I have shipped luggage ahead and it has its advantages, but more and more, I explore alternative means of transportation, which ironically enough, are not as safe as commercial air. There are just too many hassles in cording on board the flying cattle cars that now get us from A to B.

And yes, I am a certified geezer who can remember when flying was fun, eagerly anticipated.....

During this time, fashion designers designed Braniff flight attendant uniforms.

Back to the point, what they were now is safer than the polyester they wore then.

Jeanette Isabelle

On the run so need to make this quick. As some of you know, I am a member of the SAE S9 Cabin Safety committee. We write the standards which are used by the FAA and airlines to develop
e the cabin briefings and everything else dealing with safety and safety equipment in the cabin except for seats. The recommendation is for FAs to aggressively remind pax to not take anything with them in an evac. As this episode shows, people don't listen well. :-( This evac, along with others will be topic of conversation at the next S9 meeting, you can be sure of it.

A lot of really bright folks have tried to come up with solutions, FAA CAMI in Oklahoma City has run hundreds, if not thousands, of evacs using their cabin simulator. They just dedicated a new one which will allow even better simulations. We have learned a lot from them and from live evacs. It is much better today and it used to be. But, ultimately, the problem is human nature. Trying to circumvent human nature is one of the toughest challengers we face in aviation safety.

Non-starters are auto-locking bins. Too much weight, too many moving parts, too much to go wrong. Pax will revolt if unable to take their carry-on. As noted, those of us who travel for a living will not pack anything we can't do without. For me that otfen means a suit and two days of clothing, etc. I can't even keep track of how often my luggage doesn't arrive when I do, and often take a day or more to arrive. Twice in the last 5 years it never showed up...ever!

When they recently tried to reduce the size of carry-on bags, Congress was inundated with calls, emails and letters. Not likely to happen.

The certification 90-second evac test in the dark is a standard, it measures a baseline, nothing more, it isn't reality. And, it is a lot tougher than it looks to meet it. So many people end up injured in these tests, a lot of folks want to kill it and just use computer simulations. So far the FAA has said no. Some real evacs are quicker, some are slower, but it is extremely rare in contemporary history to take so long that anyone dies.

Gotta run, just returned home on a flight late last night, have to finish some documentation and pack for a 5:00 AM flight tomorrow. Be days before I can check back in.

Carry on.... (baaaad pun)

So what are the odds? We face lots of hazards daily, and dying in a slow evac probably isn't that high on the list. I'll bet one is more likely to die driving to the airport.....

Actually, an exquisitely atrocious pun. Wonderful!

Been there, doing that, hate it. Briefcase + boarding (gym) bag. The boarding bag could be checked if push comes to shove, but the briefcase can't for obvious reasons. Add the weight of your irreplacable personal effects, food (expensive or unavailable in flight), water (expensive or unsafe in flight), and if you're traveling on business, employer issued laptop and paperwork. Not lightweight by any measure. Being able to roll the flipping thing the 3/4 mile between the gate and the taxi/shuttle stands becomes very attractive.

The airlines are doing their best to discourage checking bags. Between very limited liability (we told you not to pack anything delicate or valuable) and horrendous checked baggage service (40-50 minute delay between deplaning and the first bag onto the carousel, and no security).



Best phrased as "Due to the hazard of unattended luggage at the base of the evacuation slide, any luggage that is brough to the evacuation slide will be dealt with at the discrection of the FA."

If the rampers can drop a $4K+ musical instrument out of an airplane during routine loading, the FA can surly drop less valuable luggage out of the side of an airplane during an emergency

(near the bottom of the page)
http://www.yeodoug.com/resources/faq/faq_text/travel.html

Excellent post! I totally agree with your reasoning and conclusions.

I've had a few mildly unpleasant experiences on helos and small commuter planes. Nothing bad actually happened, but they counted as close calls. So I'm a little bit neurotic about flight safety, which causes me to generally do the following:

- I try to eyeball the aircraft before and during boarding, looking for things like obvious leaks, damage, ice buildup, etc. [A passenger on the Hawaiian flight that lost a major section of the upper fuselage actually noticed a crack in the fuselage while boarding, but she boarded anyway!]

- I prefer to wear natural fiber clothing with long sleeves and sturdy shoes, whenever possible. This offers some protection from flash fire and plastic material melting into your skin.

- I try to book an exit aisle or nearby seat, over the wings or toward the rear. Statistically, experts say it makes little difference where in the A/C your seat is, but the wing area is the structurally strongest part, and in the rear, you'll probably at least live a small fraction of a second longer than those up front. ;-)

- I pay attention to the safety briefing and carefully read the safety card, so I know exactly how to open the specific emergency exits on that aircraft.

- I jot the number of rows to the exits ahead and behind on my wrist.

- I try to make some assessment of my fellow passengers as I walk down the aisle. I'm generally trying to guess who might be a problem, or an asset, in an emergency; anyone who appears ill, ill at ease, intoxicated, likely to have mobility issues, or is already uncooperative with cabin crew instructions; and other potential issues in an emergency or evacuation.

Here are a couple of articles I found on cabin crew uniforms and safety…so why do we still see such impractical getups? http://flightsafety.org/ccs/ccs_mar_apr99.pdf
https://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/commerce-circulars-ac0136-1515.htm

Still? I don't know. The photo I posted is of flight attendants in uniforms introduced in, I believe, 1966.

Jeanette Isabelle

I know those were old photos…I was talking about the continued prevalence of things like pencil skirts, heels and pantyhose in flight attendant uniforms. What would be wrong with having all flight attendants wear pants and flat lace-up shoes, and just having the tops styled differently for men and women (and the men wear ties while the women wear scarves)?

How about Nomex flight suits? It would work for me.