What a day in the life of a plane looks like

CBS News senior transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave traveled across the country with Southwest Airlines to show what one day in the life of a plane looks like.

Each weekday morning, "CBS Mornings" co-hosts Gayle King, Tony Dokoupil and Nate Burleson bring you the latest breaking news, smart conversation and in-depth feature reporting. "CBS Mornings" airs weekdays at 7 a.m. on CBS and stream it at 8 a.m. ET on the CBS News app.

[Piyonsam]

Wow, they forgot a big piece of the puzzle, aircraft maintenance. They should’ve talked about them too. They are there before the crew shows up and they are the last one to handle the plane when the daily flights are finished.

[andrewsunde]

I can't imagine some reporter doing a monologue in the cargo bin while I'm trying to stack bags! LOL

[Gilkie]

As an Aircraft Mechanic I’m appalled how you can go through a day in life, and not talk to an Aircraft Mechanic. Before the pilot “woke” up the airplane a mechanic most likely work on it the entire night. During the day maintenance checks are happening on just about every turn. Pilots and Mechanics are on the same coin, you take 1 away you have an unsafe flight.

[mikemuoio]

Never was a southwest guy but since moving to Balitmore, I've been flying them exclusively and I've been blow away. Everyone is super friendly and the flights have always been on time. United and American? That's a different story.

[JYDIVISN]

I flew from SNA to SEA yesterday. All the workers were so kind and professional - from TSA, to the flight attendants, to the ground crew. So thankful for them getting me home!

[Shawn_M]

It's amazing how casual and commonplace Flying a multi ton vehicle, thousands of miles, at 500+ mph, 30 thousand feet in the air has become. All that and it's still the safest form of travel. It's incredible!

[_Tommmmmm_]

Airlines are one hell of a logistics operation and its amazing the amount of teamwork it takes. Sometimes I think people forget a lot of this stuff when a delay happens.

[bannon]

I hope that youngster (and his parents) had a great time at Disneyland

[lesterjones]

For someone that work at an airport. I call it organized chaos.

[kendrapratt]

Cool to see the cargo hold. I always pat the plane when I get on

Southwest is the only airline that effectively doesn’t fly at night. Other airlines keep many of their planes moving all the time, with midnight departures for cross country flights that land the next morning. So many planes will go for days before getting an overnight break.

[LadyCheeks]

Thank you southwest for the amazing customer service!

[clqudy]

Good luck out there, everyone! It's a beautiful thing when it works the way it's supposed to work!

[USNveteran]

I'm a retired A&P mechanic from a major US airline. This story would have to be MUCH LONGER to incorporate all the aspects of what goes into this. While they did briefly mention maintenance most people have no idea what it is like. If it wasn't for the CDL (configuration deviation list) & MEL (minimum equipment list) most airliners wouldn't be able to fly most of what they do. I think it's really funny how they are doing a story on Southwest that is only a 737 operator. The so called main stream media took great pleasure in beating up on Boeing and the 737. In my opinion after more than 30 years the 737 is a Industry work horse and it's record clearly speaks for itself. FLY NAVY!!!

[jasonwhite]

Good job on showing the dispatching piece of it

[austinkub]

Boring fact: Airlines will have some aircraft that crisscross the country going to various airports, whereas some may have aircraft dedicated to specific city-to-city routes depending on the demand at the time.

[descendantofphineas]

When you have true Proffesionals at the helm it works.

[Nick]

I didn’t realize a single plane actually flies all day, I guess I’ve never really thought about it.

[Determination]

Only issue is if there's just one delay, it's going to back up everyone. That's why American, Delta, and United have hubs. So if one flight gets delayed, it doesn't back up as many people.

[jermainec]

Damn we need cross country high speed rail 🙄🤣