An open letter to industry members
West Lakes post is balanced and rational and a fair summary.
To get back on message, i.e. to understand pax bahaviour, the industry posters on the thread would do well to reflect that people are flying more than ever and the industry (quite understandably) downplays potentially scary safety matters.
For example, to get attention on the safety brief, you could show the burning wreckage of a crash and then say "if you wish to improve your changes of surviving this, listen up for the next 3 minutes."
I would agree that this is not the way to go, but why don't safety briefs include important information such as the unpleasant smell from the O2 generators when activated? I would hypothesise that this is considered to be lingering on the unpleasant for too long.
Lets be honest, a very good pitch for business would be to use airline safety records to show how safe your employers are, but this is not done, no doubt for fear of scaring the punters.
What your industry breeds are a bunch of people who mainly never experience anything worse than slight turb and regard flying as being like a bus service.
You then wonder why they don't listen to the safety brief and you are amazed that they thing they are about to die when they experience a go around or a depressurisation - they have not been informed well enough by your industry about the flying experience , yet you blame them for this.
I have not yet seen a crew memeber use their delegated authority to ask anyone to stop talking during the brief, then again I have only taken over 1,000 flights, so one day it might happen - ignoring bad behaviour is condoning bad behaviour and you are colluding in a bad situation - tell them to shut up - I'll support you.
Tell them to sit down when the belt sign is on - you seldom do and it frustrates me - furthermore they are walking past my seat and my land on me if there is abig bump - act, don't moan - I'll support you - when you let them walk past my seat with the belt sign on YOU ARE FAILING ME.
Why don't the crew brief about condensation? I sat on an Airbus last Sunday and had to reassure the person next to me who thought we might be on fire - I should not have to be doing this - I pay the airline to brief the customers, but they fail regularly in this respect, also with regard to airframe generated noise on the BAE 146/RJ, which I have had to explain many, many times - why?
Furthermore, the lectures pax get from certain cabin crew members on this board are quite bizarre.
I am not trained on your aircraft/systems and I do pay close attention to the safety brief for this reason, but equally the CAA licenses me to command an aircraft and I have had to make tough decisions with weather and systems problems, which had I screwed up would have quite probably resulted in fatalities.
So please, unless you are also a licensed aircraft commander, pay some respect for MY training and experience - it may be limited compared to SNS Guppy's and others, but it is more than many people who post here and some of the posts are quite offensive to me - I have talked with cabin crew whose lack of understanding of an aircraft was quite unbelievable - not all, but professional pilots may well know what I mean.
Finally, face the facts.
To be cabin crew, you need a few O levels (2, I believe), so you don't need to be a genius to qualify for the job.
But the best cabin crew are total ambassadors for their companies and could probably hold down very senior positions in any sector if they wished to - I fly regularly with one purser who has a PhD and is used (part time) to teach by a very well respected university. He loves his airline job and is awesome in his performance of it, I had total respect for him.
Yes, the regulators insist on having crew trained to maintain safety and I say for the 4th time TOTAL RESPCT FOR THE CREW ON BA038, WHO REACTED DECISIVELY AND PROFESSIONALLY WHEN THE CHIPS WERE DOWN AND WITH APPARENTLY NO WARNING.
However, the main part of the job ( measured by % of time spent) is providing customer service, as the BA ad posted earlier makes quite clear.
What is the problem in recognising this? Why are people posting here that the only reason the crew is on board is to provide safety?
I am sure that Michael O'Leary would agree thtat providing in flight service is crucially important, Ryanair's income is no doubt influenced by the amount of extras his crews sell, but I have seen Ryanair crew immediately drop the service and imediately provide O2 and care to a pax with a medical problem - I made a point of seeing the #1 after the flgiht and telling him what a gret job he and his team did.
So please think about what I have written.
It's your perogative to reject if you wish, but you may choose to think about pax in another way.