The Department, My Office, My Job

My Job and the Office I Work

I should probably tell you a little about what I do.

I am an Air Services Rep in ATO. ATO stands for Antarctic Terminal Operations. It blankets:

My box for my belongings at my desk. Since we share our desks, we put our stuff away so as not to clutter the desk for the next person.

Cargo: Freight, baggage and supplies on, off and within the continent

 Science Cargo: Specializes in delicate handling and deliveries of scientist’s data, experiments and specimens.

Shuttles: Taxi service around town, transportation of personnel and air crew to and from the air fields, pick up and drop-off service for bag drags.

Loadplanner Molly: She calls me Tricianopa because when we were introduces, she thought I said my name was PAtricia. I corrected her by saying it's "Tricia -no PA"

Loadplanners: Cargo and freight designers. They piece together all types of freight (baggage, fuel, freshies, food, supplies, and equipment, hazardous, and mail) on pallets so that they fit on the different air transports under stringent guidelines depending on the where, on what and how the plane will be flying.

Cargo Loaders: Build the different pallets the loadplanners request. It’s Tetris on steroids. The loadplanners tell them what and they put it together. They also load  and unload all the planes from everywhere.

Field Camp Planners: They supervise what is needed in remote camps and schedules supplies and people to get there.

Making the flight board for the next day's flights. Flight#, Tail #, Route, Departure times, Arrival Times, # of Crew, Passengers (PAX) in and out, Transport time Pax to plane.

Air Services: Schedules air transportation for personnel on, off and within the continent. Coordinates for shuttles who to pick up when and sends out aircraft movement notices, manifests, and other important communications involving pax and aircraft, controls the flight board of arrivals and departures electronically and white board and updates all information as it changes. Essentially maintaining accurate files for every flight with every passenger and all cargo electronically and a paper trail folder.

I love my job and the people I work with. They are a tight knit group who like to have fun. I feel blessed to be a part of it.



Christen at our desk. I'm at the other computer. Jamie and I share the right, while Talia and Christen share the left- on opposite shifts.