Food trolleys
 

Earlier today I saw a single cabin crew person pull with one hand (gripping the seats as he went along with the other hand) a food trolley on a LCC from the middle of a 738 to the front of the aircraft while the aircraft was in a slight climb.
He seemed to find the trolley heavy and it looked like he was struggling a bit

Do trolleys ever get let loose accidentally in 30+ seat rows aircraft ? Any horror stories when the trolley stops running loose and hit something ?

Bar carts can be extremely heavy and is great exercise for your legs when pulling one up the cabin whilst still climbing.

Runaway trolleys, whilst very occasionally happens, it's extremely rare.

did you by chance study statistics in school? :)

Being in claims, I see trolley "injuries" every day, however they are of the controlled movement, bumped my knee- but -I-can't -continue -working-as- a-knee- model- variety. I would imagine a runaway trolley would cause a enterprising passenger to leap from his/her seat and allow his/herself to be pummeled by the trolley, and lay there writhing in "pain" until landing. Then he/she would limp to customer service and file a claim for thousands, while threatening legal action. This is how in goes in America, in my neck of the woods, at least.

The bar carts have got brakes, red and green foot pedals for 'stop" and "go", I personally have known of the odd escapee and it's not something to be stood in the way of as it hurtles it's way to it's fellow bar carts in the rear galley.

Best fun though was, on a positioning flight, getting two of the service trays beneath one's feet and skiing down the aisle after take off ... but, if one doesn't get it right, it hurts when one arrives in the rear galley at a fast rate of knots :)

It should have been pushed not pulled.

Carts (as crew call them) have in the past come out of stowage, usually on take-off and usually after rotation. They have damaged both people and equipment/furnishings

One of the carts from an unsecured rear galley ended up on the centre console of the flight deck at my old airline. Quite a lot of damage including to the roof of the cabin and a pilot's broken wrist.

Some bar carts are very heavy, 40 Kgs or so and require a fair bit of effort to get up hill or strength to prevent them from going down hill. Which is why we keep the deck angle to less than 10 degrees when the cabin crew may be out with their trollies. And loose carts do cause very unpleasant injuries. Reasons for them becoming loose include faulty or non-applied brakes, extreme deck angles, poor stowage and loss of control (small CA, big cart).

Superb. :D:D

No trolleys...
 

Travelled Thai Bangkok to Frankfurt a few weeks ago. A380 business class,
seemed to be brand new & a bit different to others of theirs. No trolley service at all, just cabin staff back & forth taking orders. Meant that meal service took ages.
Also meant took ages to get my head down. I'd rather have a few quick drinks
and then sleep.

On the subject of galley carts; why do airlines take such care about presentation of the cabin, then bring your food down the aisle in a mangey dirty cart that looks like it has been roughly bashed in to shape after rescue from a rubbish tip. And next time you board through a galley, look at the state of the catering boxes in the galley stowages.

I did read on that happening with a bar cart on a flight to Scotland. Full bar cart got loose and ran down the length of the aircraft - empty by the time it hit the end

Two cart incidents during many years of flying as SLF


Once (early 1970,s in 707) watched a trolley take off vertically complete with Cabin crew during unannounced and presumably unforeseen CAT which landed on a seat, fortunately unoccupied, although it did break the arm of the passenger in adjacent seat. The cart was being used to clear meal service so presumably a little lighter than normal. There were a number of other flying people and objects in the incident which were "broken" but we carried onto Paris anyway !
Have only seen one runaway cart incident and that was on Kenyan Airline, and I think the break was not fully applied, as it shot off to meet its friend in the galley half way down the A/C accompanied by some vocal Swahili.

Hah! Very droll!

Good reminder to keep knees from projecting into aisle.

I went back to make the coffee and the b*****s pushed a zero g bunt :*:E