Same in my company, by the way. Cabin crew reporting pilots is the major threat nowadays.

Now many will agree with me that this "reporting culture" does come from UK/USA/Aus/NZ/Irl world, as it has been ingrained in them since childhood and kindergarten .... and that's one of the reason I would never set up in these countries, especially as I would not want my children to become one of them.

Bus driver, you even complained that security is not good enough in UK because you brought yoghurts through ? so you somewhat agree with them, and consider their current delirium is not enough ? you wan t it to be worse ?

No I did not complain that I got trough security with youghurt, and I find it equally ridiculous that we are not allowed our own liquid/ drinks.

I believe that even USA they allow you this.

Regarding reporting culture, I have myself experienced some of that but based on things written on Pprune, and I find that those colleagues, which must have been pilots, must be the lowest of the low to out somebody for their written words on Pprune.

One of the reasons I hardly spend any time on Pprune anymore, as you don’t know who is out there ready to stab you in the back.

Myself as a kid I was allowed to visit cockpit during flight and was a great experience, and I would have loved to been able to have my children with me too from time to time, but would it have distracted me? I think so.

The whole security of UK and USA is a different subject, this is about who you allow in the cockpit during flight.

And I believed there was a universal agreement after 9-11, that you could not bring passengers on flight deck.
I believe this is the policy of most airlines, their SOP.

You have the Argentinian pilots who got fired because they had some famous lady with them few years ago, so it’s not special for UK/ USA.

Regarding reporting of such incidents if yourself are involved, your fellow crew member would have put you in a very ackward situation, as in many companies would be considered a very serious SOP breach.
You don’t know who is on board etc, and if other cabin crew would report it, failing to report such an SOP breach would be quite serious with the company in my opinion.

BusAirDriver, No anti UK or USA sentiment on my part. Just saying that many countries continue to be a lot more pragmatic on the subject. Passengers visiting the FD has resulted in no accidents. Letting kids sit in the pilot's seat and touch the controls has. Terrorist actions have. to my knowledge, resulted from forced entry into the FD (before locked doors). There have been the odd incident/accident attributed to a current or former company employer riding jump seat. However, there have been no more, indeed fewer, of those type of incidents then, for example, a member of the active crew committing suicide with a plane load of passengers!

I believe that was left to individual nations to regulate as they saw fit. Consequently, and I know this for a fact, there are still pleanty of airlines which do allow FD visits subject to certain criteria being met.

On the subject of “reporting culture” one glance at that paragon of virtue “Mumsnet” will show that many curtain twitchers first question is “who should I report this too”...such is the world we live on.... so the idea that a commander can self regulate on this and get away with ad hoc passengers visits at his or her discretion is naive..

Which sums it up and is probably all that needs said on the subject...

I’m afraid BusAirDriver is clearly not familiar with what is allowed (SOP’s are not relevant) in most European airlines. I’ll not mention the airlines or countries concerned but it is important to understand that rules restricting access are set nationally. Airlines themselves can be more restrictive but generally choose not to be. But rather unusually in today’s climate, most European airlines delegate the final access decisions to the crew on the day provided they comply with company policy as described in their Part A’s.

With regard to reporting I don’t care. I’m paid to follow the rules, no matter how absurd or irrelevant. I also try to create an environment in which any member of the crew can tell me if I’m doing something wrong. With this in mind I’ll get really upset if a muppet attempts to dob me after the event when they could and should have told me on the day. Fortunately my colleagues, almost to a person, agree with this way of doing business. Also, busting SOP’s is relatively small beer. The big “crimes” are busting the black letter rules in the Operations Manuals, mainly Part A, without good reason.

I’m also sceptical about references to the Russian Airbus, this I think was a one-off. The most dangerous people are the pilots. Besides, we are not talking about letting passengers fly, we are talking letting guests sit on the cockpit jumpseat/s. And while we are here, let’s think about the rogue elements amongst the flight crew. Having another person in the flight deck makes it less likely for one of the crew to do something unpleasant if for no other reason than the odds are less favourable. So let’s have some worthwhile facts please.

Lastly, if you did make it through security with prohibited items this should have been reported. If you think that we should stick to the UK’s ridiculous rules you should be helping the system by pointing out their oversights.

PM

BusAirDriver, the USA had a no passengers on the flight deck rule long before 9-11. Other nations only changed their rules after the events of that day.

I was very lucky a few times, before 9-11, to be granted jumpseat in the cockpit on various US legacy carriers, on a full flight. I had my FAA license, even though I flew for a major Canadian carrier.
Once , going into ORD in the jumpseat, of a MD-80 the rather flustered F/O got on the wrong frequency. A few seconds of radio silence ensued (!!) in some of the busiest airspace in America. I did YUL to ORD often, so finally I piped up, "try 119.2" . We had an immediate response from Chicago TRACON.

Anyway, now as a retired Captain, with 30 Years of service, I can't even enter the cockpit of our own aircraft, once the flight has begun..

Wot he said, with knobs on.

I have flown on the jump seat of an AF 777 about two years ago. I was flying as pax and happened to bump into my neighbour during boarding who was flying as Commandant. He invited me to cockpit - I was very surprised - but he insisted it was fine.

This is an interesting subject, in the UK after the 'Pablo Mason' incident I think few would take the risk as Pablo did.

Things have gone from one extreme in the 1990, when pax though it was part of the deal to visit the flightdeck, but these days it concerns me how difficult it may be for legitimate people to experience a jumpseat flight as part of thier training, such as ATC cadets, meteorolgists, aircraft engineers and research scientists. The later I mention because their are number scientists in Europe who are studying the feasabilty of single crew airline operation, I can not imagine the have had the jumpseat experience.

My other thoughts on pax visitors to the flightdeck is that it should even be allowed on the ground, as happened after the olympics. Some will disagree with me, I say that as you do not want people touching switches or resetting things. The flightdeck should be treated as a 'sterile' area.

I brought my wife once in a nuclear submarine, another couple of time to the OPS room as I was on duty there, I also put my parents and children a couple of times in single-seat fighter cockpits, also on the bridge of numerous fregates ... and nobody will convince me that an airliner flight deck with two ILS, two VHF and a gear lever along with a fire extinguisher deserves more respect ...

Ah! I stand corrected:O

My son, who is FO for a well-known airline, allowed his mum and me on the flight deck after landing and shutdown at Arrecife. (with the captain's permission of course) as it was our 26th wedding anniversary and he flew the outbound sector. Before posing for the statutory photograph he said: "Dad for goodness sake don't touch anything...". And me a PPL:=

It’s (still) my call. My kids. Friends. Non rev staff on full flights. PPL holders. People interested in flying. People scared of flying. The odd full fare pax on overbooked flights.
Kids and parents visiting enroute.
Not a UK or US airline.

Can’t be allowed any more..

sure it’s my dad he’s a pilot.. that’s fine.
Then aunt Enid says can your cousin sit up there.. etc etc. I’m not saying any pilot won’t draw a line in the sand., but peer pressure , family pressure birthdays et al.. it’s all the thin end of a wedge that these days is unacceptable ..

Just because the rest of the world is paranoid, it doesn’t mean I have to be.

Flew many times on the jumpseat with my old man as a skipper. I was a kid and now it is really sad that I cannot get him a jumpseat ride with me at the helm.

Good to know that there are airlines that still regards their captains as Captains. I could understand these restrictions as a panicked reaction post 9/11 but nowadays I personally fail to see their relation with aviation security.

We, as flight crews, have been progressively stripped of authority. Time to say "enough" maybe?

Yes, it was good in the pre-9/11 days. All sorts of people coming up. Had a chap once who had flown Wellingtons; fascinating. PPLs, youngsters, some well-known people. It added a little variety to the long cruise period. But, all good things come to an end.

Most vivid memory was as a nine year old being transfixed by the colour radar on an Air Europe 732 to the Balearics (late '79) ... it was like being on a spaceship, I'd never seen anything so amazing in my short life, couldn't take my eyes off it.

Yes, sad that things have come to an end, but without those visits not sure I would have had a career in aviation.

Personally known to the Captain - no issue for me and important to retain.
Hypocrisy abounds when arguments to the contrary see Cpt's regularly asked to take an unknown engineer or new flight planner on a family - but approved by DFO... - no comment.

I do accept personal positions of some Cpt not to accept as a rule - there is certainly a threat of distraction if not very careful. At the very least.