Start with a C-54 at Wiesbaden, loaded with supplies for Berlin. All eastbound flights carried a codename of 'Easy'; westbound flights were 'Willie'. C-54s were 'Big Easy' or 'Big Willie'. The supplies, if civilian, were 'New York'; 'Chicago' was a military cargo for the US forces. For the French, supplies were 'Paris'. If it was a load of equipment to maintain runways or build something, it was 'Engineer'.

The crew of a 'Big Easy' with 'New York' on board was given a specific departure time, to the second. They knew the radio callsigns and tail numbers of the three planes that would precede them in the corridor and the two behind. They had received a weather briefing that was updated every 30 minutes, and which included en route reports from radiomen in every seventh airplane going to Berlin.

They started their engines, taxied out and began the takeoff roll on the dot. They climbed out at 500 ft (150 m) per minute, and started the first steps of the standardized procedure that would ease them into the approaches to the single corridor they would share with planes dispatched from nearby Rhein-Main.

They overflew Darmstadt and Aschaffenberg, turned on a heading of 033 and flew towards Fulda, the last checkpoint in the US zone. Over the Fulda range station, each pilot broadcast the number of his plane so that pilots behind him could check their watches and monitor their separation. From Fulda the corridor led straight to the Templehof range station; the flight was made at exactly 170 mph (274 km/h). At the Templehof station the pilot turned left to the beacon at Wedding, starting his letdown procedure on that leg. At Wedding he turned downwind, and continued a specified approach procedure to 1,500 ft (460 m) altitude as he turned onto final approach. The letdown continued to the decision height at 400 ft (120 m).

When the plane landed at Templehof, it was met by a 'Follow-Me' jeep and spotted on the ramp. The crew came down the steps to be greeted by an operations officer with a return clearance and a weather briefing. A German Red Cross jeep pulled up, operated by the loveliest girls in Berlin, to dispense coffee, doughnuts and snacks. Meantime, the unloading crews of Germans and displaced persons were moving the cargo off the plane and into trucks.