Originally Posted by
sunrisegirl
So if a passenger chooses to ignore what he's asked/instructed to do and breaks the footstool on the way to LHR, it then has to be repaired before the aircraft can operate its next journey. Would you be happy for your flight to be delayed as a result?
There
are resources to repair the footstools, but it's not always a 5-10 minute job but takes longer than the aircraft has available to it for a turnround. What would be preferable - delay 300+ passengers or move the passenger affected to a different seat?
On check in we are aware if a seat is broken, has no working IFE, has broken footstool, etc and we do not assign these seats unless the flight is 100% full and it can't be avoided. We always inform the passenger at check in of the situation and our managers come to talk to them also if required.
That said, as has been reported earlier in the thread, sometimes if a passenger breaks the footstool they don't tell the crew (perhaps because they know they shouldn't have been sat on it
) so nobody is aware to carry out the necessary repairs.
I still can't understand why this is BA's fault. It is NOT a seat, it states clearly on the footstool that it's not a seat and is a footstool, it also says very clearly that you should not sit on it. So why are BA to blame when people ignore what they're asked to do? I don't understand that.
OK, so repairing the footstools cannot be completed in a timely fashion or BA doesn't repair them because BA doesn't know they are broken. That gives BA an even bigger reason to prevent them becoming broken in the first place.
I don't think passengers are choosing to ignore what they are asked or instructed to do - they're just not getting the message.
We may think we are communicating our message, but if the receiving party is not getting the message then we are failing in our communication.
As I said in my previous post, I don't know why passengers who sit on the footstools are not getting the message. Maybe they speak a different language, maybe they can't read, maybe the cabin is too dark, or maybe they are stupid. But in my field we would ackowledge that there is a problem, examine the issue and find out how we can improve the communication of our message.