Electronics
 

I was recently on bd58 from lhr to edi and when we began our decent, everybody turned there electronics off. Everybody apart from one woman who had a Sony ereader. The cabin crew asked her personally to turn it off but she refused saying make me, it's only a book without paper and my favorite it's not got a bomb in it! So the cabin crew member said fine and just walked off. It made me wonder how differently it could of turned out for the customer, if she had been on USA bound flight she'd probably ended up hog tied in the galley....

Rant over

..on LHR-EDI a few days ago, several pax using their mobiles and still wearing their headphones during descent, landing and taxiing. Crew either didn't see or chose to ignore.

Has there been a memo that it's now okay to ignore all instructions??!!

When we stopped at gate 4, I think there were only about 6 of us still sitting down when the seat-belt sign went off. The aisle was already full of people who had already retrieved their overhead baggage..

Am I being a complete 'square' by still obeying the simple instructions?

Though to be fair how many frequent travellers at some point realise that they forgot to turn off an electronic item or a phone somewhere in their bag and their plane didn't crash and burn...

However, I always attempt to turn off everything - better safe than sorry and its not going to hurt me turning off my phone... it could turning it on :)

However, in my view on many BMI flights people just ignore the instructions and the cabin crew leave them alone - other times I've seen cabin crew making an extra effort to force people to turn off items (One guy I remember took 4 'hints'), or doing the 'please sit down' announcement after landing... guess it depends on the crew or their mood.

I actually find it rather entertaining to find how the general passenger attitude varies on different routes and airlines.

From a safety perspective, obviously not great that passengers seem increasingly unable/unwilling to follow simple crew instructions. Not sure what actual harm the use of mobiles and electronic equipment can potentially cause, but that's sort of not the issue.

I don't do 'told you so's - but I'm quietly waiting for the day when someone seriously injures themselves or others by falling over or dropping a 30k carry-on at that final shove towards the gate. I just keep hoping that 'others' won't be me.

Not at all. I was once in the middle of asking a guy who was trying to get his case down form the overhead to sit back down for my safety, not his, when the pilot, who was taxiing to the gate, suddenly applied the brakes rather hard. They guy got floored in the aisle, and his case landed heavily on him. I grinned like mad; he glowered and wouldn't catch my eye. :D

At the *A Mega Do in FRA last autumn, one of LH's senior pilots told us that he had an altitude warnng alarm go off at 38,000 feet causing some nose lifting and head scratching - they traced the problem back to a number of phones being left on - when seeking a network and not finding one, the GSM cells up their power - this caused a surge along some cable or other on the plane and the alarm sounded. I've been extra sure to have my phone off since then.

This really varies widely around the world, I find that in a lot non European or US destinations it is quite common for pax to get up while taxing to the stand, usually total chaos ensues and crews frequently give up trying to stop the stampede. Particularly laughable when it turns out to be a remote stand and everyone is being bussed.

In the US airlines allow electronics to be switched on during taxing, some of the newer aircraft have replaced the non smoking sign with one saying "OK to use electronics". The result here is that every self important twat fiddles with his Blackberry and shouts "I have just landed", no kidding.

Some years ago on a short hop between FRA and SXB (when there were flights rather than the LH bus) the pilot came on and complained about inference on his radio with ATC due to phones trying to search a network. I was mortified when I realised that mine did not power off completely. Turned out I was not the only one though. These days I check and double check ;)