Originally Posted by
Aviatrix
Pre-9/11 cockpit visits were normal and commonplace - some airlines even encouraged them! Air Canda used to have a note in its in-flight magazine inviting passengers to visit the cockpit on long-haul flights, and if you took them up on their invitation you were given a special commemorative card signed by the pilot (I've still got one somewhere...)
The days of open invitations to visit the cockpit will, of course, never return - but what security risk is there in inviting a known frequent flyer into the cockpit? Terrorist attacks take some time to plan, someone who is invited into the cockpit unexpectedly is not likely to be concealing a bomb or knife just on the off-chance that he invited into the cockpit
Back in the 1980's my Mom was a corporate lawyer working in New York. One of her clients was the erstwhile Venezuelan airline VIASA. She was flying CCS-JFK after meetings in Caracas and when the flight crew found out one of their lawyers was onboard, they invited her up to the cockpit for landing into JFK. She still talks about it so it was obviously an amazing experience.