Everyone who has traveled by plane or taken a cruise has probably heard members of the staff talk to each other in a strange way.

Axar.az reports that the thing is, the employees of transportation companies use special words and phrases that actually code words for different situations. These coded messages allow them to keep passengers calm and avoid panic.

The staff of international companies, stewards of cruise ships, and the employees of city transportation companies have revealed the meaning of their code phrases to Axar.az. They use them in all kinds of situations, so we thought you would like to know what they mean.

1. “5 days in Denmark”

Maybe you’ve heard a flight attendant talking about spending, for example, 5 days in Denmark? And you would never guess that in reality, they were not talking about an actual vacation, but about a passenger. In this case, the number stands for the row, and the first letter in the name of the country stands for the seat number. This is the cipher for the passenger sitting in 5D. Thanks to these phrases, flight attendants can discuss hot passengers without anyone knowing.

2. “Blue juice”

The phrase “blue juice” is used by flight attendants when they are talking about a malfunction of the toilet. In order to avoid awkwardness, flight attendants created this code. So, there is a chance you will hear a flight attendant telling a pilot something like, “We’re out of blue juice.” Now you know what they really mean.

3. “Mayday”

This code is used by pilots and ship captains to signal a situation that is dangerous for life. But in some countries, firefighters, policemen, and some transport organizations also use it. The code is always repeated 3 times in a row (Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!) just to make sure that it is not confused for a similarly sounding phrase.

Mayday is actually an English transcription of the French phrase, Venez m’aider! (Come help me!).

4. “Pan-pan”

This is an emergency signal on a ship or on a plane and it comes from the French word panne that literally means breakdown. However, it is usually used to indicate a situation that doesn’t present any danger to people’s health but still needs fixing.

5. “Code red”

We hope that you’ll never hear this phrase in real life, and only in the movies. Code Red is used for the most difficult and extreme situations on a plane, and most of the time, this situation is connected with a serious technical problem or an emergency landing.