Recently was in the Atlanta airport and I’m wondering…
Where do you guys even park ?
How long is your commute?
Do you need to go through security every time?
How early do you need get there?
Recently was in the Atlanta airport and I’m wondering…
Where do you guys even park ?
How long is your commute?
Do you need to go through security every time?
How early do you need get there?
Comments
I have no idea how it works at the Atlanta airport, but an airfield like Schiphol airport (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) is a travel hub with their own trainstation and public transport system with the whole region.
Companies that have their offices on the airfield have their own “businesspark” and parking facilities.
People commute between 20-90 minutes to get to their work, some might even arrive by plane.
I see pilots and other plane staff on the local trams and trains fairly frequently.
I worked at sky harbor in Phoenix for 5 years. I parked in one of the terminal lots but you get a parking badge so you don’t have to pay. You do need to go through security every time like a regular passenger. Depending where you park you probably need to be there 20-30 minutes before shift start
The Airport train. I’m pretty sure there’s a discount for airport employees. Lots drive, there’s staff parking.
Im in Charlotte, and i drive an airport shuttle on the weekends. About 90% of our business is Pilots, Flight Crews and other airport employees. We offer better service than the busses that go to the free employee lots. We are also safer.
Lots of employees use the employee lots though, our lot Costa about 90 a month to park at, so I fully understand the people that stay in the free lots
I pull up to a security gate scan my pass and then enter. Once I’m in if I’m responding to an emergency I can go anywhere no questions asked, anything else I go through screening just like a passenger but I’m allowed to carry tools of the trade.
My friend, you used to work on groud crew at Gatwick cleaning the planes on turn around. He used to get free parking in staff and crew carpark. He had to go through security both in and out. But he also used to get waved through a lot if it was busy. He said that he used to find all sorts on the planes. Anything from headphones to ipads and on occasions, even drugs. He said the most he ever found was a oz of weed. Most stuff you hand in to security, no point in risking your job over tech stuff that can be tracked. He said some stuff used to keep. If someone has chickened out of taking something through customs.
I worked in an airport bar. Park in an employee lot, take a shuttle to the front, to through security in the express line, and walk to the bar inside the gate.
All of this took maybe an additional 20 minutes more than the 25 min commute to the airport itself.
If we’re talking a really big airport like Atlanta, I imagine it’s another 30 min minimum on even the best day.
Seems to me that they have to have a nasty streak to them to begin with.
I sold hotdogs at BWI post 9/11. There is a light rail from the city to the airport.
When I worked at a different airport, we had to park at a remote lot and wait for a shuttle. I had to arrive at least 30 mins before my shift in order to clock in on time. Yes we had to go through security like everyone else but we got to skip ahead. I worked for the gift shops and yes we had to unload the entire cart of stock into the X-ray. Sometimes I had a full pallet including cases of water, it ALL had to be X-ray’ed. I was pretty buff working there lifting all that constantly over and over again.
Husband is a pilot and has a designated lot for his airline. Pilots get paid when the plane is plane-ing and not going through the airport or waiting for us to board etc. It is interesting to me as a non-airline employee to learn!
I worked at an airport and my job required me to be behind security some but not all of the time. There were small employee lots scattered all over campus and you could park there as long as you had an employee placard in your dashboard (or sometimes you scanned your badge to get in). A lot of people took the airport shuttle in from bigger lots further from the terminals also.
Everyone passed a background check to work there in the first place and there were a number of employee-only checkpoints (often near normal security) where you would badge in, scan your fingerprint, and then enter a PIN. Often there were security people there checking your badges at the same time.
Employee parking lot. Most where I was then required a “shuttle bus” ride to the main terminal. Back in the day, some would stop at the ticket counter punch in, then swipe their badges at the tunnels and bypass TSA. I don’t believe that “tunnel” is still a thing today and may have only been a thing where I was. So everyone goes through employee security TSA lanes, then possibly shuttles / trams to wherever terminal they work in drops their stuff in the area lockers likely where the time clock is.
On a bad day, it could easily take you 30 mins to get from the employee lot to say a gate you were working.
Depending on their SIDA badge authorization, some may be able to get to the tarmac after TSA and snag a tug. That’s only going to work for an airline employee who’s authorized to drive. If you work at a news stand your SIDA badge won’t let you out those doors, and you can’t just snag any tug, it has to be your airlines etc. You might save yourself 10 mins. If they are smart they team up with the opposite supervisor, and the night guy leaves the tug at the doors for the AM guy, and the AM guy sends a dude to pick up the PM supervisor when they get in.
Some people have special access to certain areas without having to go thru security every time.
When I worked for airport engineering, I had access to about 80% of the airport. I could go pretty much anywhere except the TSA rooms, control tower, and a few other places.
I did have to go through some extra training and background checks. But it made my life so much easier when I could get off the bus and walk straight through the airport basement to get wherever I was going.
I always part at “the parking spot” in Atlanta, which is offsite and takes you, by shuttle, to the airport. There are always employees on the shuttle…idk if they get dropped off there or park or whatever. I’m sure they have some kind of deal or something.
I worked in an airport restaurant.
For us, we either parked in the employee lot or would take our parking stubs to get validated during our break.
We had to go through security to get to our jobs. If we had to go out for any reason (dumping trash, running stuff to pre-secure areas, we had to go through security again.
The only exception was the opening crew. Our security check point didn’t open until 4am, but we had to start the food and opening procedures at 2am. So, opening crew would go in a back entrance with a manager that had clearance. Then, when the TSA check opened, we leave the secure area and go through the security check.
Twas a pain in the ass.
Denver built the A line light rail essentially just for employees. The fact that regular air travelers use it only helps offset its enormous cost.
My brother works as a ground service engineer. There’s an employee parking lot out of sight from the general passengers, 5 minutes walk away from the terminal. To even get there you have to show your employee badge.
For my brother he spends most of his time on the land side, but occasionally would have to go air side. He skips immigration by going through the crew gate with his employee pass, then goes through the crew lane at security. It takes 10 minutes or less going in and out while regular passengers would take 30 min or more.
Depends on the airport and the job. Most airports will have some sort of designated employee lot or give employees access to one or more of the on-site lots. If the airport is accessible by public transit, that is also an option.
Commute times vary, but I knew people who were driving more than an hour each way while I was like 10 minutes away (Or like 5 minutes if I took the train).
Employees may or may not be required to go through the security checkpoint every time, and the specific layout is going to vary – some airports will designate a lane for employee screening, others will just throw them in with the passengers, and some will have a designated employee checkpoint.
How early you need to be there depends on how parking is set up, whether or not you need to go through checkpoint screening, and where your work site is in the airport.
Also, when does your job start? Does it start only when you are on the airplane?
Do you mean specifically for the airport or airline
Talked to a FA once who was based out of Denver but lived in Tucson. For her shifts, she would park and go through security in Tucson, fly to Denver and then walk from one gate to another to start her shift.
Worked airside at ZRH for 2 years, I took the tram there – when I drove I parked like you would, I just had a parking card. Yes, I had to go through security every time, sometimes multiple times a day, but we have our own entrance
I got to work about 15m earlier than I needed to be there 🙂
Worked as an airline ground agent at Dulles (IAD) in college. There’s an employee parking lot about a mile away, next to all the rental car lots, with a shuttle back and forth to the main terminal.
As for security, you do have to go through security to get past the departure terminal, but theres an airport employees only security checkpoint that you have to badge into with expedited screening that usually only takes a minute to get through; airplane staff, like the air crew, would also go through this checkpoint. Just like passengers, you have to go through security anytime you need to cross between the unrestricted access area and the gates, so I would go through security at least once or twice a day. Airport employees have to go through a DHS federal background check in order to get badge access.
I actually kind of miss that job. Pay was shit but you got a lot of exercise running around the airport all day and it was nice to be able to reset at the end of everyday, with a clear disconnect between work and life.
I worked at Atlantic City international. There was an employee lot and a shuttle as far as I remember. And Atlanta international is fucking bonkers compared to most airports lol
IAH airport in Houston has their own employee parking lot and employee shuttle busses.