Goodwill students' minds soar on Tulsa airport tour

 5/8/2014

The TSA agent held a pink metal box with a rounded top over her head.

photos by Modisane Kwanza Goodwill Tulsa Work Adjustment Training instructors and students take a tour of Tulsa International Airport on April 16, 2014.

The heavy-looking item, about the size of a paperback, glistened as she moved it around, waiting for the intensely focused Work Adjustment Training students to identify it. They gasped when the agent flicked it open, realizing it was a jumbo lighter. Was it something that should be let through the security checkpoint and allowed on a plane, the TSA agent asked?

“Noooo!” the students replied in unison.

That was one of several insights into airport operations that the group gained during its recent half-day tour of Tulsa International Airport. Goodwill’s Work Adjustment Training program uses job shadowing and trips to business sites to give participants practical, real-life opportunities to apply what they learn in class. As they passed through each station on the tour, the students experienced the airport as a traveler and an employee.

Students with Goodwill Tulsa Work Adjustment make their way to the security checkpoint, the second stop on their tour of Tulsa International Airport.

Pilot and tour guide Levi Brown explains how things run on the tarmac to Goodwill Tulsa Work Adjustment Training students at Tulsa International Airport.

At the security check-in, they quickly removed shoes and belts, and emptied their pockets of metal objects into containers. Most of the group got the “big OK” going through the full-body scanner. After passing through, the students observed how the agents conducted their duties.

As the wind gusted on the tarmac, the group listened to how a Jetway (or jet bridge) connects the terminal with an aircraft, allowing passengers to board. The guide stood in front a massive machine, explaining the various preparation and maintenance equipment. Everyone craned their necks looking for tugs, the “funny looking” cars airport workers drive.

From there, it was a short walk to the inbound baggage unloading area. The students gathered around a conveyer belt that fed into an opening above their heads. A large bin served as stand-in for luggage and was placed on the conveyer. The group hurried back inside the airport, in time to see the bin emerge on the connecting conveyer belt in baggage claim.

Throughout the tour, the students made observations and asked questions. “Do you have U.S. Marshals?” “That lost plane (Malaysia Airlines flight MH370), how can that happen?”

The last stop was at the Aviation Learning Center, an educational museum of sorts with working models, displays and flight simulators. Here, the students had a chance to use what they’d learned on the tour. Some played the role of travelers on fictional Tulsa Air Express Flight #0011, while their fellow students issued and took boarding passes, and watched for warning lights at the security scanner. On board, two students sat in the pilots’ chairs and another led the pre-flight safety instructions. The in-flight video covered the many career types in aviation from building to flying, guiding to instructing.

At the end as they disembarked, student Brennan joked “You guys were flying coach. I was flying first class.” 

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