I was chatting to a BA Purser last week and she happened to mention that she had been involved in a scary incident her first week of working as a Purser. Apparently the 737 starting filling with smoke in the cabin in mid-flight. With the passengers starting to panic, she said she was surprised herself that it didn't even occur to her to panic. She said that they had rehearsed dealing with emergencies so thoroughly during their training, that she went into "autopilot" and did what she was trained to do, checking everyone was ok, and strapped in, and reassuring people. As it happened, the plane made a "precautionary" landing and everyone was ok.

It is blatantly obvious that FR cabin crew wouldn't have a clue what to do in an emergency, that's assuming they didn't sleep through the whole thing.

It's for reasons like this that most of us prefer to travel with a BA-type airline rather than an FR-one.

I think it must be obvious to all but the dimmest of people, that if you are paying 99p, or even £9.99 for your flight, then cuts are being made everywhere, from not cleaning the sick off the seat to having zombie-like morons as cabin crew. It is clear that there are violations of rules and procedures going on all over the place.

Having never travelled FR, I can safely say that I have no intention of ever using them either. Anyone flying them must be aware of what kind of airline they are flying and is basically accepting the risks involved.