PA or no PA?

[Chris777]

I'm interested to know what professional airline pilots' thoughts are on whether a captain/first officer should make a PA during a commercial flight.

It may sound like an odd question, but I recently took a flight during which neither pilot spoke to the passengers. This in comparision with other flights when several different PAs have been made, warning of turbulence, pointing out sights, etc

Is this normal? Is it good practice not to say anything? Was it simply a question of the pilots being too busy? Do you always introduce your F/O?

Thanks in advance for your comments,
Chris

[bermudatriangle]

flight deck crew should always address the passengers,it takes just a few moments.having said that,i have positioned on many airlines recently and noticed a distinct lack of communication from the flight crew.this is just part of the general erosion of standards in air travel.start with having to book online,check-in at a machine,not with a human being,join an endless queue to deposit hold baggage,join an even longer queue to be treated like cattle,being processed by security staff,endure delays in souless departure lounges,being updated by disinterested,lowly paid handling agents,then board your flight and experience the service which can only be likened to catching a bus through a council estate.the only hope of reducing the misery is to travel in the premium cabins with the full service carriers,then and only then,can you bypass some,not all,of the degrading procedures in place for the majority of the long suffering passengers.having said all that,welcome on board,i hope you enjoy the flight with us and hope to welcome you back onboard in the near future!

[citywings]

To be fair, we always try to make a pa, but my SOP's dictate that we can only make them in the cruise. On a longish sector this is no problem, but on a 35min flight if you get distracted in the cruise (which can be as short as 5 minutes in total) with other flight duties as pilot flying, you can be descending before you have chance to make a pa. Also, ATC sometimes ask you to descend early, this means your planned pa no longer happens.

In short, nothing to do with eroding customer service, but the whole industry is concentrating on avoiding potentially hazardous level busts when going up and down. Making PA's takes 1 person out of the loop.

We always give everyone a 10 mins to landing though!

[On-MarkBob]

It's all to do with priorities. the little phase "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" in that order is as good now as it ever has been. Communication can also be prioritised; 1st. talk to the other pilot, then it might be ATC or Cabin crew depending on what's happening. Talking to Operations, handling agents, and passengers are generally at the bottom of the list. As the gent before me has already said, in not so many words, in the climb and decent one doesn't need to be distracted with unnecessary communications as aviating and navigating are a high priority at that moment. I sorry you missed out on your PAs but maybe your pilots had a higher priority to deal with and safety is the highest priority of all.
You can't please all, some passengers get pissed off with the PAs interupting their sleep or the film.

[Chris777]

I suspected it was due to a low priority and I completely understand that.

The only reason I bring it up is that I think it's good for passengers to know who's in charge, that they know what they're doing (pretty much always given away in the reassuring voice which seems to be part of the job spec). No offence to them, but when all you hear is the CC making announcements about selling cratch cards, you can be forgiven for forgetting that there are some professionally-qualified personel on board too.

[bermudatriangle]

what's with this short sector,altitude bust,no time to talk senario....how about a welcome aboard whilst waiting for the loadsheet,hold doors closed,pushback clearance etc....as i said before it takes seconds to introduce yourself and welcome the passengers....just shows contempt for the people that pay our wages if we can't find the time to say hello...i rest my case !

[Avman]

Strangely enough I've noticed a growing tendency for a lack of PAs from the FD. The aviate and navigate reason is fine, but on 8 hour and 10 hour transatlantic flights I'm sure a little time could have been found! Personally, I believe that the many pressures of working in aviation today (working conditions and the security farce to name just two) is making some of us a tad cynical and disinterested in doing that little extra PR for the company. Among others I see it in air crew, ground crew and even ATC.