Philbky Lol re the exercise mental picture you have just painted
I flew Air Jamaica from Kingston a number of years ago. I don't know if you have ever travelled from Kingston but on that flight there was a large number of very large carribean men dripping with gold jewellery etc squeezing themselves into the economy seat. My partner described them as looking like "gangsters" and got quite twitchy. Not helped by the arrival of the drugs squad at LHR either
. Pax profiling was certainly alive and well on that flight by many!
However about 1 hour before arrival the Cabin Crew started leading the inflight exercise programme. All of these so called macho "gangsters" were participating.....it was so funny to watch and would have been even funnier if they squeezed themselves into lycra!!
Anyway back on thread I agree UK airlines at least are more litigation aware and have "tightened up" even during the time I have worked in aviation. The muppet on
Paddy's flight would not have a leg to stand on if he claimed for his injury because he had ignored both the initial instruction from the Captain, seatbelt sign and the repeated instruction from Paddy.
I do sort of know where
F3G is coming from on the sympathy angle though..... up to a point. Several years ago I broke my foot due to clear air turbulence. The pain at the time and after surgery was awful. The impact on my life socially and financially was significant. I would not wish that on anyone however much of a plonker they had been on board.
However my injury could not have been avoided. Paddy's pax had a choice and got injured because he made the wrong choice even when informed of the risk. Sympathy therefore turns to empathy from me in that event I'm afraid. OMG what does that make me psycologically F3G?
In answer to your query
F3G my experience as a pax on non UK airlines is very limited. I do not choose to fly on them if I can help it for exactly the reasons you describe. I'm not saying they are not safe because they are but I just feel more comfortable with our own way of enforcing safety rightly or wrongly.
Turbulence IMHO is one of the most dangerous aspects of airline travel as a lot of the time it cannot be predicted. Even when it is and is communicated to the SLF some will actively choose to ignore the warnings anyway endangering themselves and other pax/crew.
Personally I think ICAO should get on top of this and have
universal procedures for all airlines to follow.
However I'm just humble CC. When somebody allows me to have an opinion they no doubt will tell me what it should be
