fruitcage

With a nod to the latest safety video.... Something I have often wondered.... sad, I know...

On boarding a BA plane, the seat belts ends are often neatly crossed over the middle of the seat squab, so the passenger has to spend time un-crossing the ends, or worse, accidentally sit on the crossed seat belt and then wriggle about to free the belt ends. This must all increase boarding time and affect the all-important turnaround time and punctuality stats. Clearly someone (a cleaner?) has also spent time carefully arranging the belt on each seat, time which also costs IAG shareholders money in labour at least.

Is this arrangement a necessary part of a safety inspection, or done to avoid pax grabbing a neighbour's belt, or purely so that it looks neat? I would have thought that pointing the two belt ends forwards along the top of the squab would also look neat, and would also help avoid pax grabbing the neighbour's belt, if that is the objective.

Any insight from a staffer or BA guru would be appreciated.

T8191

If not crossed, there’s a risk that one or both ends could disappear down the sides of the seat.

My opinion, probably wrong of course.

Sixth Freedom

I had a riveting conversation with a seat belt supplier at Aircraft Interiors Expo a few years ago. Who knew it would be so interesting... Not that I remember what he said, just that it was interesting!

PAL62V

SadKingBilly

I also thought that, until I recently flew on AA's 787 in J, and learned from the safety video that seats there have an additional shoulder strap, which one is supposed to attach to a pin on the buckle - would totally not notice it should I have not been paying attention.

Schwann

First things first, let's buckle those belts!

Deltus

McKinsey did an interesting piece on this (and other airline inefficiencies) a few months ago: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/...st-for-leaders

Takiteasy

shefgab

Having flown airlines where they don't bother to cross the belts before boarding, I can confirm that the cabin looks very tatty. Small attention to details can make a big difference. It's all about setting the tone.

Crossed bells = tidy = organised

Messy belts = dirty = no attention to detail = company doesn't care

cupsandsaucers

you wouldn't believe how many people in an accident/emergency panic and go for the car belt buckle placement area to undo their belt. Even very frequent fliers. In a blind panic lots of people who well know better just blindly fumble around at the side of their hip. It has sadly claimed many many lives. That is why they hammer and hammer home the message over and over and over. And indeed why some airlines are now putting in inertial reel 3 point "car" seat belts to combat this.

Sixth Freedom

11. Do you load your 335-seat 777-300ER with a full tank of water when it is taking 50 passengers on a short 150 mile sector between longer rotations? Try loading less water to save a million Dollars in fuel burn.

(This really happened!)

UKtravelbear

Sometimes management consultants see only the £££$$$€€€ signs and fail to recognise other issues. And boy when you challenge them on the reasoning behind their recommendations do they object yet soon fall apart as once happened in one of my jobs when they looked aghast when I told them what they proposed would lose the organisation a rather vital accreditation for training junior doctors and another would breach regulations and therefore be illegal.


Crossing the seat belts like this not only makes them look nice but is a visual check that they haven't been damaged or as probably has happened the flap buckle part has fallen off (or even stolen)

adrianlondon

Crossing the seatbelts ensures that the person in the next seat (we're talking economy class here) doesn't sit on them if they get to their seat first.

On the other topic, as cupsandsaucers said above, the reason the safety video explains at relative length how to use the seatbelt is because tests were done and in a panic many people revert to trying to undo the belt as if they were in a car.

makrom

Before reading this thread, I didn't even know this seat belt crossing is a thing.
But as with almost all optimization, it isn't about whether something provides any benefits, but rather whether the benefits are worth it. For this particular subject, I'm inclined to say no.

LTN Phobia

It was actually a rivet supplier.