You were lucky as my son was flying to Istanbul from LHR with his wife and 4 year old on the mid day service for a long weekend. There were strong winds at Gatwick with diversions but just as they were about to board BA decided they would use the aircraft and crew for another service and cancelled it. They eventually put them on an evening flight but refused to sit them together; as for compensation they claimed it was weather related which it wasn’t.
In my early days as a second officer we were encouraged to talk to the pax on long short haul flights when P3. Then the IRA started putting bombs on our aircraft which of course you didn’t tell the pax why you were depressurising and diving back into london. They obviously smelt a rat when we were parked up by the sewage works, surrounded with flashing lights and no one would push a set of air stairs up to the aircraft for half an hour. Of course we were never told the truth although one of the skippers had the chief bomb disposal officer from Northern Ireland in the cockpit who did. The files on a specific incident have been reclassified from 40 years out of the public domain to something probably beyond my life expectancy. There were incidents with cabin crew bars including with my then fiancé of 21 who got of the full aircraft as the bar seal numbers did not correspond with those which had been security checked. The skipper went ballistic but after she had been assaulted by one I had told her don’t take the Sh%t. It is well known that the services had a very high up mole in the IRA which probably saved many lives.
My final Airline was totally different; we checked in early and had full access to the security files; After a brief check of our documentation we met the cabin crew and briefed them before finishing our flight planning then it was off to the aircraft as a whole crew. I would go up to the gate and introduce myself, talk to a few pax, cockpit checks then greet the pax boarding. PA was in three languages on all flights. If there was a problem generally the truth or close to the truth was revealed.
After engine shut down it was full uniform including titfer in the cockpit door saying goodbye..company policy.
After premature retirement and 9/11 I witnessed some good and bad stuff;
Our Irish airline; open door with early boarding in Marseilles..everyone welcome, good chat and a great landing followed by captain saying Ta. Another flight incredibly well turned out captain both greeting and saying Ta after another greaser. And some scruffy bloke with a miserable face and untrimmed beard who did not say a word at anytime in spite of a very long delay. The landing was another demonstration of incompetence.
My old employer had another lot of poor show which started with an incompetent gate staff who queued passengers across the escalator and ignored the hazard; announced a substantial delay then decided to get us on board the 747 (which had paint pealing off the red tail cone) asap. Then some fool announced “this is your senior first officer speaking..blah blah blah ..and I’ve just discovered a large dent in the side of the fuselage and we are waiting for an engineer to inspect it”. Who knows what a SFO is? We all know he is speaking. And the conclusion that one of the employees has smashed into the side of the aircraft and is stupid enough not to report it speaks volumes for the safety culture. ‘Twas the same in my day. Needless to say we went before anyone could have possibly examined the inside of the structure and no doubt the skipper boll@caked the SFO as he said no more.
The return flight wasn’t much better with one coach to unload a 777 and uncovered air stairs in drizzle…no flight crew to be seen.