seat belt off during taxi
 

I once had a jetblue captain switch off the seatbelt sign during an hour taxi out so that pax could go to the toilet and crew serve some drinks.
what do you think about this kind of practice.

Seat belt signs OFF during taxi.
 

I see no problem with this even if the A/C is taxiing very slowly. I once allowed passengers to leave their seats to use the toilets during a very very long taxi although I left the seat belt signs on and asked passengers to expedite.

One hour taxi sounds like jfk. You spend morse of it with the parking brake set. What's the problem?

The next 3 hours taxing around JFK!

Ooohhh shock horror......someone used common sense...:eek:

I think this is a very selective procedure which involves just more than assessing long taxi.

As much I love to comfort the pax, I also think with the current world affairs, where anything can go wrong the smart pax won't hesitate to sue the airline and take that opportunity if an incident occurs on board primarily because seat belts off is not a part of the procedure to begin with.

The heightened security measures taken by various agencies is a sign of how aviation is under threats. Any suspicious activity will go undetected in such a seat belt off scenario.
I hope The captain who probably switched off the seat belts must have been really really aware of the profile of passengers he is dealing with.

I would rather have seat belts ON and with a PA ensure, pax are allowed to go to the restroom, and crew is aware of the pax leaving seats.

Specific to wide body and full flights, dealing with 300+ pax in a seat belt off situation, can be tricky I can only hope that the clueless pax returns to the seat on time, esp after seat belt being put to ON WELL IN TIME BY PILOT.

The seat belt ON is the only legal thing which can keep a pilots tail 'clear' in situations described above.

MD83FO:

Not on the taxiway. Never.

Having said that if we were told to park it in the "run-up" for a long delay and engine shutdown was okay with ATC, then we would turn off the seat belt sign after explaining the situation to the pax.

Turn it off: It's on you!
Leave it on: It's on them!

Simple...

I'm with ACMS. Apply common sense at all times. However, you have to be able to do this with the assistance of cabin crew. They will have to re-check that the aircraft is secure for take-off. On a small aircraft, a 'comfort stop' might only take a few minutes but on a large aircraft it might take some time, more than you really want to spend.

And Agg_karan's, I afraid your problem passengers won't be deterred by a little seat belt sign. If they are already on board, your goose is cooked. And regarding covering yourself, I'd look for a different employer or a stronger union. We are always responsible, whether we do it by the book or apply common sense.