American Airlines and JetBlue, JFK Visit

Checking out a B777.

JetBlue Ramp Tower.

Yesterday, I went on a field trip with the Airlines Management class from the hotel school to JFK in New York. It was definitely weird being so close to home (about 20 minutes away on a good day), but we spent all of our time at the airport, visiting American Airline's hangers and Terminal 8 and JetBlue's Terminal 5.

We left Cornell at 4 am, getting to Terminal 8 at around 9:30 am. We left there around 4:30 am to return around 9:30 pm.

I've seen things and been to places the general public will never get a chance to see and visit. I sat in the captain's seat on an AA Boeing 777 at the AA maintenance hanger. (They were changing out a windshield panel, and looking at the Japanese in the plane, our guess was it was a JFK to Tokyo plane.) I sat in first class on the same plane. I touched and walked under the belly of a few AA Boeing planes. I stood up close to a real-life jet engine. I sat in a "Even More Legroom" seat on a JetBlue A320. I got to visit the flight operations offices, crew lounges, and ramp towers of both AA and JetBlue. We met many interesting people, including pilots, flight attendants, and operations and tower control people. They answered a lot of our questions, which was really cool. Oh, and of course, we got a lot of free stuff.

All in all, it was an epic trip. Jealous much? :-)

Goodie bags.