- A flight of plane requires a large organization and a multitude of interventions, whatever the distance traveled.
- On board and on the ground, the staff work at any time, and every detail counts.
- The 20h of TF1 invites you behind the scenes of an airline at Orly airport, all night.
Paris-Orly airport never sleeps. At 11:30 p.m., in a control center, a whole team is active. Behind his computer, Will Mestre, air operations technician at Transavia France, the Air France subsidiary, prepares the flight road for the next day: 80 planes and a hundred destinations between Europe and North Africa. “Our profession will consist in checking the weather on the road, at the start and on arrival. We try to avoid as much as possible, at the weather level, thunderstorms and turbulence,” he explains in the report of the 20h above.
Damail flights
The preparation and planning of flights are meticulous, to fly the planes to the maximum and therefore earn more money. “We have a fleet of Airbus, a fleet of Boeing and on each plane, we will have rotations. For example, this morning, an airplane will go back and forth in Tunis, in the afternoon, a round trip to Rabat and he will leave to sleep in Seville this evening,” said Mathias Stavroulis, operating manager at the microphone of TF1. Under these conditions, the slightest grain of sand can disturb everything. It is an hour and comes the first emergency of the evening: an armrest is broken in the cabin. “If the armrest is broken, the seat cannot be marketed, and therefore it can have an impact on the number of passengers that can be taken,” he says.
At 2 am, a technician is therefore sent on site. “It is a detail that can, over time, worsen and cause discomfort for customers,” says Gregory JEGARD, cabin controller. After having repaired the armrest and inspected the entire cabin, Grégory passes outside the plane: “I look at the oil level, if it is ok, it’s good”. It is also necessary to inspect the reactors, wheels and bowels of the aircraft: “There are no specific traces, nor flows, everything is good. Once you have finished the intervention and you have checked, you meal all the areas that are up to men and the commander, the next morning, when he goes around the plane to ensure that everything is fine will see that the pastiles are. secure “.
Take care of the smallest details
Two hours later, at 4 am, boarding has not yet opened, but the on -board staff are already meeting. “On each plane, we have small peculiarities, so we summarize them together to be ready and anticipate our mission. It can be security equipment that will change from one device to another, at the location, the type of fire extinguisher, we talk about it before leaving,” says Ophélie Lereverend, Cabin Chef.
The temperature, the filling rate, the route, everything is scrutinized. “Today, we looked at whether the weather was good or not and our goal, at the end, is to agree on a quantity of kerosene to take to ensure the safety of the flight,” explains Céline Rosier, a line pilot officer. Provide the necessary fuel is essential, especially if the plane has to make a detour and therefore fly longer. But you should not predict too much: the device would be heavier and would consume more.
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Inside the plane, the preparation is not over, this is the time of the latest checks: “We are waiting for the screens to light up, that everything heats up a little”. At 6:30 am, the flight is full with 180 passengers on board, head to Algiers. The plane can finally take off. During the day, he will make three other flights and start again the next day.
Marianne Leroux | Report: Keziah Cretin, Pierre Humez