Originally Posted by Joe Airman
Those metal objects which, if hit, will conduct the electricity directly into the ground a million times more efficiently than a tree on a golf course, and not to the guy with the sticks wearing rubber boots and plastic rain gear.
The guy waving the sticks has to be the most useless part of bringing a plane to the gate. I bet the pilots could do that in their sleep.
To bad that trivial job is what keeps planes from landing and pulling up to the jetway.
When are they gonna replace that with some lighted arrow indicators operated by someone INSIDE the gate area where they're protected?
Sorry to burst your bubble, Joe, but most gates at YYZ are already equipped with visual guidance systems, and those "sticks" are used far less frequently at YYZ than in years past. However, even those systems need to have an operator on the ground to depress a "deadman" switch in order to function. Should the aircraft come into contact with a piece of ground equipment, that person would have some 'splaining to do.
In a nutshell, there is no practical way to maneuver a multi-million dollar aircraft onto a gate without having humans on the ground. Until that changes, you are going to have problems during red alerts. Like everything else in business, it comes down to money, and the fact of the matter is, injuries and aircraft accidents are expensive.