Cabin crew

for those of you who grumble about flights, the only reason that flight attendents are on the aircraft is for YOUR SAFTEY, they are trained in all aspects and situations in the event of an emergency. without them on board the a/c will not be able to take-off with any passengers, service to passengers is a secondary item that they do. some of them i agree should not be a flight attendent because of their attitude which is usualy bought on by the passenegers themslves, just one instance upon landing when the p/a system says "you have arrived at your destination, please remain seated until the a/c comes to a complete stop" before the a/c has stopped half the passengers are already standing and wanting to get off first.OK so it is the end of the flight, but what if upon the a/c taxying one of the wheels caught fire or the a/c ran off the runway and sunk into soft earth and dropped a wing which caught fire. would you know which side of the a/c to get out, would you know how to evacuate 300 people in less than 3 min. your fight attendents know how to do this, they have been trained and tested to ensure they know, so do not say they are not on the a/c for your safety. like shipping companies if they could get away without them on board they certainly would. one of the most costly items in a/c operations is wages.
durring my time with airlines (17 years) I set-up and taught emergency drills to both pilots and cabin crews in England, Afghanistan, Banladesh, Ghana and Canada, I taught a/c, sea, desert and jungle survival. on various types of aircraft. all airlines that travel over the sea for more than 1/2 from land reqires their crews do ditching drills, these are usualy done in a swimming pool with a written test following. all emergency training is carried out annualy for each crew member.
keith moody
R635978

Here in Oz we have a number of carriers local, plus the usual overseas ones.

Local is QUANTAS, will never ever fly with them again, would walk first. Their concept of service is something you have done to your car, or in church.

Virgin Australia, good service with mainly friendly crew.

Jet Star an off shoot of QUANTAS, good walk on walk off airline who often charge extra for seats. Luggage, just be very careful, one gram overweight and you will be charges at the rate of $35 per kilo or part of.

Tigerair, another cheap skate airline partially owned by Virgin and Singapore airlines. Better than Jetstar but charges like a wounded bull for any kind of extras, extras which some airlines consider normal.

Have flown many international, some excellent some crap. My experience of BA puts it in the same catergory as QUANTAS. Singapore, Ethiad, Royal Brunai, Gulf and Garuda I have found to be some of the best. Experience has taught me that the Aisian airlines put more effort into service.

#11 Agree with you Keith. On the same subject crews on safety boats in the North Sea are also trained in first aid and other aspects of life saving. Myself am well attuned to the rigours of the Aircraft ditching procedures as had to do yearly in Australia , believe in UK is every 4 years. Putting an aircraft in a disaster situation I think the aircraft crew are well trained and the numbers more in line with their job expectancy. On the shipping side Look at the oil companys and the approach they took was to have the least number on board as possible on safety boats. It was always my contention and others also, that the few years that I had to fall back on such as a living, was that they were very undermanned for any sort of a disaster. The normal procedure which was expected to happen was an orderly retreat from the Rig or Platform and the ship to be a place of safety thereby the vessel had to be certificated to carry the amount of people on the platform. In a disaster there are no rule books. How any ship no matter how sophisticated can take on board 229 men with 5 of a crew who are in any case otherwise engaged in running the ship, defies logic. Silence when subjects of safety are brought up that are indigestible to owners who want to make money by cutting costs re labour can be heard physically. The lectures and all that are giving by so called experts are their way of saying they are safety conscious, they are not on the spot and can only talk from others experiences. Within a week after the Piper Alpha I was getting approaches from entrenapaurs on how best to recover survivors from the water, one was into inventing a crane with a scoop on to scoop them up, fine I said where are you going to get the person to drive the scoop, as a matter of interest I believe there is such equiptment on some vessels now. There is only one thing that saves life and that is other life forms, people save people not machinery. After the Piper Alpha and after Lord Cullen had made his recommendations for at least 12 of a crew and one apprentice 13 in total, I was called upto Lerwick to take over a ship engaged in the same duties and when asked for a crew list was given one name who was described as bosun, I told them to stick their ship. Going back to aircraft crew and the stewards and stewardesses I think they are as well trained as they are ever going to be and are certainly up to the job in training wise. Cheers JWS PS When talking about ditching I am referring to the HUET course and cert. (Helicopter Underwater Escape Techniques ) which consisted of 7 escapes under water from a seated and belted position at seven different angles. If didn't have couldn't fly in a chopper. Used to hate it as always seemed to take a deep breath at the wrong time and if 3rd man in from the window just hoped he was quick in putting the window out and moving his ass. JWS

Hmmm!!!
Well I never thought that my innocent little thread would cause so much consternation. For those of you who have friends/relations who are cabin crew I realise that they have to go through some serious training prior to being employed, it is just on this flight they seemed more intent on selling than safety, so I apologise if I have caused affront to anyone.
From my very first ship I have in 95% of the times either joined or left by flying to/from and over those years have experienced many differences in the standards of airline cabin crew.
B.A. used to be terrible, flying back from Vancouver on crutches after smashing my foot up, Vancouver to Toronto with Air Canada, brilliant, could not do enough for me. Toronto to Manchester with B.A., struggling across the tarmac and up the gangway on crutches (had asked for assistance at check in, none forthcoming) eventually reached the top to be greeted by a snooty stewardess who informed me to hurry up as I was starting to delay the flight!!!. Again with B.A. 10 of us flying over the pole via Anchorage stop over, to Japan on a jumbo where we 10 made up I/3rd of the total passenger numbers, they failed to announce our flight was boarding in Anchorage and it was only by chance that we checked and just managed to make the flight.
Latterly as Port Captain flying virtually every fortnight found B.A. excellent.
Pakistan Air, well what can you expect from a bunch like them.
Singapore Air, try fling cross Pacific with them, totally different from their adverts.
Flying from Gatwick out to the Far East with the Hong Kong outfit was always a joy.
Monach from Orlando to Newcastle, the cabin crew were so rude that I ended up in a huge argument with them upon landing, requesting that they gave me the address and name of their head of services in order that I could complain to him/her. They refused and it got heated enough that they threated with arresting me!!!
Lufthansa and KLM always very professional as was Flybe.
Air New York on a shuttle from Philadelphia was weird. You queued just like waiting for a bus, the pilot came in, looked at all the passengers and their luggage and selected who he was going to take, then he assisted you into loading your luggage into one of those Shorts Skyvans. One stewardess but it was the pilot who demonstrated the safety features prior to departure before he got into his seat and taxied to the runway.
An internal flight in PNG with the local company, one stewardess only who was a stunner and absolutely brilliant.
I guess we all have had different experiences with cabin crew. My first ever flight home was Marseille to London and the Air France stewardess just left the drinks trolley by our seats for us to help ourselves from on a flight where the 4 of us (Captain, Chief Officer, 2nd Mate and me 1st trip cadet) formed 50% of the passenger list.
So I am not decrying the professionalism of the cabin crew, just contrasting them to my experience on passenger vessels.
rgds
JA

###perhaps like myself people in general dont mind the flying bit ....its the sheep like hoops that have to be jumped through to get on the plane .....plus the arrival time in a overcrowded airport with people milling round in usually overheated confine ...the snake like queues etc etc .....never had a problem with the cabin crew on average ok .....apart from a quantas flight were our SIR ian botham was so pissed and troublesome....actually holding a guy who complained about his drunken antics during landing by the throat that on the plane doors opening three big coppers came and lifted him .....his treatment of the female cabin crew was disgusting ......i bilieve he was banned from flying in oz by quantas and the major internal airline at that time ...cappy

The time hanging around airports having to be there 2 hours before a flight is the killer for me. Would rather have other modes of transport, also these cheap cruises don't appeal, like Gulliver being enclosed by 5000 people of 57 varietys is not my idea of pleasure. Think I'LL just stay at home and get drunk. JWS

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Originally Posted by j.sabourn

The time hanging around airports having to be there 2 hours before a flight is the killer for me. Would rather have other modes of transport, also these cheap cruises don't appeal, like Gulliver being enclosed by 5000 people of 57 varietys is not my idea of pleasure. Think I'LL just stay at home and get drunk. JWS

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Fog locker for you then John?
Don't think of going up to the crow's nest either-there's only room for one,and that's me. Get Out ! Get Out !

Cruising, boozing and snoozing ,.
Just like being back at sea and a good Watch Below.
Sat on deck watching the wake disappear astern

since I went cruising I have seen more of this planet than I ever did in 45 years at sea.
from the Antarctic to the Arctic, every remote island Tristan da Cunha, Pitcairns , Easter island, all the Pacific islands, and Atlantic Islands. , Ascension, the list is endless. on every continent
the world in a beautiful place if you choose your ship and itinery wisely, we do not treat it as a holiday more like an exploration.
Try it, you may like it.
but choose wisely, on a small ship that can go where bigger ones cannot go, where there are No crowds of people, just pure comfort.
I get off one cruise and then instantly book another
Cheers
Brian

https://womeninaerospacehistory.com/...e-harrison-gc/
If this comes out properly, could you please delete the previous threads re Barbara. If this one doesn't come out, please delete it as well.
Regards from FOURO

A very brave lady, as I said before there will always be those who give others a bad name and there will always be the others who shine.