Originally Posted by
headingwest
I saw this on a trip back from the US the week after 9/11. The plane was almost empty (I estimated about 20 passengers) and everybody was spread out across the seats.
Also in March this year on an Austrian Airlines flight to Chicago I saw the same. I had a feeling that on the VIE-ORD route it is a common thing. The cabin crew didn't seem to mind one bit, but they did make a point of telling people not to move from their allocated seats until after take-off. Was there are reason for that?
btw, good to see a responsible parent putting the safety belt on your daughter
englisha.
Probably a combination of:
- Makes it easier for the cabin crew to see whether the right number of passengers are on board.
- Takeoff performance- the aircraft will base the trim setting required, derated thrust setting (partially) etc on it's CoG. If passengers move before takeoff, the aircraft may not perform correctly, which could obviously be rather bad. Spoke to a BA pilot after arriving at LGW from JER the other week- he said that, on a rather empty flight a few days before that, despite the aircraft being only ~30% full, the takeoff performance calculator had recommended a full thrust (TOGA) takeoff, despite the field length being more than adequate and conditions good, because of the distribution of passengers in the cabin. Apparently they were at 2000ft before the end of the runway.