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Flight Attendants Want Stricter Gadget Rules Reinstated
stephendavion writes You might be super happy to toil away on your phone or tablet the entire time you're on a plane, but not everyone is pleased to see your face buried in your device during takeoff and landing. The Federal Aviation Administration's new, more relaxed rules on gadget use aren't sitting well with one group — flight attendants. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the nation's largest flight attendant union is now suing the FAA to have the ban on gadget use during takeoff and landing reinstated. The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA argues that the change has caused many passengers to ignore flight attendants' emergency announcements, and that the new rules violate federal regulations requiring passengers to stow all items during takeoff and landing.
People don't listen to that preflight announcement stuff because they've heard it a hundred times before. People who've flown even a couple of times before don't need to listen. People who are on their first flight, where it's all new and exciting are paying attention.
So, no - I know how to wear a seatbelt and that my seat cushion can be used as a floatation device and to check where the nearest exit row is...yadda yadda yadda. I can stick my nose into my phone and I won't miss anything important.
What's needed is either to make those instructions INTERESTING (like the Southwest Airlines people often do) - or to only give the routine instructions to people who need it. That way, when something truly important comes up, people will pay attention.
www.sjbaker.org
they are just a bit lonely...
...because we've seen their act too many times, and pretty much everything except the location of the doors is common sense in the first place.
Anyone who can't figure that stuff out is probably traveling with an adult to handle the actual decisions.
Virgin Airlines has a video instead of flight attendants do the safety spiel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtyfiPIHsIg
Time for other airlines to get with the times.
Typical of Air Canada, if you're not listening, they become surly... So they want you to listen. But you have to listen twice, both in english and in french... God help you if you should tune out while they're going through the whole spiel in a language you don't understand...
Westjet has a video for the french half and could seemingly care less if you're paying attention. The english half is occasionally made interesting with the injection of humor...
Exactly. I've been flying for most of my 37 year life, and I've heard the safety bit so many times I could practically give it myself. Seatbelts aren't exactly rocket science, and it takes me all of two seconds to remember where the exits are and where any floatation device might be on a given class of aircraft. THAT's why I'm not paying attention.
I am sure there will be at least one idiot who instead of running will try to post cool picture of flaming aircraft to facebook.
Thanks God we have flight attendants taking care of our self...
What if the passenger doesn't care about it's OWN safety? Let him ignore the safety instructions, it's his own decision! FAA and/or the flight attendants are not our mothers..
That is, people have the right to ignore the safety lecture, especially considering it is the exact same thing EVERY single flight.
You want people to actually listen to it? Fine. Put a machine in the waiting area and require people to enter the machine and listen to the speech for 30 seconds, before being given a 'boarding order.'.
But these complaints are just silly.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Why were books, magazines and newspapers never banned before? They're just as much of a distraction (at least, they used to be until smartphones took over). Heck, they give away magazines in every seat pocket.
I flew recently, and the crew was saying how much they loved not having to fight everybody to turn off their devices.
Southwest might be a bit friendlier than most others, though.
"In case of fire, exit plane BEFORE tweeting about it."
.... because we all paid so much attention before they "let" us use our devices.
I do high performance driver education events, and you're required to empty the car of everything not bolted down to it - everything comes out and goes into a box that you leave in the pits. Video cameras have to be tethered (because tripod mounts in traditional video camcorders are designed to break off if they're stressed too much.)
Anything not bolted down can become a projectile.
Lot of people don't think about this with their cars, but at least then, you're by and large only placing yourself, and a limited number of passengers who chose to ride with you, at risk.
Please help metamoderate.
Seriously - bring a package of cookies for the flight crew. The flight attendants will leave you alone except to check on you, and will probably sneak you a non-alcoholic treat at some point during the flight. And it's not a job that's appreciated terribly much - look at the comments in this thread, just for starters - so it goes a long way.
"...the nation's largest flight attendant union is now suing the FAA to have the ban on gadget use during takeoff and landing reinstated."
An excellent example of how unions supplant an eagerness of workers to meet customers wants and needs with an attitude of wanton truculence.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
You're ignoring the fact that a two minute talk isn't going to change the fact that people are going to panic and ignore all rationality when things go bad...
yvan eht nioj
There have already been a couple of instances of children being injured in car accidents --- what will be the rate of injury in an airliner crash?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
We were ignoring seat belt puppet show long before the FAA loosened restrictions on gadgets. Besides, if there ever actually was an accident, the chances of needing any of that safety equipment is pretty negligible. I don't think the little oxygen mask is going to be any match for blunt force trauma. At normal airliner speeds, the little mask would be wearing you for protection.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The Association of Flight Attendants-CWA argues that the change has caused many passengers to ignore flight attendants' emergency announcements, and that the new rules violate federal regulations requiring passengers to stow all items during takeoff and landing.
So many problems with this:
1) It's cute how they think people were paying attention before. The little song and dance number they do before every flight is a bureaucrat's dumb idea. Air travel is almost absurdly safe and the talk is a good approximation of useless. It's purely so that if the airline gets sued they have a defense and that isn't my problem.
2) There has never been a requirement that "all items" be stowed during takeoff and landing or if there actually was such a regulation it was never enforced before so it's unclear why it is now necessary. I've never been asked to put away a magazine or any number of other loose items during takeoff or landing.
3) Reading or playing with my tablet keeps what is already an uncomfortable and annoying experience within the bounds of tolerable. If they want to give me more leg room and a better seat then we can talk about when to allow my choice of entertainment.
I can't say there's much good about being a flight attendant.
It doesn't have that 1960s "Coffee, tea, or me?" glamour anymore. The airlines want to fuck them over on wages, work rules and pensions. The passengers aren't upper middle class people in suits and dresses, they're filled with slobs in flip-flops. Unless the flight goes extremely well without delays and problems, the coach section is a little like prison cell block, on the verge of riot at any moment.
Many passengers are openly spiteful of the airlines and their hidden fee pricing and boxcars-to-camp attitude towards passengers and they aren't afraid to take this out on flight attendants. With smartphones everywhere, they know they're only a few taps of a keyboard away from public humiliation via Twitter or Facebook, something the media LOVES to pile on with.
The whole constitution-free zone structure of airports doesn't help, either.
I would imagine they want these regulations restored not because their tired and half-hearted safety speech is ignored but because they want to regain leverage over passengers who are openly contemptible towards them.
Yes, but I doubt an FFA regulation will prevent that. Most people don't tend to follow the rules during an emergency anyway.
Problem solved
So I can not pay attention while listening to music vs. not paying attention while not listening to music. These flight attendants just want to still feel relevant.
Yep.
And speak clearly (sorry, it's not racist to suggest they do the announcements in clearly-understood language of the country they've landed in, are going to and - if possible - English).
And they should also be required to STOP the damn announcements about food, adverts, drinks, perfumes etc. that go on and on and on throughout the flight so I can concentrate and distinguish the safety announcement from actual non-important stuff.
That said, I stopped listening to safety announcements 15 years ago. They do nothing, on ships or planes. People still make the same mistakes. You want people to unbuckle the seatbelt first go? Make it like a car seat-belt. You want the lifejacket to work immediately with an incompetent user? Make it foolproof. Don't buy stuff that requires a ten-minute demo for me to understand it, counter to the entirety of the rest of my life's pursuits (nobody had to show me how to put on a car seat belt since I was a baby).
You want me to listen to you? Shut everything else up. Including yourself when I'm trying to sleep. The alternative is that I turn YOU off by plugging headphones in, falling asleep or just plain ignoring you.
I will pay an extra 20GBP per flight if I can be seated in a quiet section with people who've also paid the 20GBP and where we use the call-buttons if we actually WANT something, and other times we don't get disturbed. Hell, I'd pay 20GBP AND listen to your in-flight briefing if it would shut you up for the rest of the journey.
Since the rules were relaxed on electronic devices on planes it's been kind of nice not having to turn everything off - just put it in airplane mode. What I'm worried about is allowing the use of cellphones in flight. We have all heard about recent skirmishes on planes over people reclining seats. What do you think will happen if cellphones are able to be used for the whole flight? Guaranteed in flight fights.
I'm not sure whether or not the flight attendants are considering this in their dispute but for the sake of all of us I hope they do.
Back in the day, airlines provided us with food and entertainment. Arguably, it was lousy food and entertainment but it was supplied none the less. Now we have no choice but to bring our own. At the same time, we are not provided with more space to store things. Sure you can check your luggage but that is not a viable option for frequent flyers. So the premium on space is even greater now than it ever was. The goal is to get on the plane as early as possible and secure your space for your stuff.
If they were serious about everyone performing in an emergency, they'd ban the $6 alcoholic drinks and screen everyone for benzodiazepines or GABAergic drugs before they stepped on to the plane. Ask yourself (i) whether you'd want to live in a world where you couldn't knock yourself out on a 15-hour flight, and (ii) whether the extremely rare chance of being in an evacuation is worth that level of imposition on basic developer-society human rights (access to physical/mental health care, and the freedom to consume the food/plants of your choice)... and then we'll be in the right area of discussion.
Captcha: inhibits
What subset of flight attendants were pushing for this lawsuit? The crews on the flights that I have been on since the rule change have had no problem at all with the change. It makes their job easier.
Plane crashes, I will know. What about people that fall asleep? Are reading a book? Have ear plugs in? When I couldn't use my headphones I had earplugs in and read a book. I was much less aware than I am listening to music and looking at my phones.
These arguments are all absurd. There are only two groups of people that want the ban: people who rarely or never fly and fly attendants. Flight attendants just don't like the fact that it is much more obvious they are being ignored. It is a bit confusing though. I talk to flight attentands a couple of times a week and nearly all of them think the ban was stupid and lifting it was a good thing. So really this is about some curmudgeonly Luddite running the union.
The sky waitresses are on a power trip.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
I noticed that a lot of people are posting the fact that the FAs just want to keep their jobs or that they should stick to their primary job of serving drinks. I worked for an airline (in IT, not flight crew) and flew a lot, so I've talked to a bunch of FAs. Yes, they do appear to be serving drinks, but FAs are indeed there to keep order and for passenger safety. That role is just hidden until an emergency occurs. Sure, some of this might be a union thing, but the reality is that airlines are way beyond stingy and would have dropped FAs by now if they didn't provide the additional service of flight safety officers.
An example of this can be seen in a crash that happened in Toronto a few years back. After a normal landing. the plane ran off the runway and crashed into a ditch, starting a fire. Every passenger escaped within 2 minutes...before the plane was completely engulfed. The reports from the passengers credited the FAs for basically shoveling everyone out of the plane as quickly as possible.
So yes, they may appear to have an easy job and the profession seems to attract the young, unattached drifter type, but they're probably going to be the ones helping people in a crash or emergency while half the passengers are running around in circles screaming how they're going to die or livetweeting the accident.
They should have those rules written so ALL people on a plane have to follow those rules. Nothing like a flight attendant bitching at you for your device being out, only to see them texting during descent!
Not really. There is nothing really said in that speech that tells people not to do stupid things like inflating their vest at the wrong time. The point is that, suing the FAA for not requiring people to listen is pretty silly, as well. The large majority of those that aren't going to listen have already heard many times over. Those that have never flown and don't listen probably aren't bright enough to not do stupid things.
yvan eht nioj
My flying background must be showing. I always review the safety information card, confirm safety equipment in my vicinity, and, yes, I actually do pay attention to the safety briefing.
But that's just me.
...laura
One basis for the lawsuit is that the FAA did not follow the rules for changing its guidelines, because, for example, there was no public comment period before the change was made. Saying that the "new rules violate federal regulations requiring passengers to stow all items during takeoff and landing" is non-sensical because the new rules are federal regulations.
Note that this was a change in the rules for what the airlines can allow, not what the public can carry on and use on the airline. It does not give you the right to play Angry Birds during taxi; it allows the airline to verify you playing Angry Birds will not interfere with the operation of the aircraft and, if it doesn't, allow you to play Angry Birds during takeoff and landing.
Here is the FAA notice on expanded electronics use in case you want to read more about how the change was made and what the change was.
If the plane goes down in water your seat cushion will function as a suppository.
"Really? They think people will be too interested playing Fruit Loop, or whatever it's called, to bother attempting to escape from an flaming aircraft?"
Yes really. In 1980 in Las Vegas, Nevada, people were to interested in playing the slot machine in front of them to bother escaping from the MGM fire. Quite a few of them died.
I won't dispute your commitment to safety, but I really have a hard time believing that your union gives a rip about passenger safety. They may be concerned about your safety, your livelihood, your work-life balance (which they should be), but I really can't believe that they care about passenger safety except where it affects those things.
"During Pan Am’s heyday in the 1960s, there were strict requirements for stewardesses: They had to be at least 5-foot-2, weigh no more than 130 pounds, and retire by age 32. They couldn’t be married or have children, either. As a result, most women averaged just 18 months on the job."
No? Don't want to do that?
"In case of fire, exit plane BEFORE tweeting about it."
That's terrible advice. Those are exactly the people we want staying on the plane!
Those items are already expected to be stowed.
The electronic device rule implies that you do not have to stow the devices, hence their objection.
Please help metamoderate.
Your stuff stays stowed below 10,000 feet so you don't get tangled up in your earbuds, tablet, Ken Follet paper brick as your trying to exit the plane should the unthinkable happens.
It's not the safety drill that is the issue here.
Asking people to put their things away during take-off or landing makes complete sense, and anyone that doesn't want a broken phone or tablet or nose should be doing it anyway. The jolt can send devices flying out of people's hands (mostly on landing). People are not coordinated and will flail and drop things when off balance. I saw some woman smash the guy next to her in the face with her tablet during a 'rough' landing about a month ago. The guy handled it well and shrugged it off, but you always hear the horror stories about people being thrown off of planes and arrested after fights over far dumber things. Stopping things from flying around the cabin, hurting people or breaking things has always been the reason behind them asking you to stow your belongings during takeoff/landing. They don't want you having books, bags, or other large flat hard objects just loose in the cabin either. This really has little to do with being allowed to talk on your phones, or ignoring the safety speech and much more to do with common sense. Put the stuff away. You can take it out again 5 minutes later.
RTFA (or the summary.)
Those items are already expected to be stowed.
The electronic device rule implies that you do not have to stow the devices, hence their objection.
Please help metamoderate.
If the whole safety briefing section is just covered in a standard school course "Safety for Air Travel", then we could probably dispense with the safety briefing altogether (not like it's changed much, if at all in the last couple of decades).
-Know where the exits are and the shortest way to get to them
-Know where the safety equipment is, and basic usage
-Keep your seatbelt on unless moving around, even if the light is off.
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
Thank you.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
If the Flight attendants would actually apply the rule to EVERYONE and not just coach class.
Last flight I was on the complete dirtbag in first class was chatting away on his cellphone well after the cabin door was closed and we were rolling. They did not say a word to him, yet told the kid with his Kindle to put it away.
First class dirtbags that cant stop talking on their phones need to be smacked in the head, their toy taken from them, and then someone in Coach switches seats with them. They LOSE their first class seat but still pay for it for being a dirtbag.
Sadly these rich guys are all whiny babies and will complain instead of admitting they were being jerks.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
... to do all that pre-flight ignored nonsense before even boarding the plane, by video? Have it online when you buy a ticket. Have a kiosk at the airport for anyone who's still interested because they didn't buy their tickets online, haven't heard the same instructions enough times before to have it seared into their unconsciousness, or are just nervous flyers.
Maybe follow up with "If you'd like to know even more excruciating detail and see the scary pictures, check out the seat pocket in front of you, once you have boarded the plane and taken your seat. If you have further questions, please ask your flight attendants, who would be happy to show you how to buckle a seatbelt, explain what an "arrow" is, teach you how to read, etc."
I imagine that 12,000 years from now, when flights are routine between Earth and fully-terraformed Mars and up-and-comer Venus, there will still be an announcement that says "Please note that all flights on Morbo Express transportation, including interplanetary, are no-smoking. It is a violation of Federation law to punishable by being ejected into the cold vacuum of space to tamper with or destroy smoke detecting equipment in the lavatories. We care about your safety, but the cold vacuum of space does not." Even if no one has even tried to smoke on a plane in hundreds of generations. (The announcements on U.S. flights are so strange ... can't they just put a big "No smoking sign" on the entrance to the plane, and douse anyone who tries to light up? I am *not* saying I favor smoking on planes, I'm just saying the strange protocol about announcing it is bizarre and anachronistic. Matches and most* lighters are banned anyhow ;)) It would be like noting that hijacking is *still* illegal at the beginning of every flight.
* I think there are still some kinds of lighters you can bring on, like a zippo style with no fuel, but perhaps I'm way behind on that.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Some years back I had the pleasure of flying Qantas, the Australian airline. Since we left from LAX, we were subjected to the American routine anyhow. Despite already being a seasoned traveler, I clearly remember elements of the brief - because it was entertaining, not formulaic, and loaded with real useful information. For example, even though I am an aerospace engineer with Aviation Physiology training in a high altitude chamber for government test flights, this tidbit was news to me:
If you see those silly yellow masks fall down in front of your face, you may be tempted to help little Johnny put on his mask first. Here's the problem: we're cruising at 35,000 feet today. If the plane loses cabin pressure, you'll have about 12 seconds of useful consciousness left. Now how useful do you think you'll be to little Johnny if he's sitting there with his mask on and mom and dad are both unconscious? So do us all a favor. Be selfish. Put your own mask on first. Then you'll have plenty of oxygen to help the people around you wake up again from their little unexpected nap, just in time to enjoy the rest of the emergency.
Wow. I never knew that. I've NEVER forgotten it. Oh, and thanks, I don't need to hear it five or six times a year again to remember it either... so that's why I'm not paying strict attention...
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
I have to side with the flight attendants on this one. Takeoffs and landings are some of the riskier parts of the flight and passengers should be paying attention to the flight attendants, not have their nose buried in a smartphone or tablet. This is a safety issue which is of utmost importance, especially as more and more people are being crammed on a plane. If an emergency hits, the flight crew need the undivided attention of the passengers. I was not a fan of the FAA easing restrictions on these devices for specifically that reason. I hope the flight attendants prevail.
When you are flying there is only one real important thing to know and that is how many rows you are from the emergency exit. Basically can you find the emergency exit with your eyes closed? (i.e. full of smoke) The instructions say take note of the emergency exits but unless you can get to them in a crash that you have survived then they might not be much good.
The remainder of the rules are pretty obvious, how to put on your seatbelt, and even the live vest rule is a stupid one to keep demonstrating because if the crash is in water and completely out of the blue then either you imitate someone else's actions or you will blindly struggle (to the emergency exit) and fling yourself out. Or the plane is losing altitude and heading for the water and you will have time to imitate everyone else putting on their life vests.
The reality is that if there is a serious plane problem that the logical measures would include (bailing out with a chute), smearing yourself in a fire retardant gel and putting on a nomex poncho, and having some sort of gas mask, oh and putting on helmets. Those sort of things would vastly increase the survival rates for plane crashes that didn't turn everyone into burnt jam.
The simple reality is that nobody is listening to the safety announcements where they play that lousy game of charades of inflating the vest by mouth and whatnot.
The main use of the stewardesses it to get everyone off the plane in a hurry if something does go wrong. Plus if the plane is going to land in water they will redo the life vest tutorial and you can be assured that everyone is going to pay attention that time.
The safety spiel is pointless theater. Please suggest one example where the outcome of an emergency would have been significantly different if nobody had listened to the safety speech. They exist only to give a false belief that you can survive a real plane emergency. Air travel is statistically safer than driving, but if a plane goes down, you are dead. Your corpse will yard sale or burn up, usually both, in that order. (Carlin said it best: "In the event of a water landing...doesn't that sound an awful lot like CRASHING INTO THE OCEAN!")
Also, the safety spiel is just a disclaimer to shield airlines from "The tray attacked me!" lawsuits.
The function of flight attendants is to babysit adults for a couple hours and deal with "problem passengers." The safety spiel lets attendants believe their role is more important than it is, so their union wants to preserve the silly exercise.
In Europe it is now standard for the passengers to be told not to inflate the life jacket till they leave the plain..
What are the odds your plane will crash, 1 in 10 million ? What are the odds the 4 year old bedhind your seat till throw a fit when their ipod ges taken away when they want to watch a movie, 1 in 2 ? Im for keeping the kids and passengers happy. Their speech is pretty useless anyway, if you have been in a car since 1952 then you know how to use a seatbelt.
If flight attendants don't want to be ignored it is time to bring back the cute flight attendants. A cute 19 year old showing an excessive amount of cleavage WILL get attention. I'm just saying.
Its not about any of those things its about money, once your airborne they can sell you internet access at an exhorbitant rate since your 6.5miles fron the nearest cell tower straight down and flying at 500miles per hour your going to be transferring to new cell towers every couple of seconds. No its about another service they can sell you, along wiht food, and drinks, and overweight bags, access to the toilet and a pressurized cabin.
Plus flying is miserable enough without having to sit next to some clown talking business for 5 hours, or waying his mose around since he's in a teleconference. Flying is awful enough lets leave out toys behind for a few quiet uncomfortable hours.
Paul
Shut up and go back to being eye candy, you add little of value to the flight, especially with the tiny, crowded seats and filling them like sardines.
Add to that the overpriced snacks and drinks that have replaced free meals and the the colossal crimes against human rights dignity that is the TSA and you're lucky you still have jobs.
Thank you,
The American Flying Public
What about the Peanut M&Ms?
The Plain are nice,but....
So... should they ban books, newspapers, and in-flight magazines, too? Because that's what many people were doing before the ban on gadgets was lifted, and I'm sure many people still do. Flight Attendants have not complained about that group of people since the dawn of commercial flight. How exactly is reading my news on a tablet any different from reading it on a newspaper? I'm still going to ignore stuff I've heard hundreds of times before.
http://about.me/jimm.pratt
This is crazy, man, people, whine about everything to get people to pay attention to them.
I want to see 'People are using cell phones and not taking safety precautions anymore, such as bucking their seatbelt during take off and landing."
Not 'I stand up there and people are ignoring me, I will sue now'