Cockpit visits

[GOH]

Hi Guys,

Recently I travelled Long Haul from Perth-Dublin. On all flights I asked if it was possible to go to the cockpit for a visit. I am 15, they all told me it was company policy not to let ANYONE to visit the cockpit.

Pilots, Would you allow people to visit or do you think it is too dangerous, also do you comply with "company policy"?

Has this happened to anyone?

Thanks

BTW, I flew Qantas and Aer Lingus in July.

[Electric Sky]

I don't do long haul but our company is bound by a directive introduced by the UK CAA that the flightdeck is out of bounds to everyone except personnel that have a genuine operational reason for being there. Not even staff going on holidays are permitted.

On the shorthauls sadly we are forbidden to allow passengers into the flightdeck. I don't know of anyone that breaks the directive as

a) rules, particularly in aviation are not to be broken and
b) there are too many wanabee journalists waiting to sell the earthbreaking story to the papers that a 5 year old child was allowed up to the flightdeck on their flight yesterday and all the passengers panicked and thought they were being hijacked!!!

It's sad as it was a great to interact with the pax and when I was younger I used to love to go up to the flightdeck but this is 2002 and the world we live in today.

ES ;)

[GOH]

Thanks ES! This is my second post and I am learning!!

[cabbott1]

It's such a shame that Cockpit visits have stopped. I have to say i have learned lots from my cockpit visits. Pilots were nice and took time to explain things and i enjoyed that.

I was talking recently with a guy who fly's for SN, he told me he got hooked on flying when he had his first cockpit visit at 14. He said its was that sort of great opportunity that would make tomorrows pilots.

We also commented on Airports which closed observation decks. As a kid I was lucky, me and my mates would always go out to Edinburgh Airport on Sunday afternoons to watch the planes, we got hooked! In fact we were not the only ones, Mums and Dad's would bring the kids out for ice cream, even well-wishers would stay extra time watching aircraft. 2 of my fellow watchers got hooked and now they fly around in B737 aircraft. They closed the Edinburgh observation deck back in the late 90's and I believe most other airport's around the UK have semi-closed or closed decks. A shame again for tomorrows pilots but hey! we can always make our kids watch Discovery Wings! How things have changed...

[IcePack]

Quite agree it is a shame.
I used to visit the flt deck in BOAC days back from Nairobi after hols in the 50's & decided at the age of 8 that was the job for me.
Well 15000 hours latter I find it now such a shame that interested youngsters can not see what it is all about.
Mind you I hated the time wasters,

[Agaricus bisporus]

The ban on flight deck visits is one of the most retrograde steps this industry (or the numpties in government) have ever made.

It prevents all interested/nervous pax from seeing and hearing how things actually happen. Now due to the blanket ban on visits the nervous (who we regularly re-assured) and the kids who would eventually have become our colleagues are excluded. So what progress for the future of happier pax or the enthusiasm of new recruits to the industry?

Answer; None.

And for why? Frankly, for no reason at all.

Except to preserve the egos and pensions of the oxygen thieves in government/the CAA that make up (invent) fatuous rules just for the sake of it.

OK, they say locked doors and no pax visits prevents hijacks. I say bollocks. Utter bollocks.

When the cabin crew want to come in they merely ask on the intercom (often at a very inconvenient, sometimes hazardous time) if we can unlock the door. Where is the security in that, you security boffins? F*****g nowhere, thats where. No way of telling if the poor girl had a knife to her throat, no checks at all. Utterly pointless. All of it. Just what is the point of making rules that cannot, that are unable to, resolve the problem they are intended to solve? People who impose such pointless regulations do not deserve to draw their pensions. If we in the sharp end of the indusrty made such fatuous decisions we'd either kill hundreds of people at a time or be (rightly) sacked before we got the chance.

The butchers on Sept 11 did not even ask to visit the flight deck, did they? The loony who attacked the crew on the BA flight to Nairobi waited until one of the flight deck went to the toilet. So on what basis does the lockng of the door make life safer?

It does not.

It cannot.

It is utterly pointless in terms of security and counterproductive in terms of customer relations.

I suggest it's only raison d'etre is to justify the existance of a bunch of non-productive civil servants and to ensure the continuation of their vastly expensive pensions when in reality the whole system would run as safe and far cheaper without them.

[A and C]

I could not have put it better myself.

[silverhawk]

AB
well said.

the kneejerk reaction does nothing to improve security and adds a barrier between flightdeck and cabin crew.

Any ideas on how to overturn such a ridiculous ruling?

[Crossunder]

Hi guys! Didn't know things were that extreme over there. The CAA actually produced a directive restricting flight deck access?
Jeez! Makes me kinda glad that my company has a policy of leaving the door open and actually encouraging the pax to come visit the flight deck...

My condolances to you.

[Eboy]

I was about 10 when my grandfather got me into the control tower in Moline, Illinois (Quad Cities) to view the operations there. (He just picked up the intercom phone outside the locked door and asked!) It is still a vivid memory decades later. No more, I sadly assume.

[AMEX]

Very sad indeed. I remember the magic surrounding an airport, its planes and its people...

As for the Control Tower I don't know but If that's the case (so far I haven't had any problem so I doubt it is) ll be interested to see the CAA/FAA ideas about how one would do to fly a Tower ???:p
Mind you I have never really tried so....;)

[Wedge]

Yes well said Agaricus. Immediately after 9/11 I knew flight deck visits would stop but I hoped that the knee-jerk reaction would fade and they would become possible again. Sadly now with the CAA directive that possibility looks even further away.

I have had some fantastic experiences on the flight deck thanks to pilots who are genuinely interested in providing the opportunity to wannabes and those just curious to see how it all works. I remember them all very well........taking off from LHR on a clear night with the spectacular sight of the runway lights, landing on the 28 ILS at London City in rain, and even being allowed to sit in the LHS at FL350 somewhere over northern Spain. As someone who has had to shelve flying ambitions for the moment they were an unforgettable glimpse of what it is really like at the sharp end.

All the points have already been made, the CAA directive is completely unecessary but in the interests of the industry I have to say I can see why it has been made, because although it is quite true that they will do nothing to prevent hijacks, the CAA will say that they 'did all they could', and that would be their defence in any court action that could arise in the litigeous, compensation culture age. I have read pilots here who have argued that visitors should not be allowed up front - but I find the vast majority do not concur. At any rate there is a strong argument that goes allowing visits actually makes flying safer - it breaks the monotony for the pilots and makes them more alert and aware of what is going on around them, not to mention the benefits of having another set of (well informed) eyes on the flight deck.

Flight deck visits have been banned for years in America, and that did sod all to prevent 9/11. As said above, sadly, this is the world we live in.

Crossunder, can I ask the nationality of your airline? Does anyone know which countries do still allow flight deck visits?

I agree about the press as well. I was disgusted to read a front page story about a journalist who was allowed on tho the flight deck of a Ryanair flight - a so called 'serious breach' of security by pilots who had been persuaded by deception to allow who they thought was an interested pax up front. Turned out to be some blood-sucking journo trying to impress his editor with a big (non) story. Prick.