In a recent post, I discussed how airlines have lengthened the amount of time they say your flight will take. As a result, our flight appears to be on time (or not terribly late) even though the actual flight time remains the same.
After we discussed the practice in class, a student, Ben King, sent me a link to this story: What your pilot won’t tell you. If you are flying for Turkey Day, you may not want to read it.
Does anyone get this joke?
The less disturbing part of the article helps explain the seemingly silly rules that flight attendants are required to enforce. here are few:
“We don’t make you stow your laptop because we’re worried about electronic interference. It’s about having a projectile on your lap. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get hit in the head by a MacBook going 200 miles per hour.” -Patrick Smith
“People don’t understand why they can’t use their cell phones. Well, what can happen is 12 people will decide to call someone just before landing, and I can get a false reading on my instruments saying that we are higher than we really are.” -Jim Tilmon
“We’re not trying to ruin your fun by making you take off your headphones. We just want you to be able to hear us if there’s an emergency.” -Patrick Smith
“We ask you to put up the window shade so the flight attendants can see outside in an emergency, to assess if one side is better for an evacuation. It also lets light into the cabin if it goes dark and helps passengers get oriented if the plane flips or rolls over.” -Patrick Smith