According to my United FA friend, for US-based airlines, the exit row passengers MUST speak English. According to his training this is an FAA mandate and not an airline discretionary policy.

He also added that the FAA does not care if someone "changes their mind". If someone claims they are unwilling but then later, for whatever reason, says "ok, I will do it" then they can sit in the exit row. He said there is no FAA training that says a person must be willing from the start. But he added that he personally would say "sorry, I don't want you in the exit row". He felt quite confident that if the passenger complained that the FAA would back him up and say it is alright for an FA to say "too little too late, you aint sittin' there".

Now I am not saying that any of this is cast in stone. This is what my friend told me from his training. The FAA does not train flight attendants but rather airline employees train their own flight attendants. Some things could get fuzzy in the translation. Remember, airlines are famous for saying "sorry, we can't do that" when in reality they CAN do it but they just WON'T do it. There is a difference between "can't" and "won't". According to a DL flight attendant, recently, one must provide a "verbal acknowlegement" of their willingness to comply. She then added "that means spoken". No it doesn't. "Verbal" means with words; "oral" means spoken. She told me that this is the FAA speach that they must follow. So does the FAA mis-use the word "verbal" in thier policies? or was she trained by someone at DL who was fuzzy on the difference between the words "verbal" and "oral".

I don't think that the FAA would accept writing your acknowlegement on a cocktail napkin. I am pretty sure they want oral confirmation. This is backed up with the rules that one must be able to "see the exit, hear instructions, and direct others to the exit". I don't think they want someone "directing others" by jotting down notes on paper while smoke fills the cabin. I am very confident that they mean "if you can't speak you can't direct others therefore you can't sit in the exit row."

I believe that many FAs are told that certain rules are mandated by the FAA when in reality the airline is embroidering their own rules into the mandated ones - whether intentional or losing meaning in translation.

Another example where airlines sometimes over-state an FAA policy: cell phones used on the runway. I worked a contract job at the FAA in Oklanhoma City earlier this year. I asked FAA employees about this rule. There was a time when all airlines claimed over the PA that "FAA rule states that one must turn off cell phones when the cabin door is closed and they must remain off until the cabin door is once again opened." Then a couple of years ago one of the big airlines (I can't remember which) started letting passengers use their cell phones once the plane had landed but before the door was actually opened. Then ALL airlines started allowing this. These FAA people told me that there was NEVER an FAA mandate that cellphones had to remain off until the door was again opened. The airlines were taking one FAA rule and exhagerating it to the point where everyone in the industry THOUGHT that this was indeed the rule.

So the moral of the story is "don't believe everything you hear".