt like an apprentice on his first day on the job, being sent to the supply store for striped paint or a left-handed screwdriver.

My embarrassment rendered me totally U/S (now there’s conjecture here as to the various interpretations of U/S. Some say it means unserviceable, as in an aircraft, but others say it means unsuccessful……….I prefer the interpretation from Loretta, the supervisor of the airport’s canteen, when she would stick a piece of paper over the coin slot of the Coke machine with the letters U/S written on it, she truly thought she was letting us all know the machine was “up the s**t”)

Too right!

A comment and report by Kevin Moloney, international travel writer and TravelMole contributor.