Etihad's flight from Chicago to Abu Dhabi

On Friday, March 7, I was sitting in the O'hare lounge (Chicago airport).  The Etihad flight from Chicago to Abu Dhabi is 11,700 kilometers.  It will always amaze me that any plane can stay in the air long enough to fly 11,700 kilometers!

As I sat there I watched one vendor after another reload the plane for the trip back to Abu Dhabi.  Etihad has to hire companies to:
1. Do maintenance
2. Clean the plane
3. Provide food
4. Refuel (Think of how much fuel it would take to fly this plane halfway around the world)

(Vendor means anything that sells.  If you buy a bottle of water from a machine that's called a vending machine.)

Etihad currently flies to 63 locations (Emirates flies to 140).  They have to locate and make contracts with several companies in every one of those locations.  Choosing vendors will also be discussed more later in the semester.

*****
The plane in the picture above is a Boeing 777.  As I was waiting I read that a Malaysia airlines 777 went down near Vietnam.  It is never a good thing to read about a plane crash just before you get on a plane!  However, I was not worried.  The 777 has been in production since 1995.  It has one of the best safety records in the history of aviation.