Aviation Terminology M-Z

In order to make this list as exhaustive as possible, I decided to split the article in two parts, so that you can actually take in all the information. 🧠 So let's move on from letter M!

MILE HIGH CLUB is a slang term for people who have had sex during a flight. As simple and straight as that. Mile alludes to the frequent flyers program, high refers to the altitude of air traveling and club to the rarity and exclusivity of the act itself. Once upon a time it was kind of a must, today it is more difficult to perform since Cabin Crew are patroling the whole aircraft at all times, lavatories included. If you decide to be brave, be also prepared to meet the police at the arrival!

MINIMUM CREW is the minimum mandatory number of crew on board the aircraft. Every aircraft type has a different requirement of Crew according to the number of the doors on board and general rule is 1 door=1 Crew.

MINIMUM REST is minimum legal time for rest in between the flights that has to be granted to the Crew. It is important to know the regulations of your company in order to alert the Crew Control about the possible discrepancies. Legalities depend also on flight time departure/arrival (morning-day-night flight) and the length of the flight itself. In between the turnaround and medium haul flights minimum rest is around 12h. In between the ultra long haul flights there must be a minimum break of 48h. But again, every company has their own rules about this (even though they should follow Civil Aviation Authority) and the above mentioned numbers are already over-stretched to maximize the Crew productivity. In other words, the good old times of a week long layovers are gone. 😭

NO-SHOW is when the Crew doesn't show up for work. It might be lateness or sickness, or any other unpredicted event, but the result is the same: they will get off-loaded from that flight and another Crew will be assigned to replace the missing Crew.

OFF day is a day when the Crew is free of work and it cannot be called for duty.

OFFLOAD is when the Crew or a passengers gets removed from a flight. It can be for sickness, lateness, rudeness or any kind of disruption to the standard operating procedures.

ON DUTY is quite intuitive: Crew on work, flying, operating a flight.

OPERATE is a synonym of working, flying. It is used to differentiate when the Crew is deadheading or staff traveling, so still on board, but not working, off duty.

OTP on time performance or punctuality

PAX short for passengers

PED stands for Personal Electronic Devices

PILOT IN COMMAND is the one flying the aircraft on a specific flight. On the commercial airlines there is usually a minimum of 2 pilots on board (Captain and First Officer) and they take turns in flying, but never during the flight itself. Rather it will be that CP is flying on the first sector and the FO on the return sector, or the other way round.

PURSER is head of Flight Attendants, the supervisor on board. In chain of command it is the first point of reference for the Crew, after the Flight Deck obviously (CP and FO).

PUSHBACK is the first movement of the aircraft on ground and it is a car that is dragging (pushing or pulling) the aircraft from the parking position to the runway.

RED EYE flight is a night flight. Quite intuitive: on a night shift your eyes will get red. I had a looooooot of those and there is some appeal to it: they are silent and generally quite smooth, simply because pax are sleeping! No shouting and complaining and requesting and all that chaos happening during the day. But when you work all night long and hit the bed at 8am in the morning, you're most likely to lose the whole day sleeping and wake up just for dinner. Then your eyes might get an additional shade of red. 👀

REFUELING is simply loading gasoline into the aircraft tanks.

REJECTED LANDING/TAKE OFF  or ABORTED landing/take off is when for some reason it is not safe to land/take off, so the pilots decide to abort it. If it's rejected landing, than they will do a GO AROUND and make a second attempt. After that diversion is possible. If it's rejected take-off, pilots will abruptly stop the aircraft until it is safe to do so.

RETURN TO FIELD is an emergency situation that occurred after the take-off, so it is advised to return to base for safety reasons.

REST day is a day free of duty dedicated to rest after a long duty time such as ULH flight.

ROUTE is the path selected to reach certain destination. Many factors will be taken into consideration when deciding the route, such as weather conditions, jet streams, vicinity to land and closed airspace.

ROSTER is the flying schedule and it usually comes out once a month. So that is the furthest a flight attendant can plan their personal life accordingly.

RUNWAY is that strip of land where aircrafts take off and land. Not all the runways in the world can take all the aircraft types. It depends on the position, length and material it is made of.

SEATS FOR DEPARTURE/ARRIVAL is a command given by the Pilots to the Cabin Crew before take-off/landing and it means that the aircraft is about to take-off/land, therefor even the Crew must be seated.

SECTOR/LEG is a flight from A to B. One flight = one sector.

SENIORITY on board is quite important because it will set immediately who is the leader and who needs to listen. It might not be so relevant in a normal situation, but it will be in emergency.

SERVICE FLOW is different for every single airline. They will decide, based on the length and timing of the flight as well as the destination and passenger profile how often and what will they be serving during the whole flight. Example: for flights going to or from India there are likely to be many Asian Vegetarian or Hindu meals requests, on Italian flights pasta, Korean flights congee, Chinese flights noodles, generally Asian flights rice and noodles. Got the idea?

SFS Senior Flight Supervisor is the second in command in the cabin, after the Purser.

SH/MH/LH/ULH short (up to 3h) - medium (up to 7h) - long (up to 10h) - ultralong (more than 10h) HAUL flights. So yes, it is about the length of the flight.

SLIDE RAFT is that device attached to the aircraft door that inflates in case of emergency. You will use it to quickly slide out of the aircraft on ground or in case of ditching it will be used as a floating raft/boat in the water.

SOP standard operating procedures. When these are followed, everything runs smoothly.

SPECIAL MEALS are Cabin Crew nightmare 😅 Just kidding, but when the number starts being significantly high it does cause some disruption, both to the length of service and to the patience of both pax and Crew. Oh I almost forgot... I'm talking about those pre-booked meals for special needs like gluten free, diabetic, non-lactose, child meal (these are never to high in number) and all kind of vegetarian, kosheer, raw, jain, blain etc.

STATION INFORMATION is the relevant information that Crew need to be informed about before going for a certain flight regarding the destination where they will be flying to.

STD is simply scheduled time of departure.

SUITCASE is the big Crew baggage that goes in cargo. You will wonder why the heck do they need a big suitcase for a 24h layover right?! First of all, the small trolley is most likely full with items that are mandatory to carry for work: manuals, spare uniform items, shoe polish, beauty case, thermos or a favorite mug, on board shoes for the ladies. But the suitcase is vital if you intend to go for shopping like all the Crew usually do, weather its fashion shopping in Italy, France, Spain or USA, cosmetics in Korea, fruits in Asia or grocery all around the world. Do you want gifts and souvenirs from your flight attendant friend or family member? It takes space.

STANDBY duty is a reserve duty when the crew needs to be ready in a short amount of time on call. It is like a lottery and you are most likely to get a shxxxy flight that someone called sick for. But sometimes you might get lucky and be sent to a tropical island. So you better pack everything in your suitcase: from winter clothes to the bikini! There is home and airport standby. During the first one you can sleep, watch movies or read, do whatever you like in the comfort of your home, as long as you answer that call (from Crew Control!). Airport standby is usually shorter and you go to the airport in uniform ready for duty and wait in the Crew lounge for a call. If you didn't get any call during the standby hours, the rest of the day is free!

TAXI is that on ground movement of the aircraft when it is positioning on the runway for take-off or exiting the runway to reach the parking position. No taxis involved! But you still need to REMAIN SEATED please.

TOC/TOD top of climb and top of descent is when the cruise starts/ends. It means that the aircraft finished climbing to reach the cruise altitude or is starting the descent for landing.

TRASH COMPACTOR is that device that smashes all the trash to make it compact and reduce size. Otherwise where are we gonna put all the rubbish collected after the services?

TROLLEY is the small carry-on bag taken on board.

TURBULENCE is the unsteady movement of the air that causes the aircraft to shake. It can be predicted and unpredicted. Pilots will tailor the route to avoid it as much as possible, so if you happen to have a severe turbulence, that was most likely unpredicted, meaning the instruments weren't able to detect and forecast it. Severe means that if you're not fastened, you are going to literally fly and hit the ceiling. That is why it is a good common use to keep your seatbelt fastened whenever you're seated and above the blanket, so that Crew won't disturb you if you are sleeping.

TURNAROUND is a ultra-short, short or medium haul flight when you will be coming back to base the same day. No layovers or fancy hotels, just a short stay on ground to allow to the cleaners to reset the aircraft, catering to load the food for the return sector and Crew to do the security search.

UM unaccompanied minor is a child under 18 who is traveling alone. Ground staff will hand the UM along with the documents to the Purser who will do the same reverse at the reached destination.

UTC Universal Time Coordinated or GMT Greenwich Mean Time is internationally adopted as time of reference in aviation. It is referred to solar time at the Greenwich meridian. It is vital in the communication between the pilots and control towers in order to avoid misunderstandings.
If Greenwich is 0, western European countries have gmt +1 in wintertime and gmt+2 in summertime. Some middle eastern countries don't change time through the year, so Dubai is always gmt +4. New York being behind the Greenwich meridian, is gmt -4 in summertime and gmt -5 in wintertime. Got it?

WHEELCHAIR and the Jetbridge Jesus: a funny closure to our journey through aviation terminology. What am I talking about? Specifically about those cases of people needing a wheelchair and highloader service to get on board, but at the end of the flight miraculously can walk, or better run and be the first ones out of the aircarft! How is that possible? Obviously it's a miracle, they have been touched by Jesus...but some haters would say they only requested the wheelchair service to skip the lines on the gates and airport controls and get that extra legroom seat. Who to believe?!

Dear readers, if you have any further questions or need more clarification about the aviation terminology, don't hesitate to contact me!