Originally Posted by
Uplinker
Noel, you are an airline professional and understand the risks because you do regular safety and CRM courses. But remember that many passengers don't know the risks in the first place, and many leave their brains at home when they go on holiday.
Quite true! I heard a comment years ago from Cabin Crew that passengers check their brains in with their bags. That was in 'the old days'. I think your comment about leaving them at home is far more up to date. One would think that they might take some interest in their own safety though. Although...
Originally Posted by
Uplinker
How many passengers, (or positioning crew for that matter), do you see reading the safety card as they first sit down?
I
always, when travelling on holiday or 'positioning', make a point of reading the safety card, looking for the emergency exits
and watching the safety demo (even those horrible pseudo-funny BA ones...), even for an aeroplane that I might be type-rated on. Primarily to remind myself of what is where and what might be different but also to try to set an example to other pax around. Our kids were 'indoctrinated' with this and we allowed them to unstrap to be able to kneel on the seats to watch the safety demo then strap in again (as had just been demonstrated!).
About the medication thing:
Have you told the airline of your special needs? (I think that question has already been asked.)
If your medication is so important that you need it every few minutes, then surely a small amount can be carried in a pocket or bum-bag to deal with an evacuation?
Surely if your medication is
that important, then after you have evacuated (leaving it all in that potentially burning wreck and by doing so not hindering others from escaping)
you report your medical problem to the emergency services that will be attending and they can assist you in getting an emergency supply? Surely those people behind you trying to escape are more important than your temporary medication inconvenience?
I cannot stand the sort of morons that travel as pax so often: I remember a highly publicised depressurisation on a well-known Irish airline where one of the morons sent a photo to a newspaper looking down the cabin of the 'rubber jungle' with the comment "No-one had told us what to do", yet there on the set back right in front of him in his photo was the demo sticker
showing him what to do,
exactly as he had been told in the demo...!!! (Another beauty from that one was another moron comment that "the ground was getting closer all the time" -- yes, and the ground gets closer all the time
on every landing!!
Our first visit to NZ we had this safety demo video:
; the second time was this:
and the last time was this:
. We flew on one of their B737s once but sadly didn't get this one:
! Those are good ways of getting attention... But then the pax were nicer there too, and on all our domestic flights were standing back to allow people in rows ahead to disembark first, something unheard of with most of the world's "got to be first off to go and wait for my bags" morons.
(Am I showing too much of a dislike for pax?)