Pax in cockpit during flight
 

I recently saw a post on Facebook, a friend of a friend, showing photos and text written that implied he was a passenger sitting on the jumpseat on arrival at Barcelona.

I am just wondering what is the policies for Spanish airlines on this? Companies like Vueling, Iberia and Air Europe?

I would have thought this would have be a no go.

Company pilot / cc traveling off duty?

Or a Jumpseater? I don't know if it's the same for Spain and/or EU but in the US I can ride in the cockpit jumpseat of another airline (with proper identification and employment verification, of course.)

Near impossible in Europe these days.

Is it? That's a shame. Well on-line deadheading aircrew or cabin crew is still a possible explanation.

Air France... at 6:00

World's Gone Mad.

The Bad Boys will do precisely what they want to do precisely when they want to do it, for a start, just what is the point of making legitimate crew - which can be ascertained - jump through the present line of stupid hoops, then give them a multi million dollar flying bomb that they can spear into the nearest Alp, and also sit on a flight deck seat with an emergency fire / evacuation axe to hand ?

Note this person would not have been airline crew, it seems he was just an ordinary passenger.

In quite some Airlines, it is the PIC decision whom to allow on the flightdeck during flight. All allowed by the authorities and is completely safe.
Note that this severely restricted when flying into the US and UK 🙄

Oh and by the way, I an quite happy that I can still take my 15 year old son with me on the flight deck jump seat. Because I am the commander. As long as it is not to/from the US or UK. (European legacy carrier)

Some people are very surprised that some people (not everyone!) who are not crew can still be the cockpit during flight. Why is that so strange? Let’s go back to basics. We are trying to stop the bad guys. I don’t know who the bad guys are but I know it’s not my immediate family or my friends. I also know my colleagues pretty well. So I do not have problem with people who might be described as passengers in the flight deck. What I do have a problem with are the pathetic rules imposed in the name of security in the UK. For example, as along as I don’t have a yoghurt or a pointy stick I can get airside in Britain and take a fully fuelled plane full of passengers anywhere I wish. Not at many airports in Spain or Italy though. They don’t really care what I’m carrying but they do want to know I’m a member of the crew and expect me to be there at a certain time. Also, the UK’s post 9/11 reaction was to prohibit aircraft from overflying nuclear power stations. To make sure that could be done, they published the precise location of each one. That would save a lot of FMS programming! Unfortunately ridiculous, ill-considered rules are shoved into Ops manual by myopic clowns in the UK CAA and people believe that this serves some purpose. I’d suggest that the people who need to get a grip are those who think these rules have any value whatsoever.

As for the OP’s initial question; unless you know the crew very well, PAX in the flighdeck is permitted in OPs manual, the flight is it not on a UK or Irish airline, the flight is not to or from the UK or USA and a variety of other hoops and hurdles are cleared, access is most unlikely.

PM

ps. It entirely legitimate to point out dreadful flaws in security. The CAA winge and whine about not discussing security in public but miserably fail to close the gaping hole in their security procedures imposed on us that are meant to be for the good of all. Let’s have proper security and not the box ticking or the pathetic pantomime that is expensively performed at every airport every day.

I was a pax once on a Spanish domestic flight with Spanair some years ago. The F/O’s jumpseating kid was in out out of the Flightdeck so many times, I thought it was a playground. The distractions of a badly behaved 10 year old in the Flightdeck are potentially dangerous imho, let alone Joe Public.

This is yet another boring subject which pops up from time to time on this forum. Because this forum is predominantly read by Brits and Americans they base their opinions on the very strict rules applied by Britain and the USA. I have mentioned several times before that there are many nations around the globe that do not promote such draconian regulations on their aircrew, with the exception of when they are flying to the USA. It is certainly not uncommon to see "passengers" on the FD of many non-British/American carriers in European skies. Generally these will be persons that are either personally known to a crew member or who may have professional aviation credentials. It is left at the Captain's discretion, as was always the case in the past. I have made several FD visits and landings on European carriers in the past 10 years. They are not breaking any individual company SOPs/rules by doing so. In answer to the OP's question I can say that it is definitely par for the course on most Spanish carriers, as it is with many from other countries too. They do however respect and enforce regulations set by the USA when in their airspace for instance.

:rolleyes::rolleyes:

After I achieved my Command I managed to get a trip in which my father was a passenger. He was retired after 49 years in aviation, from an apprentice engineer to a Training Captain and eventually Chief of Air Accident Investigation. Could he join his son on the flight deck - NO! UK rules AGH............

No it's not if you are a company FO or Capt; deadheading and in uniform.

His comment was in reference to off-line jumpseating.

If I allowed my retired pilot father to jumpseat one of my flights without asking for permission, I would certainly be looking for another job shortly afterwards. Somebody, passenger or crew would undoubtedly report it (don't get hung up on comradery in my airline, it's just certainty that somebody would report it). I don't necessarily agree with the rules, but in my UK airline that is what would happen.

Some comments here are interesting, as it’s in the interest of safety.

It seems to be a big anti UK and USA sentiment here on the security issues. In some cases I can understand the frustration of this.

However we have the Russian kid in the cockpit crash and we have the missing MH370.

It’s important here not mixing up airline crew and ordinary passengers.
SOPs from ALL companies I have knowledge of would not allow any passengers without prior approval of management in the cockpit.
I was just curious in this, apparently it’s. It just UK and USA where accidents happen.

Btw I managed to bring several youghurts with me trough UK security without an issue. I also agree that some of the rules can seem draconian, however I am not convinced letting a passenger into the flight deck is one of them, as history has shown us.

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.