Folks,
atldlff, Canarsie, WesNSpace and atl runner (yours truly) just finished up a fantastic day of dry-running the
Walk a Mile in a Gate Agent's Shoes event. It was an incredible experience and we will be writing about it on the blog for the event that
Canarsie created.
In general, you would not believe all of the things that a Gate Agent has to keep track of--not just processing seat requests, upgrades, standby pax, etc. They have folks from other flights coming up and asking questions, need to make sure that things like security sweeps, cleaning crews and caterers are there and doing their jobs, checking in and communicating with the onboard crew, etc.
And if the boarding door is not closed exactly two minutes before the scheduled departure time, they get "written up" and have to file all sorts of paperwork. Any delay has to get assigned to someone or something (the caterers, the gate agent, the onboard crew, the baggage handlers, an unruly pax
, weather, etc--or combination thereof) so it gives you a great appreciation of the stress they are under to get the plane closed out on time. As we all know, if the flights start running late, the snowball effect will only make things worse as the day goes on.
The gate agent job is multi-tasking to an unbelievable level--not sure how they do it. But, they do, and our hosts couldn't have been more gracious.
Anyway, more in the blog over the next few days, but those of you doing this event are in for a real treat.