[HonestCrew]

True, although they are only given out on request in Economy on BA.
The darker cabin does have an effect on the cabin noise too. Parents tend to keep their children quieter and sat down and people talk at a lower volume. (Unless they are from a certain country where they have no concept of volume when speaking.)

[MartynSinclair]

Honestcrew, thanks for your posting, but I disagree with your reasons 100%. A darker cabin does have an effect on the crew as it replicates night to the body and therefore passengers will “generally” be less demanding and more “sleep induced”. Same argument as the slightly increased heat on a night flight. Induces sleep…………apparently.

The shades were all down on the upper deck on boarding for a night flight, so it was not a case of outside temperature possibly heating the aircraft.

It is very disconcerting being in a “closed inside space” for a landing or takeoff.

Is the blinds option relatively new on BA as I am sure that blinds always had to be up for t/o & landing?

[HonestCrew]

I can see what you are saying Martyn, a dark cabin does relax people more. A calmer cabin is often more beneficial to many pax, it can make it a nicer place to be, particularly for Asian guests on Japan/China flights. But, seeing both sides of the coin, it doesn’t please everyone and flying at 2pm in forced darkness isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. In fact I often won’t close the blinds if it is obvious everyone is awake and there would be no benefit to closing out the light.
The priority isn’t to make our life easier, we are not all slackers 🙂

We now have a set procedure. After all pax have disembarked, window blinds need to be closed to assist the aircraft to keep the temperature steady. The very back of the a/c suffers dreadfully in warm weather, particularly the 747. Once the temperature rises it is very difficult to reduce it and keeping out the sunlight, surprisingly, helps greatly.
It doesn’t matter if the next flight is a night flight or not. In your case it could have been the a/c was on the ground longer than usual, or when it landed the sun was still shining on the fuselage. Hence why the blinds were closed.
Of course, taking off and landing ‘blind’ is not a great feeling so you are welcome to open the blinds, it is expected by and not a problem with your crew.

To answer your question, it is not a new thing on BA to have blinds open for t-off/landing. Only the door blinds and adjacent ones if the door window offers a restricted view. Upper deck on the 747, the doors have no windows, therefore the blinds either side of the door need to be open in case of evacuation. We don’t want to tell you to “jump jump” without looking for an inferno first.

[canucklad]

It would be an interesting seperate thread…………..what agitates you once up in the air………Honestcrew makes lots of valid points…..I do wonder if fare paying passengers knew all the tricks of the trade how much more agitated they would become…

Especially when cabin crew start citing regulations.. that don’t exist..ie demanding people sit down whilst the seat belt sign is on (3 hours or so–common practice on the Far East to Europe route )..not because of turbulence but because the airline is scared of litigation in case of sudden turbulence… lights off and crew only appearing like meerkats when a pax tries to sneak to the loo..like an SAS sortie

[MartynSinclair]

“HonestCrew – thanks for your quick and honest reply. I know and appreciate not all cabin crew are slackers, its just that after all these years of flying, I know that there are indeed 2 sides to every “rule, procedure or protocol”.

On the flight in question, when I mentioned the window blind issue for landing, I was told it was up to the person that occupied the seat.

I do now tend to ask 60K when I board about the blinds. However, I am a little tempted to move from 60J to 60K (or 62K) in order to try flying backwards.

[RichHI1]

In truth most behaviour on airlines is legally driven, either to comply with FAA/CAA rules or to avoid being sued. I was told that blinds are up on landing and take off to enable rescuers to look into the cabin and that lguhts were dimmed for take off and landing at night to ensure passengers eyes were adpted to dark in case of emergency exit. I have never had problems with my window shade as I often open it on transtalantic flights to reinforce new time zone patterns. I do try to partiallt open it so as nto inconvenience others. In the old days with big screen movies, you had to pull blinds to see the movie. I have had many issues on BA with other pax in 1K or 1A who refused to lower blinds / shades indeed figured out how to make a tent with a second blanket and the shell of the seat to keep the glare out.
As regards staying seated when seat belt light on and using belt in flight. Always done it but I do find some Eruopean carrriers keep lights on longer to help cabin crew do coach service uninterrupted which is annoyign when you need to go to the … but usually cabin crew are fine if you pop in quick and look as though you knwo how to brace yourself in heavy chop. To anyone who thinks wearing a belt and stayong seat on flight is stupid, I attach a picture form back in Hawaii when a panel peeled off the roof in flight. The only fatality was one unfortunate flight
attendant doing her job. IF pax had not been wearing belts….

http://theticket-atlanta.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Aloha243.jpg

[HonestCrew]

Yes that’s correct, your choice if it is not affecting anyone else’s comfort. Upper deck is better, as you know, due to the high-walled seats and dividers enabling folk to have a little more of a cocoon experience, plus the quietness and only 20 seats means people can often sleep with darkness or without.
I prefer to travel backwards too, trains & planes ever since travelling on an RAF troop carrier where all seats face rearwards and finding out ‘why?’ Backwards is the new forwards!

As for the seat belt sign, we have no say in the matter. Asia Pacific routes do suffer from lots of unexpected and crucially UNDETECTABLE turbulence. Sometimes the Captain will keep the sign on for an extended time if he feels the air ahead is not safe or has had a warning from another aircraft.
Crew are required to inform pax the seat belt sign is on if they get up and encourage them to remain seated. If someone is truly on the verge of bursting of course I’m not going to stop them, but so often pax believe because the a/c is not bumping all over the place, they know better than the pilots who have much more info at hand to decide whether to ensure pax stay seated or not.
I’m not one who enjoys quoting rules & regs to people but it must be remembered the seat belt sign is a command from the Captain and like it or not, everyone on a flight is under the command of the Captain and what he says goes. (yawn!)

Cabin presence can be both positive and negative for pax. It shows attentiveness but can also be disturbing having us walking past many times just to show we haven’t dozed off in the galley or abandoned ship.

[canucklad]

Mmmmm…………… As a matter of course I know that the legal team have sent out edicts to quite a few flight crew to “Engage the seatbelt sign regardless of expected conditions…citing CAT and the fact that it’s the choice of the individual to ignore the sign..cant be sued”—–Fine. not bothered with that..it’s when the cabin crew behave as if it was a rollercoaster ride…although we have been cruising smoothly for over an hour…

I ALWAYS wear my seatbelt when i am at my seat because I have personally been on a quite a few fright flights

[Tete_de_cuvee]

Queues.
CAA fines LHR £500,000 for lying about their queues.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-15293612

[LPPSKrisflyer]

No surprises there then. I really don’t understand why queues are allowed to build up. It’s not as if they airlines don’t know how many passengers they are expecting in any given period of time. If the security jobsworths want to be more stringent then there need to be more of them on any given day and time. There should however be a system that directly compensates the passenger for the delay, not the airline. Let’s face it, if TFL can manage to compensate individuals for delays then anyone can.

[RichHI1]

Interesting comparison between US and UK models. in US TSA is a government agency with federal employees whose focus is security and supposedly customer satisfaction towards the passengers . Biggest complaints lack of customer satusfaction as people feel harrassed and lack of security hence the firings at HNL a few eeks ago. In the UK Secuirty is a for profit activity run by the airports whose job is toproivde security and a service level to the airlines. BIggest complaints lack of customer satisfaction and delays. I also find Uk bizarre as rules and procedures vary not only by airport but also by Terminal.
I have foudn secuirty at NRT to be very efficient and as you would expect in Japan, very courteous.

[RichHI1]

Not so much what I hate as what I like. Some airports such as FRA, DFW, JFK, HKG have expanded to such an extent that they now provide shuttle trams or rapid transit between terminals and also between gates in same terminal. LHR now has this in T5. There are competing arguments whether it is better airside or landside but both systems are infintely preferable to miles of walking in terminal and shuttle buses between terminals. Having a shuttle at say LHR that connected the terminals with 2 -3 stops in each terminal (maybe 4-5 in the new T1/2 ) would improve things dramatically. The pod transit scheme that links T5 to Parking Lot was at one time going to have a bgger scale but I am not sure that pods are the right format for inter and intraterminal transit.

[judynagy]

As an American, I have always been embarrassed that US airport s charge for luggage trolleys. It’s so dumb and insulting. Adding the option to use a credit card (are they mad? what’s the cost to retreive their dollar from AmEx?) ) helps … I guess.

[Capetonian]

People who make the whole experience worse than it already is by standing behind you so close that you can feel their breath on the back of your neck, yuck! Do these cretins think they will get somewhere faster?

[Bucksnet]

What I can never understand about BAA is why they allow such long queues to build up.

People have moaned that BAA airports are shopping malls first and airports second, and that BAA makes more money from retail etc., but people standing in queues are not spending any money.

It once took me 30+ minutes to go through security at LHR T3, and I never spent one penny in all that time.

[Author]

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