A Typical Gate Call

While there is no such thing as a typical gate call I wanted to give you out there an idea of what can happen on a gate call. One of the things that I like about this job is that everyday is different. You may even get the same gripe from two different crews but the outcome will be different or the attitude of the crews will be different which in turn changes your results.

So here we go: Lets say we get a call for a broken coffee maker in the aft galley. Sounds innocent enough. So we go up when the plane arrives and wait until the passengers get off, run to the back and check out the coffee maker. Hopefully you can fix the coffee maker, if not you will have to call for a new one. In the mean time there is a crew change and the new First Officer has just finished his walk around and spotted some fuel leaking out of number 2 engine. Slam the coffee maker in and leak check, run down stairs to check the engine. Possibly open the fan cowl to see where the fuel is leaking from. Call for a hand to run the engine, go back upstairs and start up the APU while waiting for a fellow mechanic to help you run the engine. While the APU is starting run to the aft galley to make sure the coffee maker is still working ok. Once your helper arrives and you have clearance turn and burn #2 eng. If all works ok shut her down and close up the engine fan cowls. When you get up stairs to talk to the captain, you find out that a tray table is broken, or the #1 ADI is inop, or the crew asks for oil, etc. Finish up with that, hopefully the captain did not delay boarding, if so tell Ops that they can board, grab the logbook and sign off the coffee maker and fuel leak, tell the crew to have a great day, and book out of there.

Now obviously that is one of the more busy examples that I could have come up with. Most calls are quicker but believe me when I say that they can and often do go a lot worse than that. Add all those problems to the pressure that you get from Ops and the flight crew as well as Maintenance Control, if you get them involved, and your heart starts to race. Factor in that we typically have about 20 minutes to finish our work so that we do not take a delay and the day gets pretty busy.

All this goes toward my belief that working Line Maintenance is an art form that, when done correctly, is a beautiful thing to watch.