Behind the secured doors at Dallas Fort Worth Airport are underground facilities that cater to the American Airlines employees. In each terminal, these facilities include Pilot and Crew Lounges that provide meeting rooms, computer access, rest areas, and just plain relaxation for the employees.
This is Part 2 of my four part trip report:
Part 2 – Crew Lounges and the Underground Bagroom
Part 3 – On the tarmac experience and the C.R Smith Museum
Some American Airline employees must clock in and out for work using a Bio Metric Time Clock machine.
We went into the American Airlines Crew Operations Office which handles paperwork and office duties for the pilots. Notice the $5.00 charge for whining.
We went into one of the conference rooms to hear from Captain John Conrad regarding new technologies such as Apple’s iPad that support in-flight duties. The iPad held by Captain John Conrad actually replaced the bulkiness of multiple heavy books which is pictured in the middle of the conference table.
Afterwards, we went to the nearby Crew Lounge which is a place for flight attendants to relax. It’s basically their Admiral’s Club to get away from the hectic terminal.
The flight attendants have access to a business center where they can make phone calls, fax, and go on the computers to check their e-mails.
You can also find a plethora of help including agents that are on hand to help flight attendants with any issues. There is also a box where you can drop off flight attendant reports.
Next up, we went to the Bagroom of Terminal D which is also known as the International Terminal. It says that hearing protection is required in the Bagroom, but it wasn’t necessary for us.
As you can see, there are many vehicles that are transporting bags to their right destination.
When a bag gets scanned at the airport counter, they go through the underground network of the baggage conveyor belt. The bags are constantly scanned automatically by a computer system and are routed to the right terminal just like a mail sorting facility at a post office.
When there is trouble with a bag, such as a bad barcode or a ripped tag that can’t be read, it goes into a special bag room where it needs to be manually scanned and re-routed to its correct destination.
As you can see, it’s a slow day for this gentleman who propped up his feet waiting for a troubled bag.
