Cabin Crew / False authority

[Jaffa]

Over the last 2 weeks I have flown back to and forth from the UK to Cyprus & Spain. Last week I flew to Spain, I couldn't help but become a little agitated by the Stewardesses on the plane by their personal sense of authority over all of the passengers.

I'm not really confrontation so I just did as they said, I was very annoyed when I was woken up to fasten my seat belt during the smallest bit of turbulence. For my own safety apparently, obviously I am incapable of taking my safety into my own hands; the stewardess was standing in the aisle at this point. It makes no sense.

However, on the way to Cyprus I had a migraine and was in an incredibly irritable mood. As the plane started its descent it changed heading to the point where the sun was reflecting off the wing right into my eyes. For anybody who suffers from migraine you'll know how uncomfortable this would make you. I shut the blind. Just two minutes later the stewardess was over asking me to put the blind up for landing. Usually I would just comply and mutter something under my breathe but being in pain and heavily medicated with painkillers (my Sumatriptan, Migraine treatment, was in my suitcase) I refused. The conversation went like this:

Her: “Can you put your blind up for landing please?”
Me: “Why? The sun is reflecting off the wing into my face”
Her: “Your blind needs to be up for landing”
Me: “But why? What difference does it make if it is up or down?”
Her: “Those are the rules. Can you put it up please”
Me: “No. I’ll put it up when you move me to a seat where I am not blinded by the sun”

We landed with the blind shut. The world didn’t end.

A similar thing happened on the way back with my Kindle. I was asked to turn it off during take-off. I asked why, she told me that it interferes with the communications of the aircraft. I told her that the radios were switched off to which I was told that it didn’t matter and had to be off.

What is all this about? Why do cabin crews have to enforce stupid rules? They need to take their false authority and stop breathing, forever. This is without even starting to talk about the stupid rules on weight. I have to pay for the extra 5KG in my suitcase because “they need to account for the correct weight when fueling the plane” when huge, obese people can board the plane with complete indifference from the airlines?

 

[Red myst]

Well, the problem my be that you are INTP. You are only a very small percentage of the population, so why worry about such a small minority. You see through all the BS and know how absurd it is.

As far as the electronics go, I think the cabin crew does not want to and is not trained to ascertain weather or not your device is in "aircraft mode". Hell, You could leave it on and put it away and they wont know. The FAA already knows that properly functioning consumer devices will not effect aircraft electronics, but they also know that equipment that is not functioning properly can give off superfluous electromagnetic interference which may affect aircraft instrumentation. So they ask you to turn them off during the most critical portions of flight as to not take unnecessary chances. Not taking aides, just saying. I thought it was BS too until I dropped my cell phone and while it still worked, it screwed with my TV when it rang.

I try to give the flight crew the benefit of the doubt because I have seen some of the butt aches they have to put up with from time to time, and I am not in the habit of looking to be exempt from the rules even if I think or know they are stupid and baseless.

As far as the baggage weight goes, It does not seem fair, but my theory is that it is easier to discriminate against overweight baggage than overweight people. I think they should charge everything by the pound per person. You know there are people who are small framed, and travel very light, but they do not get a discount.

 

[Pyropyro]

The blinds thing is to enable Emergency Personnel to see where people are in case of an accident.

 

[redbaron]

It's their job. They get paid to make sure that people comply with the policies and procedures of the airline. Plus, even though they might be based on incredibly small possibilities - they don't put safety procedures in place on an airplane for no reason at all. Like the reason a jar of peanut butter has to say "ALLERGY WARNING: CONTAINS PEANUTS"

It sounds stupid, but you know someone with an allergy has eaten it and then either died or tried to sue the company for not labeling their product with the appropriate allergen advice. Especially on an airplane you want to make sure you cater to the lowest common denominator of human intelligence. For all the stewardess knows you're bullshitting her about airplane mode, so she enforces the procedure she's trained and paid to do. Lowest common denominator.

As for the blinds, as stated there's actually a reason for it. It's just another precaution for another highly unlikely scenario. Plus you could have just been a normal human being and told her that you have a splitting headache or migraine, instead of being a smart-ass. Which she probably has to deal with at some point on most of the flights she works on. I wonder how many times you'd have to put up with that shit before you realize it's easier to just say, "It's the rules so just do it" instead of getting into an argument over it.

I have to pay for the extra 5KG in my suitcase because “they need to account for the correct weight when fueling the plane” when huge, obese people can board the plane with complete indifference from the airlines?

Well if they're huge enough they do actually have to pay for two seats.