Turin, do you,refer to an Airbus or a Boeing in your email??
Yes, Boeing.
As you say the widebody Airbus has the hatch in the flt deck. I had completely forgotten that the A320 ever had a hatch at all.
the need to lock this hatch was not precipitated at all by 9/11.. In fact id it had been Boeing would have fitted it to all its aircraft if regulated by TSA/ FAA... Which they do not...
so my question is ... Who decided this was a good idea and if one operator thought it was, why didnt they all think so??
AFAIK it's airline specific. Not mandated by FAA etc. I think it also depends how often your airline loads passengers at D1L. In my experience D2L is the preferred option when only one airbridge is available. It's a matter of risk, there have been several incidents quite recently of pax and crew falling down the hatch injuring themselves and the poor unsuspecting engineer below.
The age of litigation.
