The Aiport – everything you ever wanted to know about the airport and more!

On this page we’ll be telling you all about the different machines you may see and what they do.

And if you fancy exploring any of the other sections, simply click one of the buttons below.

Brought to you by Heathrow – making every journey better.

Machines you’ll see
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When you’ve been at a big airport and looked out of the window of the Terminal or plane, you’ll know that they aren’t just home to planes – there’s all sorts of other vehicles that work on the airfield.  Let’s find out more about some them.

Transport

Some vehicles are to move people about.  You might find yourself hopping on a bus to get from the terminal to your plane, or maybe you’ve travelled on a special train between terminals.

Transport for your bag

Special baggage trucks bring bags to the planes.  These are often electric vehicles that are very quiet.  The trucks pull wagons on which your bag in carried, and so depending on how many bags there are to carry, trucks may pull quite a few wagons – just like a freight train!

Transport for your plane!

It may sound weird but planes need some help moving at first. Don’t worry though, this is just because planes aren’t designed to reverse – afterall when do they need to do that?

As planes cannot reverse, a very powerful, but flat looking tractor helps push the plane away from the gate and lines it up to move forwards.

Moving steps

When you get to the plane, sometimes you have to climb steps to get on.  These steps are either stored onboard the plane or a brought to the plane by special vehicles.

Fuel for the plane

Planes need fuel just like any other vehicle but they can’t fly into a petrol station!  They have special aviation fuel which is brought right to them in huge tankers.

You can often see these delivering top ups to the planes at the gates.