Essential Aviation and Airport Vocabulary

Key Air Travel and Airport Terms

• Advantage: A detail that makes a product better than similar products.
• Air ticket (billete de avión): A ticket to travel in a plane.
• Baggage (equipaje): A suitcase used to carry personal possessions when traveling.
• Baggage reclaim (recogida de equipajes): The place at an airport where you collect your luggage after your flight.
• Boarding pass/boarding card (tarjeta de embarque): A printed card that airline passengers are given when they check in, which shows their flight and seat number, etc., and that they show before they get on the plane (ticket entitling passenger to board).
• Budget airline (aerolínea de bajo coste): An airline that is cheaper than most airlines and that usually offers a more basic service. Also known as a low-cost airline or low-cost carrier.
• Carrier code: A series of numbers that identify a particular airline.
• Check-in: The point at which a person registers as a passenger at an airport.
• Connecting flight (cambio de aviones, no de compañía): A segment of a flight that requires a passenger to change planes, but not change carriers.
• Cruise: Traveling at a constant speed.
• Direct flight (vuelo directo, sin cambio de aviones): A flight that does not involve changing planes.
• Delay (retraso): A period of time where you have to wait.
• Emissions: Gases that are sent out into the air.
• Land (aterrizar): To arrive at an airport.
• Non-stop flight: A flight without any stops.

Advanced Travel and Airport Operations

• Open-jaw trip: A return air ticket that allows you to fly into a country at one airport and leave the country by a different airport.
• Paperless ticketing (reservas por internet): A system where passengers book air tickets on the internet or over the phone. No ticket is necessary as the information is stored on the airline’s computers.
• Passenger flow: The number of passengers coming into and going out of an airport.
• Passport control: A place in an airport where you have to show your passport to an official as you pass through.
• Return trip (viaje de regreso): An air journey that departs from and arrives back at the same airport.
• Scheduled airline (vuelos regulares, horarios y rutas fijas): An airline that operates to fixed timetables and on fixed routes, and which sells tickets to the public rather than to package holiday companies.
• Secondary airport: A small airport that is not one of the main ones in a country.
• Security control: The place in an airport where passengers and their bags go through a metal detector to make sure they are not carrying dangerous objects.
• Stopover (escala): An interruption to a trip lasting twelve or more hours (a break in a journey).
• Take-off (despegue): The process of a plane leaving an airport.
• Turnaround time: The time between a plane landing at an airport and taking off again.