Cabin crew and safety & security breaches

At what point should a passenger tell a cabin crew member that they are doing something wrong?

I ask the question because of two recent experiences on flights. The first was on a medium-haul flight from Washington Dulles. It was a non-US airline and it was a morning flight, but not early morning.

This is what I saw. A cabin crew member took her seat after the door closed. It was one of those backward facing crew seats, in this case just behind the cockpit door. Almost immediately, as we backed from the gate, she fell asleep. I don’t mean closed her eyes. I mean slumped to one side, asleep. And she stayed asleep through taxi and takeoff and initial climb. She only woke up when the 10,000 feet bell rang and another crew member from mid-cabin came forward.

At which point, something else happened. The phone on the wall next to the cabin crew seat rang. The sleepy crew member took the call and it was clearly from the cockpit, requesting water, because the cockpit door then opened and stayed wide open while she disappeared in the galley area, eventually returning with two bottle of water and handed them to the pilots. She then stood and talked to them for a few minutes. All the while, the cockpit door was wide open and there was no barrier, other than the flight attendant, who had her back to the cabin. I could see right through to the cockpit and window.

So it’s my belief that this crew member (and for that matter, pilots’) actions were in breach of both safety and security rules. Had we made an emergency stop on taxi/takeoff, I’m sure she would have woken up, but her reactions would probably not have been inside the split second that can make a difference between lives saved or lost. And while airport screening processes make it highly unlikely there is someone onboard with a weapon that could take out the flight crew, it struck me as bizarre to see pilots so comfortable with having the door left open and no obvious barrier. If someone had decided to try their luck, they could have got into the cockpit.

The second incident followed just a week later. This was out of New York, short-haul and on a US airline. Everything about the flight was great. But right at the end, as we were on final approach, one of the cabin crew was still standing. I kept thinking, she’s going to take her seat, right? But she did not sit down until after we landed (and never fastened her seatbelt). I’ve never seen that happen before. In those last few moments, as we were wheels down and seconds from touchdown, she was handing out jackets to passengers in the first-class cabin. She then looked out the window and seemed surprised to see tarmac, turned to get her seat, but was still standing as we landed.

Clearly, that last incident was a breach of safety rules. Even if we’d just had a hard landing, the flight attendant risked injury to herself. Worse, had there been an emergency, she could have been injured and unable to assist getting others out of the plane. Even worse, she could have been incapacitated and blocked the aisle at the front of the plane, close to two exit doors.

I wasn’t the only person to see these incidents. But no one, myself included, said anything. Should we have?

In the latter incident, I just kept thinking, she will sit down, she will. I was just shocked when she didn’t. In the former incident, the sleeping flight attendant seemed funny at first … less so when she was so laissez-faire about the cockpit door. This was a five-hour flight and I started to wonder what else this crew, or this airline, was lax about.

Cabin crews are there, first and foremost, to ensure passengers’ safety. A lot of passengers – especially in the premium cabins – may not think this is the case. But it’s an important fact. It’s one of the reasons I like seeing Air France cabin crew, who wear red security badges to make clear that this is their top priority.

And yet, here was a flight attendant preoccupied with getting coats to passengers to the point she forgot her safety duties.

But here’s the thing. Even though I might have called out, ‘sit down’ and potentially saved her an injury, I didn’t. 

Was I also wrong?