Final 3 Greens
Well said!
Amanda78
I applaud your enthusiasm and pride in what you do.
But please trust me on this; the emergency exits are pretty much in the same places on modern aircraft as they were in the 707; upper deck ones do not fall into that category but they are pretty obvious too. What has changed is how they and the slides work, but then the briefing doesn't cover that, does it. I think we can find them if we need to without watching the ritual hand wave again.
What we old farts know as we sit there not paying much attention is that if there is a "survivable" accident that involves severe structural damage we'll be lucky if the seats don't break out of the mountings and smash us to pieces, and very lucky indeed if our bodies are sufficiently unbroken to make it out of the aircraft before it burns.
We also know that if there's a fire with no structural damage, we've got about 2 minutes to fight our way to the nearest exit on our hands and knees in thick, black, toxic, choking smoke, and that there will NOT be a nice orderly British queue to get out. There will be a heaving mass of humanity reverting to the caveman era to get out first. Those who are on their hands and knees will be walked over by others.
Anyone who saw the L1011 in Riyadh with the piles of charred corpses blocking each unopened exit has an unpleasant inkling of what really happens when the situation that the briefing is really about actually happens.
Precautionary evacuations, with no fire burning in the cabin and no real structural damage, are an easy everyday occurrence, pretty much; it's doubtful that they would go any worse without a briefing. If anyone tries to take a bag the other passengers would soon stop that.
So don't take offence, please, about our "lack of respect", as you call it. It's just that we do know quite a lot about the realities, and really do know the brieifng script by heart. All you have to do is give your attention to those who are paying attention.