Today was the last day of the internship introductions at the KLM, tomorrow I’ll start working. Monday and yesterday mainly consisted out of training courses, variating from apron safety to human factors. I also had to make two tests, to make sure I fully understanded the dangers at the airport. Both tests were passed succesfully.

The activities today were very impressive. At the beginning of the day we walked around at the platform, watching how the crew was handling the plane and its cargo. While travelling by plane it doesn’t look very big, but when I was standing next to the main landing gear of a Boeing 747-400 Combi, I thought: “This is immense!”. KLM uses the combi aircraft to transport both passengers and cargo from and to airports which are not profitable enough to send two different planes. At the moment we were walking around the platform, the crew was unloading the cargo part of the main deck. After they finished we all got onto the main deck loader, which lifted us easily to a height of 6 or 7 metres.

After we checked out the main deck of the aircraft, we went through the passenger cabin to the cockpit. It was impressive to see all those screens and switches, imagining that just two men control such a huge machine. We left the plane by the jetway and walked over the platform to some other aircraft, where our trainer explained about the procedures and systems.

Later at the office of our trainer, which is actually a turnaround coordinator, we got explanations about the computer systems to track the progress during an aircraft turnaround. In these three days of internship, I already learned more than during the two months of the previous internship.