Originally Posted by fkatzRTW

Well I just thought I would give everyone a little recap of the event.

It was a great time, the staff at GSO were fabulous, there were a few people from corporate attending but it was mostly local staff doing most of the talking and tour leading.

Real quick, I asked what the criteria for an invite was, and was told it was a mix of UA Premier Members with a slant to high spend flyers but they were also looking to include a large range for future events. A second note, they are finding people based on their "Home Airport" field on the MileagePlus profile. So it is important to have that field on your profile completed. They are also only contacting people via email so you need to check your email.

Now for the event, they had a welcome packet waiting for everyone. The packet included a temporary airport badge, orange vest, ear plugs and a few other nick knacks. We met the site manager and most of his local staff on duty throughout the day. There were 16 ppl and they split us up into two groups out 8.

My group started out at the checkin counter where I actually checked a few people in, "SHARES" is not a very intuitive system. Printed some boarding passes and tagged some bags. We then worked our way down to the bag area, got a behind the scenes peak, etc.

After the bag area we got a quick tour of the operations center, UA staff went through all their maintenance routines and planning activities etc.

The final stop was the tarmac where we spent about two hours. Now GSO is a pretty light load for UA on a Saturday morning, just two flights arriving and departing from 9 to 11. We helped the ground crew and turned both plans around in less then 24 minute requirement.

This was by far the best part, we wing walked both planes into the gate, helped unload the gate checked and checked bags, operated the jetway, checked out the refueling process, got a chance to climb into the cargo hold, and the best part, I saw on the push vehicle when we pushed from the gate. I didn't get a chance to drive put did sound power head phones with the pilots on push back, went through the entire routine with them.

All in all it was a great chance to get a behind the scene peak. The women from corporate who is organizing these events said they are going to be doing a lot more of these all around the country. They will most likely take place on weekends since most of people she has reached out to for invites have been unavailable during the week. I hope everyone else gets an invite sometime in the future.