Total silence from the flight deck
 

I flew back from RTM to LCY yesterday on BA CityFyer. The flight was operated on their behalf by Jota Aviation.

Having done this short hop across the North Sea a number of times, I didn’t expect much. After all, there’s only so much service you can receive in less than 40 minutes in the air. The cabin crew were OK but a little haphazard in some areas. In general all was well with the cabin service.

The thing that struck me was the total absence of any PA from the flight deck. I usually fly BA but have used other carriers including low cost and don’t think I’ve ever experienced a silent flight crew before. It made me realise that although I’m not a nervous flyer, there are certain things needed to give me 100% confidence and those little announcements in a calm voice about our flight path, the weather we will encounter etc. were missed.

Is silence a common thing outside of the larger carriers? Have others experienced it?

The mantra is (in this order):

Aviate
Navigate
Communicate

Communication comes much lower down on the priority list. I would not find it disconcerting to not have a PA (has happened on U2 and AA in my experience).

Yes this is where BA is different to other airlines. I've been on countless services on other airlines where there is zero communication from the flight deck. On AA it may well be "Yeah we're number 5 for take off, thanks for flying American", they may or may not appreciate my business on that particular flight. On BA you usually get a message towards the end of boarding (which usually explains any delays, and it's very important to listen to that, in my opinion), then news on the approach, which may be combined with "10/20 minutes to landing" or separate. Occasionally - and I've even had this on AA - a mid flight message saying "Great views for Mount St. Helens today" which I greatly appreciate. My favourite, apart from Northern Lights messages, was on one flight were a BA captain told us about a pod of whales as we came into Vancouver.

Jota flight crews I suspect stick to their own brief on this, particularly given the flight time.

Given the many nervous flyers out there, personally I think flight deck messages are important and reassuring. Surely you don't want a ball by ball commentary about Sir Andrew Murray's game (which I had once, not good!) but that apart I like them.

Having said that, given that pilots often have more important things to do (like flying the aircraft) than talking to the passengers, the irony is that the nervous passengers (and all the other passengers and crew) would be better off with silence than with a PA that's unnecessarily distracting the pilots.

In other words, if things are busy then passengers should prefer being safer to being more reassured.

Thanks CWS, that shows my lack of experience of other carriers, but as I said I've never had a totally silent flight crew before.
It must just be company policy for Jota - I can't see the mantra that rossmacd refers to having any bearing on a pre-taxi announcement or one at the start of descent. I do expect 2 fully trained pilots to be able to spare a minute outside of the high work rate phases of flight and I think it give a good overall impression and reassurance. That's just my view.

I think it also depends on the mood of the flight crew. I remember some flights where there was no communication, while others are a lot. I find BA usually quite good in this regard, in that pilots are quite talkative! As CWS says, I like this.

Depends on the mood of the flight crew. Some pilots say nothing or little. Others can't stop talking. :D

The experts will be able to comment authoritatively, but I wonder whether you've just identified two high workload phases of flight there.

Standard practice for BA short haul announcements seem to be as soon as doors are closed (about 10 minutes before departure), just after or some point during descent (around 20 minutes usually), 10 minute call, and finally parked on stand.

I imagine BA pilots (as with most pilots), are able to judge whether they have the time and "bandwidth" at any particular point during a flight to make an announcement.

Being profoundly deaf - I don't really appreciate the communication as it's indecipherable to me. When I ask my husband what was said, the second he starts speaking to relay the message, on comes the pilot/FA who constantly speaks for another 2/3 mins!! And no I don't use BSL!

BA flight crew are very good at speaking to passengers. I also thought it was interesting how one of the flight crew (I presume FO) used to stand at the cockpit door and say goodbye, although this seems to have stopped?

I've been on plenty of flights with other carriers where no announcements are made, though I have to also say that in recent years I've come to expect flight deck announcements on all the major carriers, although the timings will vary. I've recently been on AA, OS, IB, KL, QF, EI and AF and have always had FD announcements at some point, although not necessarily always pre push back and, as CWS says, sometimes very pithy indeed. I even remember a BA captain once speaking to us briefly during taxi departing from LHR to apologise for not speaking to us earlier- making the very valid point that they had been busy on the FD and presumed that the pax would rather an on time departure than listening to him (and right he was!).

I maybe wrong but I thought a friend of mine who is a BA pilot said that it is a requirement on BA for there to be pre-departure announcement from the flight-deck. IIRC, there isn't a set brief but mentioning the seat-belt policy is mandatory. I always thought that a mention of the no-smoking policy should be a requirement but evidently it isn't.

Only once on BA have I not heard an announcement from the flight-deck prior to push-back. The crew said they had decided to do it during the hour-long wait in the departure queue at JFK instead.

Personally I like the announcements from the flight-deck. It gives reassurance and also dispels some of the divide between crew and passengers.

Correct JumboJim, they must tell you the operating airline.

Best one for me was AA DCA-BUF - Captain said we will get this bird up to 560mph and get you down early if we can :)

Set the tone for a great flight

Some of my favourites are on go-arounds. Coming into, then climbing rapidly away from, SFO once, the pilot commented that air traffic control had made a "bit of a c*ck-up of that one", which I thought was rather frank.