When you fly, it's easy to forget that your checked luggage doesn't magically sprout wings and flap thousands of miles to your destination's luggage carousel—although that's sometimes the airline's excuse when they lose it. Rather than magic, a real person needs to load and unload that luggage using some good old-fashioned hands-on labor.

These people handling all the baggage are called—wait for it—baggage handlers. Employed by airlines and assigned to specific airports, baggage handlers ensure that the bags you entrust to an airline company make it safely to your destination. Unlike skycaps, who take luggage from you directly at the counter, baggage handlers drive baggage carts and load and unload cargo from aircraft. 

They're a more behind-the-scenes sort of folk, who get paid around $37,000 yearly when they're working full-time (source). 

 

Wake me when we have magic. (Source)

There's probably no other group in the workforce who could benefit so much from a magic wand. But instead of using a flick of the wrist and a "bibbidi-bobbidi-boo," they use deep squats and powerful arm tosses to move bags around the tarmac.

For all non-magical baggage handlers, physical strength is absolutely necessary. No noodle arms allowed. When your job is to lift a whole vacation's worth of presents from Grandma and move it from place to place, you can be sure there's a strength test involved somewhere. If "able to lift seventy-pounds hundreds of times a day" isn't on your résumé, then you probably shouldn't fill out the application.

You may be thinking, Is that really all there is to this job? What about customer service skills? Don't be fooled. You're not a smooth-talking retail salesman. You just need to be able to nod and smile politely while occasionally saying, "I'll take that."

This job's primarily physical, and you're a convenient pair of hands to lift heavy things in some pretty physically demanding situations, including the dreaded extreme weather. Have you ever been outside for more than a minute in a freezing Minnesota winter or a sweltering Arizona summer? Just dress for whatever the weather report says, because no matter what it is, you're guaranteed to be in it.

All that brawn doesn't go unrewarded. There are reasons to become a baggage handler beyond the desire to lift heavy things and get a good arm workout. Even though most baggage handlers work part-time for nine bucks an hour or so when first starting out, experienced baggage handlers can make significantly more, up to twenty-five an hour (source). 

In fact, if school's not your thing, this job pays the rent pretty nicely without the need for an advanced degree. Because many baggage handler jobs are unionized, pay can be higher than you might otherwise expect. And jobs commonly come with paid time off, medical and dental insurance, and that nifty little thing called a 401(k). It's not magic, but it's important all the same.

 

It's more important in some planes than others. (Source)

Looking for variety? There are actually more career options in this field than you might think. For instance, a ramper—the guys working outside the plane, in the freezing cold and burning heat, to load and unload your heavy bags from the aircraft—can eventually work as a crew chief. 

Or they could become an operations agent, who has the heavy responsibility of making sure the cargo (and therefore, the plane as a whole) is properly balanced. You can be sure airlines are willing to pay a pretty penny to make sure their planes are balanced.

If you don't have a college degree, becoming a baggage handler definitely has its benefits—even literal ones like health care. But for an average of only ten bucks per hour, it can also cost you your hearing and leave you with lifelong back problems. A hernia's not a pretty sight. Are health benefits worth your health? There's something of a catch-22 there.

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