Originally Posted by og
WHY is no problem until you get the occasional op-up and discover what happens on the other side of the curtain. The curtain comment, by the way, does not apply to UA - I reckon they either took the curtains out so that WHY passengers can see what they are not getting, or just to let them have easy access to the J toilets (such a pest for the J pax).
Yeah, strange isn't it. On UA they make about three announcements per flight saying that there is no cabin partitions/curtain as part of their security requirements (I believe that is the wording) - implying they are required by a third party to do it, even though other carriers don't - but that passengers are required under FAA regulations to only use the toilets in their ticketed cabin. So its certainly not a policy that is SUPPOSED to be encouraging people to be moving between cabins.
I wonder (just a thought) whether the policy had anything to do with what happened to UA175 and 93 on 9/11, when the hijackers, mainly seated in Business and First, after taking control of the flights made everyone (still alive) go to the back of the planes. These people then called the ground and verbally relayed what they were seeing from the back, but on a couple of the flights that day (UA and AA flights) they could not see anything (for a short while crew and pax at the back actually thought there was a medical emergency up front, no idea what was really going on) due to the cabin partitions etc, etc. So maybe (as I say, maybe) the no-curtain policy is designed to ensure better whole-aircraft visibility in such a situation in the future.