Aviation, our home between earth and heaven

December 7 is the International Civil Aviation Day, a celebration for all of us who carry out our activity at the airport. Some, perhaps, for decades. We wanted to find a unique way to honor this moment so we paid an unannounced visit to our colleagues who work on the apron, among the aircraft and asked them as simply and directly as possible: “What does aviation mean to you?”. The answers we got, spontaneous and sometimes on the run, surprised us. We were expecting terms like “flight”, “passion”, “freedom”. We didn’t expect “identity” and “life”. Identity because, after thirty years of airport, you’re part of it and it becomes part of you, you can’t tell the difference between you two very well. “Life” (that’s what a pilot told us) because after years of training, you breathe “airplanes” even in your spare time. It’s a field that impregnates your inner structure deeply, invisibly and imperceptibly while demanding everything from you. At a certain point, the adoption becomes symbiosis and the absolute terms – “Aviation means everything, truly everything” no longer seem exaggerated. “My passion is to push planes” was one of the most spot-on statements, almost disconcerting in its genuineness. Because aviation is lived like no other profession, one with the hidden talent of pushing your reset button when you least expect it, thus keeping you forever young. We haven’t forgotten our coworkers in the terminals, who handle different passenger situations, nor those in the offices. All of them reminded us of the force that brought us together, holding us here, in a world animated by a special mechanism, which we all resonate with, consciously or not.