Ever thought about the effort it takes to get a plane off the ground?

Every traveller arrives at the airport waiting patiently for their boarding call, and sometimes getting annoyed when it’s delayed. But have you ever stopped to wonder what happens after you drop your bags off and before you board the plane?

From a passenger’s point of view, we check in, watch our bags disappear down a conveyor belt labelled for our destination, clear security, and wait. Simple, right?

But who is actually involved in getting your bags, you, and the crew onto the aircraft and ready for departure?

Let’s talk about the “turn.” In airport terms, a turn is the management of an inbound flight and how it is turned around to become an outbound one.

Before an aircraft even lands, it’s allocated a gate. The pilots liaise with ground staff to flag any issues on board that may need assistance - perhaps a wheelchair, an emergency, or just a routine arrival.

The first people you usually see on landing are the baggage handlers. They marshal the aircraft onto the gate, make it safe by plugging in power, setting up tarmac guidance, and attaching stairs for regional flights. They unload the baggage and coordinate the cleaning of the aircraft - including emptying the toilets!(Yes, there really is a toilet truck that attaches to the rear of the plane, just in case you were wondering.)

Next, you’ll see a customer service agent meeting passengers off the aircraft. Sometimes they operate the air bridge for jets; other times they guide passengers safely across the tarmac and into the terminal.

Depending on the schedule, the cabin crew may stay with the aircraft or swap to another one. An average turn time for a jet is around 40 minutes - and when you consider that boarding usually starts about 20 minutes before departure, there’s very little time to get passengers off, clean the aircraft, and board everyone again.

And that’s just the visible part.

Behind the scenes are the customer service agents who checked you in, verified your passport, and labelled your bags - and the baggage handlers ensuring those bags make it into the correct container for your flight.

There’s also an entire team coordinating aircraft and crew movements. Sometimes crew overnight away from home; other times, planners ensure they return to their home base. These teams manage duty hours, rest breaks, and legal flying limits to keep everyone safe and compliant.

To keep the airport running smoothly, ground operations teams calculate how much fuel needs to be loaded - factoring in passenger numbers, baggage weight, cargo, and contingency fuel in case of diversions, missed landings, or in-flight issues. They also ensure catering, cargo, bags, and passengers are all loaded on time to meet the scheduled departure.

And let’s not forget the engineers, who are on standby at all hours. They fix everything from a broken seatbelt buckle or blocked toilet to faulty air conditioning, in-flight entertainment issues, hydraulics, or tyre pressure problems. You name it - they deal with it.

So while you’ve checked in, passed through security (we’ll save how airports operate for another time), and found a bar for a glass of wine or a coffee, an entire team has been working quietly to make your on-time departure happen.

Yes, we see the baggage handlers, the customer service agents, the cabin crew, and sometimes the pilots - but the true unsung heroes are the hundreds of people behind the scenes, working together for every single flight, for every airline, worldwide.