Victoria Maske-Mendenall and Monica Hawkins – Ground Crew
Passengers passing through Decatur Airport are more likely to have their bags checked and loaded onto a plane by a woman than a male member of the ground crew for SkyWest Airlines.
Victoria Maske-Mendenall and Monica Hawkins are among 11 women who work on the 18-member ground crew at the airport that serves DeWitt and surrounding counties in central Illinois. Analise McDonald is station manager for the airline’s Decatur operation.
Maske-Mendenall, a supervisor who started with the airline in January 2020, was attracted to the employee flight benefits: free stand-by tickets on all United flights. Air travel has always been something she enjoyed.
The part-time job turned into full-time with more responsibilities for making certain the plane is cleaned between flights and safe to leave the ground. Among the crew’s cold weather duties is deicing the plane, a task that takes them high in the air in a bucket truck to reach the wings and tails.
In grade school, Hawkins dreamed of being an astronaut. But law school led her to a stressful courtroom job. The part-time ground crew position is a stress reliever.
“When I walk in here, the stress just melts away,” said Hawkins.
Hawkins also has the chance to marshal planes onto the tarmac and build a few more muscles by loading luggage weighing up to 50 pounds onto the aircraft.
“We do everything but fly the planes,” said Hawkins.
The crew works closely with federal TSA agents who inspect the contents of luggage before it boards the plane. A group of airport workers waiting for the arrival of an afternoon flight had multiple stories about some of the items discovered inside suitcases.
McDonald will never forget the bag of crawfish tucked inside a bag. Then there was the live lizard – not allowed on an aircraft—and the hunter’s severed deer head that an agent cleared for transport.
SkyWest had just opened its Decatur base when COVID-19 brought air travel to a near standstill in 2020.
“There was a rush of people trying to get home before the borders shut down,” recalled Maske-Mendenall.
As time passed, fewer people were willing to board planes. On a trip to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago with her daughter, Maske-Mendenall saw one passenger in three hours in the web of terminals that normally handle thousands of passengers a day.
In 2021, about 8,000 passengers passed through the Decatur Airport as the facility and others across the globe inched towards recovery from the impacts of the pandemic. Daily airport traffic comes from two incoming and two departing flights per day.
After four years, McDonald still appreciates that no two days are alike at the airport.
“Once it gets in your blood, you stick with it. Every day brings something new,” said McDonald.
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