enforcement of seat belts when "buckle up" sign is on?
 

As a fairly regular pax flyer it still amazes me about the the total disregard on some routes of pax when the fasten seat belt sign is on and more worrying the total apathy of some CC under such conditions . A total disregard to the safety of other passengers and in my humble opinion seems to be on the increase, perhaps more specifically with some carriers.

Having just completed 4 sectors with a well known middle eastern carrier I must say I was slightly alarmed that on each sector (yes each sector) pax were either wandering around the cabin and potentially worse, opening an overhead locker without any visible intervention from CC when the fasten seat belt light was on.

Is this now the norm with some "reputable" carriers?.

It seems that with some airlines, the seat belt sign seems to be overused, and as a consequence, is ignored when there is no turbulence.
I'm talking about more than an hour of the sign being on with no turbulence being experienced during a majority of that time.
Sometimes I wonder if they have forgotten to turn it off or maybe they are just playing it safe.

My opinion is that there are too many signs/signals to pax saying when its ok to unfasten and fasten, ie: crew walking around and moving carts while sign is on but signal has been given to crew to move around but pax stay seated? Would it be more enforceable to pax or mean more if both pax & crew were seated at the same time?

I'v done a lot of flying as SLF recently and I've noticed this too. At one point on a 8 hour flight across the pond we did have some major turbulence, but the seatbelt sign was left on for the remainder of the flight, about 5 hours.. After a sleep I woke up and wanted to use the toilet, in my sleepy state and on seeing at least 4 pax lining up for the restroom I didn't notice the seatbelt sign was on until I was half war through econemy class.

A lot of passengers don't care and as do any of the CC.

Why not take a look at the SLF forum there is a well established thread on this subject :ok:

Just to let you know there are many many pax who choose to ignore repeated PA's,visual signs and direct instructions to safeguard their and others safety.....their choice.

Once the PA's have been made, the visual signs have been switched on and the CC's have done their visual checks if these people choose to ignore us that is their problem when they get injured.....no company will pay out to SLF who ignore the safety instructions given by the CC on behalf of the Captain.

These people will never learn until they get injured by turbulence and it does happen. I just feel sorry if they become the instrument that injures other more sensible pax who remain seated.

It's not that CC don't care but there is only so many times you can hit your head against a brick wall and get ignored......

Personally I feel that carriers should take a much tougher line against pax who ignore the "fasten seatbelt sign" as this is a command instruction. I don't think this will ever happen.

Having said that in a situation where the belts are on for 5 hours there needs to be a way of managing loo trips which should be discussed with the Captain and communicated to the pax......having a queue of prospective falling objects onto other pax is not acceptable.

I always felt that many of the US carriers were a lot more prone to the use of the seat-belt sign that European carriers. The likes of BA seem to encourage pax to walk about the cabin within reason [as per their 'well-being' programme] whereas US carriers seemed to prefer the pax to remain seated at all times. [OK, I know this is a purely subjective view]