Before 9/11 I had an open cockpit door on almost all flights and many of our pax visited the cockpit.
From their questions I learned that the majority of pax has absolutely no idea of what turbulence is. They even talk about holes in the air and the aircraft is falling into it, but who of us pilots has not heard these funny things??
So I thought of a short comparison to make an explanation.
My intention was (and still is) to tell my pax that turbulence is nothig to worry about if it is handled correctly, but if not it may be harmful.
So, here is my little story:
Air can be compared with water. There exist no holes in the air as there are no holes in water. As everyone knows there are waves on the surface of the water, either at sea or at rivers, especially if a river turns around a corner. The good thing with water is that you can see the waves and everybody knows what happens to a ship if the ship cruises over the waves.
Well, the same thing happens to the air. The daily weather forecast on tv shows satelite pictures of our weather and you can easily see that clouds and air moves not only straight but in curves. Unfortunately our routing today guides us along the edge of such a curve.
The same thing that happens to water in a curve happens to the air, the only difference is that we cannot see the air as we can see the water. Our aircraft behaves like a ship on waves with the little difference that we a just a little bit faster than a ship and therefore the waves we feel are not felt as a smooth up and down, they are felt as hard strokes and chokes.
Our aircraft is constructed to resist these chocks and we have to secure ourself with the seatbelt in order not to be thrown through the cabin.
I am sorry for any discomfort caused by the turbulence but we do our best to have the flight as smooth as possible and I ask you to remain seated with your seatbelt fastened for your own security as long as the seatbelt sign is on.
Thank you.
I have received a lot of positive feedback from our pax for this 2 minutes time, which are required for this anouncement and after my announcement there is no problem for the cabin crew with passengers not obeying the seatbet sign.
Fly safe
Fox Lima