Was on VS20 recently, and I thought it odd that the cabin announcements from the flight deck were terse and uncommunicative. No names, no banter, not an extra ounce.
We had a long delay waiting for takeoff clearance at SFO, which got one very short "Don't know what's going on, they seem to have halted departures from the left hand runway, we'll let you know if we can find anyone who knows what's going on" after around 45 minutes sitting on the taxiway. I suppose there's some comfort in knowing that the people driving the thing are as narked as the rest of us, but it wasn't very professional. Were things strained all over due to 911?
As it happened, around three minutes after the PA on the departure problems, we took off without another word - which caused some difficulties, as a couple of pax had asked permission on hearing the announcement to use the loos and been told it was OK. I think it's the first time I've seen people dashing *away* from a toilet that urgently...
Without a further message that things had cleared up, the cabin crew didn't have a chance to resecure the cabin before we were trundling down the runway. I'd think that if an indeterminate delay had been announced, it would be reasonable for the cabin crew to allow use of the loos until further information had been received. On the other hand, can they let people undo seatbelts in that situation without explicit permission? Lack of communication between the flght deck and the cabin?
Also, the state of the cabin electics was very poor. The in-flight entertainment at my seat gave up the ghost (and it wasn't the only one, by a long chalk), there was a PA asking for anyone with a working reading light who wasn't planning on using it to swap seats with someone whose light had broken, and a section in economy had lost their overhead no smoking/fasten seatbelts annunciators. That has safety implications, which I'm glad to say the cabin crew dealt with admirably during the flight, but the whole thing added up to something far short of the advertised Virgin experience.
I should say that the cabin crew were exemplary throughout, and coped with everything with good humour and patience.
Just a POV from the back of the bus.
R
Last edited by PPRuNe Towers; 15th Sep 2002 at 15:46.