Interesting discussion. I think Planemike you are being the devil's advocate somewhat and you are using the passive disobedience of the passenger in this reported case as an example of airline heavy handedness. I disagree with you using this exit row passive disobedience as an example but I don't disagree with the heavy handedness that seems to be the air travelers experience now. Remember that guy they dragged off the UA flight knocking him unconscious in the process?
United Express Flight 3411 incident happened at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago on April 9, 2017
What about the woman who carried her breast milk for her child and when she refused to hand it over for X-ray they impounded her in a glass holding cage in full view of all passengers passing through security, until she eventually missed her flight and they let her go!
Armato was traveling from Phoenix to Los Angeles in 2010 with bottles of pumped breast milk for her 7-month-old son when she was stopped at a security checkpoint at Sky Harbor International Airport.
In both these cases the airlines have settled with the claimants but these events happen daily. This approach pervades both the airline and the airport industry and any of us on this forum could find many other cases that amount to no more than abuse of authority by airlines, airport authorities and/or individual crew members. Post 911, we SLF (a derogatory term that should not be used- that's for another discussion) have become the threat. Within every airport and aircraft cabin is a potential threat to be identified, searched, denigrated, caged and heaved off, arbitarily in some cases with little or no recourse.
As one poster above mentioned, the rules around safety briefings are archaic and have changed little in context over the years. But since 911 the air travel industry seems to have 'relearned' the rules that allow them to do more than they had ever imagined in the name of 'flight safety' or even just operational expedience to put deadhead crew on board.
In most cases we don't have any choice but to travel by air and so must prostrate ourselves to the hassles that go with it including parking, queuing, security inspections, hours of waiting, the exposure to 'duty free' shopping as a captive audience to passively help the airport companies with their profits, the interminable walk to departure gates surrounded by faux plants for 'ambiance' that, when coupled with long haul international transits, brings new meaning to the phrase 'dead man walking on the green mile'. The constant controlling from the parking security guy at the drop off point to the ticket counters, the customs lines, the aviation security indignities, the constant PA calls to action, all pushing you through the system inexorably until finally, without ever seeing daylight or what your aircraft even looks like, you are crushed into it, pressing against other passengers as you maneuver your personal belongings into the overheads, turning your nose away as a passengers bum waves eerily close as they forge their way past you to the window seat. But it's not over is it. You are cramped before you start and another four hours flight time to go. The flight safety announcement ritual is about to start and the bile in your stomach begins to rise. You are captured. In a aluminium battery hen chicken cage. You have no rights at this point. More control, more instructions, more must dos and don'ts or else you may charged under Civil of Federal Aviation Regulations. Sitting in the centre seat, the screens drop down like a spot light being shined on you. You cant leave, you cant excuse yourself, you cant even change your mind about the flight. The only passive response you have left is to turn away, or look down. some decide talking to their neighbor will be their passive disobedience but it is a much more dangerous ploy and risks bringing the unwanted attention of the guards....er crew.....
OK, I'll stop there. That's all a little bit OTT I know, but it is to emphasise the lot of the air traveler today and in particular to bring me to the point of my discussion which is that all of this brings sometimes supercilious crew in contact with tired, disgruntled and overly controlled, disrespected, humiliated and regimented passengers. A small spark like putting your fingers in your ears during a safety brief and not even a fully loaded DC-10 firefighter can put out the subsequent conflagration. Passenger behaviour is undoubtedly becoming worse but it doesn't take much to see that modern air travel is not well designed to keep passengers calm except in the sense that they are so controlled that it is mostly fear that keeps them quiet. Fear of being embarrassed, fear of being found carrying something you had completely overlooked, fear of being complained about by another passenger, fear of missing some instruction and wandering into a restricted area, a 'no go' zone or the wrong bloody seat. Fear of being the subject of crew sternness...fear of being offloaded for no fathomable reason....
Rather than working with the paying passenger,it seems airports, airlines and crews are often working against them. Even if the personal involved exude a formulaic politeness there remains a sense they can easily become the smiling assassin the moment you do something really silly and unthinking like get up to get that book out of the overhead locker while the aircraft is taxing!! Passengers are human. They make mistakes. Often. But they're not terrorists and they generally don't mean anyone any harm. Response to passenger transgressions can be disproportionate.
Lest there be any doubt about where i stand. I am ex military aircrew and was involved in safety briefings and cabin crew management for over 20 years. I fully support Air NZ's stance in this case and the following NZ CAA PDF link
https://www.caa.govt.nz/assets/legac...rs/AC121-6.pdf should leave no one in doubt about why, even you Planemike.
But even so, I think a lot more needs to be done to get what seems like a simple message, targeted properly. If all the issues in this thread are anything to go by passengers take in very little of what they are told in a safety briefing. In fact we know that and you only need to look at this image from a Southwest Airlines emergency to accept there is something wrong with the method of delivery, that leads to execution failure.
A Southwest Airlines airplane suffered a major engine failure. Engine shrapnel pierced the airplane's fuselage, blew out a window, and caused the cabin to depressurize. One passenger died. Some passengers wore their oxygen masks incorrectly during the emergency landing, according to a former flight attendant.
And, no matter how able bodied someone may be , I have instructed new cabin crew on the opening of main exit doors and it can take them several attempts before they literally get the swing of it. How do you think Mrs Jones would do even if she listened intently to everything she was told, with smoke, flames, darkness, screaming, unusual orientation, and the resistance of an armed slide. It would be a pious hope that a 2 min brief would help but in the absence of anything else...it is the best that can be done. I would really like to hear other ideas about safety briefings and how we can be engage passengers in this necessary process. With all the advertorial nonsense and puffery being used by airlines in their safety briefing (Air NZ, I'm looking at you) it has all become form over substance and Miss 'fingers in her ears' is symptomatic of the problem,
By the way Planemike. You several times mentioned passengers as if they were being disrespected in the manner that military personnel might be as C130 passengers. I can tell you right now, nothing could be further from the truth. Our crews showed a great deal of respect to the men and women of our Defence and Police forces. There were rules and there was discipline but as officers and senior NCO's our smiles were genuine and the care and respect for our enlisted charges undaunting. If airport authorities, and airlines and their crews could achieve half the level of respect for their passengers, we might get somewhere.
Apologies for the long post. Gulp!