Inconsistent safety rules?

[iansmith]

I flew MAN-DBX-PER last week on Emirates and was intrigued by the different approach to the usual take-off/landing checks carried out by CC on SLF.

Emirates:

No requirement for SLF to remove headphones while taxying, during take-off or during landing. Many SLF were watching films on the rather excellent VoD system during all these periods. Many headphones were noise-cancelling and therefore "an electronic device" which should fall into the "turn all devices off" category. I'm not sure how much situational awareness the SLF would have in the event of an incident.

During landing, the first CC announcement to the SLF, before turning off the runway, was "you may now use your mobile phones"

BA:

None of the above. No headphones, no mobile phones until doors open (actually I think BA say "until in the lounge").


I am not questioning the relative risks of these activities (that would trigger a more extensive debate) but the inconsistency.

One of the Emirates legs was on a 777 of similar type to my regular BA flights (except the Emirates configuration was a rather cramped 3-4-3 seating arrangement) so I can't see the aircraft type being the variable.

[apaddyinuk]

It is all down to each individual airlines SOP's. For example, on Aer Lingus you cannot use ANY device which can receive or send signals including blackberrys!!! Now on BA you can once airborne.

I worked for Qatar before coming to BA and the safety could not be more different. However (and I do not mean this in a discriminative way) the chances of the majority of passengers on a Qatar aircraft being able to understand the commands being shouted at them by a chorus of different accents and levels of english fluency by Qatar crew would negate the requirement of not being allowed wear headsets on take off and approach! LOL!

Now back to BA. We did not have the rule about headsets until about 2 years ago. It was around this time that BA introduced the noise cancelling headsets into the premium cabins and as a result the need for these particular head sets to be not worn during critical stages of flight arose.

I also would not be too worried about the passengers situational awareness when listening to IFE programmes as at the end of the day if an evacuation or such was initiated the IFE would immediately cut out, slightly different if you were listening to your own ipod.

[iansmith]

Thanks for the quick answer and the view from "inside".

I had the same feeling about the mix of language abilities across crew and passengers so it wasn't a comment about the effective difference in safety just about the difference in procedures between airlines (which you addressed).

Now if I was really worried about the safety briefing and equipment I'd ask why they don't swap life jackets out for smoke hoods :-) but that's another question for another thread and another day (and I do have some ideas from a passenger psychology perspective as to why they are not fitted)

[SNS3Guppy]

It's not inconsistency until it occurs on the same airline, and then only when it's not in harmony with the company policy.

[NZScion]

Are cabin PAs broadcast also through the headphones of pax? If I recall correctly, movies are paused and audio muted to ensure everyone hears.

[Final 3 Greens]

It's not inconsistency until it occurs on the same airline, and then only when it's not in harmony with the company policy.

I think you have your perspective a little out of tune with the OP Guppy.

There is a clear inconsistency between BA and EK in this respect and I have also noted this when travelling many hours on both.

However, ApaddyintheUK sums it up nicely by referring to the different SOPs of different airlines.

If we consider the classic risk evaluation model, it considers the probability of an event versus the severity and then assigns a priority/grade for a suitable response.

As the responsible managers in different airlines no doubt have differing views on the priority/grade of the risks and the most effective response, we get differing SOPs.

This will create inconsistencies between airlines in the way they operate, but the most important aspect is that companies like BA and EK have very good safety records - so rather than worrying about the inconsistencies experienced, the bigger picture is the overall effectiveness of the safety based approach of the major airlines