+1^

One more point on the announcements... usually, I've no issue (and do like scenery updates during the day). However, I've had cases where let's say I thought the crew wasn't forthcoming with what was going on. Case in point, after pushback and beginning of taxi (EWR) after a 2+ hour MX delay and aircraft swap, I looked out the window and saw the airport's emergency vehicles (all of them, it seemed) heading towards the threshold of 22L. It was a busy night, and pretty clear that we were in for a long delay due to whatever emergency was happening. None of the subsequent PA's touched on what we could plainly see out of the window, and the first several announcements downplayed the delay (even after the engines were shut down). Would have been nice to have a better idea of what was going on... not gory details that might upset anyone... let's say, tactful honesty.

I just want to say to the FA in FC IAH-EWR on the early flight on 1/9....awesome! We were pushing back on a 739, and the video was starting. LK was talking, and alas, there was some technical difficulties.

HAHA, there was this suit, nerd, in front of me in FC who wouldn't get off his phone. Dork, dressed and talked like a dork, and acted like one. :rolleyes: The FC FA, when the video skipped and went off, said:

"Sir, we're waiting on you!"

AWESOME! I was hung over and wasn't paying attenton until then, but it was classic. Unrehersed and numero uno! Why I fly CO x20. Just wanted to add to, what I hope, is a great thread. :)

I like these announcements when we are in a delay situation. Yesterday I was delayed outta SFO on a flight and it is good to know when we will arrive. I think that the time of day of the flight determines the length and frequencey of PA announcements. I recall on an early morning flight having a pilot mention a FedEx plane flying close below. That was cool as I got a glimpse of that. I like the announcements about what is below, I even had a captain that took us on a brief tour of the Grand Canyon on decent into LAS as were were early and he had to burn a little time. I say keep them coming.

I will say that unfortunately the one announcement I tune out is the safety briefing as it is the same and I have been on most of the aircraft in the CO fleet. I did have a FA outta OKC a week ago grill us about the safety features which made me listen a little more but was take aback by it too.

Thanks! ^ :cool:

They is a book at the local bookstore that you would like. I think it is written by a geologists. It is views from the aircraft and has pics and details of lanscapes and city scenes and a DVD you can put on your laptop with more pictures.

On a EWR - MCO flight last week (which are always full of kids!) one lucky little guy was invited into the cockpit for a look around. I was jealous (I suppose I am just a big kid!:)) When he came down the ailse the kid was wearing a pilots cap. I dont know whether he nicked it or he was given it, but boy was he grinning from ear to ear. So was everyone that saw him. That was pretty cool (and again I was jealous!)

:eek: And the union gets mad at us.... :rolleyes:


Sorry...I had to. :cool:

Sorry - I should have qualified - It was during boarding! (It was the hat thing that got my attention). It would have been super cool but against a whole bunch of rules (as we know and have been reminded :rolleyes: ...... I read the thread :rolleyes::rolleyes:) during the flight.

PS - thats why I used to love the old Beech 1900's pre 9/11 more often than not the guys up front would leave the door open. I would always get seat 1A so I could watch them work. Much more fun for us afficionados than Microsoft flight simulator!

I have had a few pilots on the 752/753 come out into the FC cabin when boarding via 2L and talk with the folks in that cabin. I think that is cool. The pilot crews are the ones we rarely see and get to know.

I will say that I fly alone a lot and enjoy talking to the crew at times. I hope that is something that doesnt bother yall all that much. As a son and brother of pilots I enjoy hearing the ATC chatter and hope that CO finds the money soon to get the neccessary eguipment on board quickly.

Last wednesday , on my LGA-IAH flight , the pilot came out before we shut the cabin door and personally thanked us for flying CO .

I full agree about the FA announcements. On redeyes, I *always* make every announcement - and show the preview - on the ground. The only announcement I make once airborne is "seatbelts" and and the final approach announcements.

One of my biggest aerogeek thrills in the past couple years was flying in the front right seat on our tour of Kauai in an Airvan. An entirely different perspective!

Well, landing a 772 in the CO sim was cool as well.... ^^

Absolutely. I write down a lot of notes when I fly - actual time of door closed, push back, take off, etc... as well as estimated flight time and proposed flight level that are announced. And I will check how accurate they are.

Now, one thing that you guys may not realize is that on international flights with a FA translating what was announced. A lot of times, information was skipped, or didn't not match.

You may announce that estimated flight time EWR-HKG is 15 hour 8 minutes. And the Cantonese- or Putonghua-speaking FA may say 15 hours. Yes, they ate your 8 minutes! And often the routing part will be totally skipped, as they may not know how to translate "Baffin Island", or they're just lazy.

There are a few pilots that, during the boarding anouncement, detail the distance, fuel quantity, how much it costs and how many gallons/dollars per PAX that comes to (with a few variations here and there). Call me a geek, but even when I'm working, I find it interesting.

Although we would love to help out with this, some of it isn't supposed to be done for safety reasons. We can ONLY have the monitors down while taxiing to play the safety demonstration. The High School Musical 3 Preview doesn't count as a safety demo:( Same with headphones. We should only be walking through the cabin for safety-related purposes during taxiing. Most of the other announcements can be made on the ground, but some still need to be made up in the air, regarding overhead bins, seatbelts, etc...

I'll try and get what I can get done on the ground for all you sleepers out there:)

The one humorous thing I heard many times from the cockpit is referring to IAH as Bush "Intergalactic" Airport, which always makes me smirk...

I have always enjoyed a bit of humor from the cockpit...

I don't mind humor on the plane, as long as it is not forced and...well...unhumorous like most of the c-r-a-p- that is spewed on WN... :rolleyes:

:D ^^
:(

I guess I'll just have to hope for more renegades like LukeSkywaiter when I'm on the redeyes. ;)

A majority of my flights are long-haul, where sleep is necessary. I honestly prefer that the pilot and FAs get through the required announcements as quickly as possible and not say a single word unless it's absolutely necessary.

I always appreciated it when the pilot tells us during his initial announcement the route we'll be following with any waypoints of interest. Because of the sleeping in flight thing, it might be helpful to add at that time how long into the flight we'd be seeing those waypoints, then the reminder when we're over them could be shorter.

A very long time ago, before frequent flier clubs existed, I briefly lived in Cleveland, and would travel home to NYC on the weekends. On the particular UA evening flight I would always take on Friday nights it was almost always the same pilot. During his descent announcement, made as we were flying over Newark, he would add just before the "thanks for flying UA" - "and as you look at all the lights down below, remember that every one of those lightbulbs was screwed in by hand." A little strange, but oddly compelling at the same time.

Would you prefer we just shut up so you can sleep?
Yes on the redeyes for sure. ;)

Do you like additional announcements?
Yes because I usually am in an aisle seat and if there is noteworthy scenery announced then my seatmate(s) won't be upset if I crane to look out the window! Otherwise I keep my eyes on my book/magazine/laptop.

Other things I like:

Humorous announcements, as long as they're not cheesy (copied from WN ;))

When pilots and flight attendants talk to us (when welcome / appropriate), and "personalize" the flight experience. It's cool to know a little bit about who is working on and flying the plane. (No it doesn't have to be a life story, but little tidbits like where they are based, how long with CO.)

When CO employees thank us for our business and really appear to mean it. That little acknowledgment warms my heart and keeps me flying...

Proactive service - e.g. if I've wrapped my pashmina around my head three times and I'm shivering (srsly, this happens a lot), I must be cold! I love it when the flight attendant notices and offers a blanket.

When a CO employee or exec is a pax on a flight and they are "on." (Like Larry a few weeks back, spent almost the whole flight talking to the crew, front and back. I've also had the opportunity to sit next to pilots, managers, gate agents, flight attendants, and they all impressed me with their longevity with the company and their loyalty to CO.)

What I don't like is:

When pilots mumble on the PA. It's hard enough to hear when they enunciate clearly (take a diction lesson from Chavon)! It's almost worse to have a mumbled announcement than no announcement at all.

When flight attendants yank a sleeping pax's seat forward - just touch them on the arm to wake them up and let them do it themselves. If they don't respond, repeat until they wake up.

When flight attendants ignore their pax and congregate in the galley and talk for most of the flight (rare but it does happen).

When I am treated as an annoyance by a flight attendant. This happened to me yesterday, the FA rolled her eyes when I commented on (NOT complained about) the temperature in the cabin. You know what? I'm not a diva pax, you don't have to warm up the whole cabin for me. I know you're working, and working hard so maybe if I had a blanket I wouldn't be so cold...

That's all that comes to mind at the moment!

And then decide to call TSA because you are obviously a suspicious character, whereupon you will be removed from the aircraft, body cavity searched, quizzed on your sympathies for Islam, and your PDA will be taken apart into 1,000 pieces, each of which will be individually sniffed and its liquid content determined. Your shoes will lose their soles.

When you turn out to be clean, to make up for your troubles, you'll be granted a middle seat in coach on the next flight leaving for your destination, in 8 hours.

Well, this part didn't happen, but the rest of my and sdm1130's post actually happened to me coming home from the Do. ;)

Something else to chip in that favors Ch. 9: there's a post in the UA thread about how a pilot invited the pax to turn on Ch.9, because there was some kind of long ground delay, and to pass the time, he was going to give some kind of impromptu aviation lecture and route it out of the PA and into 9. Lots of pax were very impressed that he would take the time.

I'm from the school that likes one long announcement on the ground with shorter bursts while airborne. Think how B6 does theirs. Good humor = ^. Waypoints/interesting window views: ^

Do you mean the "the smoking section is out on the wing, with a special showing of gone with the wind" announcements? Yeah, that is classic.:rolleyes:

Back in the day before IFE it seemed the Capts. spoke a lot more as we would fly cross country. I had one Chatty Cappy that gave us an entire commentary on a flt from EWR-LAX. I found it fascinating.

I also love Channel 9 on UA. I will listen to that thru the entire flt. I wish CO had it.

I have had several UA Capt. come back to the F cabin and say thanks for flying and one who gave his business cards to everybody in F with a note of Thanks. Thought that was cool.

I agree on Red-Eyes everybody should shut up...

LOL

Actually, a memo was put out in the last few months (I, of course, cannot find it, but I promise this is true) that, while, selling headsets on the ground is not OK, showing the preview is.

This is especially helpful on hit or miss flights, where showing the preview on the ground vs. the air makes the difference as to whether or not they get the scheduled movie or Continental Vision.

Shortly after 9/11, I was on a flight and the pilot came back and told the passengers that if you see anyone acting in a threatening way that might endanger the flight or crew, be my guest and don't hesitate to remedy the situation by whatever means you need to.
The French were less subtle, they had machine guns and dogs in the jetway as we boarded.

Cool stories on both counts.

On the EWR-SFO trip (and possibly others)...
 

....please tell us when we are going over the Grand Canyon.....

Or not. Have to agree with DesertFlyer who said: Not at all. If I wanted a guided tour, I'd travel by hot air balloon..

I feel that the announcements made from the cockpit today is exactly what's needed and appreciated. I love getting updates when we get delays (if at all possible).

On intercontinental flights, I love it when the Pilots take a walk around the plane to chat.

Hahah. That's hilarious.

I prefer hot air balloon too, as I like to spot :rolleyes: crop circles.

I had a pilot make an announcement to the effect of "those of you sitting on the right side of the aircraft will get a great view of Niagara Falls. And on the left, you'll see the Grand Canyon."

I'd say 90% of the plane began looking out the windows. :rolleyes:

So there's a little disagreement on the guided tour announcements but a consensus on redeyes: max announcements on the ground, shut up in flight.

I think most pilots know to shut up on redeyes so if you are getting a long-winded dissertation it's probably because the pilot has adjusted his work/rest schedule so well he/she has forgotten what time of day it is!

As for delay information, we understand that you want as much info as possible and hopefully crews are providing it. What you have to keep in mind is that, in spite of what I know to be true in my own mind, pilots are NOT all-seeing pillars of aviation knowledge! When a fleet of emergency vehicles goes zooming past your window on the way to the end of 22L you say to yourself, "I wonder what's up?" At the same time the pilots are looking at each other saying, "I wonder what's up?" We are at the mercy of other agencies (ATC and CO operations mainly) when it comes to getting information about events on the airport or in the air traffic system. We can make some educated guesses but we wait for verification from outside sources before passing on information. As you can imagine, the volume of radio traffic goes way up at places like EWR when the weather is bad or an aircraft has an emergency situation or just during the normal high traffic times. If every jet that just switched over to ground control or tower started asking questions about delays it would only further aggravate the situation (and if they get your callsign will result in another 5 airplanes getting put in front of you!) So we wait patiently for information from outside sources (all of whom have higher priority duties than relaying delay causes to us) and pass it on as soon as we can. Hopefully no one is outright lying to you but I know ATC and the weather have made a liar out of me on numerous occasions. Typically it is one of these two situations:
ATC: "expect to wait another 20 minutes your expected release time is XX."
ME on the PA: "we are expecting to sit here another 20 minutes before be released for takeoff."
(3 seconds elapsed time)
ATC: "you are released, cleared for takeoff."
ME: doh! :o

or
ME on the PA: "we have reached our cruising altitude and are expecting a smooth ride so I'm turning off the fasten seat belt sign..."
The Weather: moderate turbulence the instant the fasten seat belt sign hits the off position
ME: doh! :o
(many of us refer to the fasten seat belt sign as the "turbulence ON switch")

Here's my question for you, would you like updates every 10 minutes even if there is no new information? I know the captains I fly with have multiple schools of thought on this issue so on one flight you get constant updates and on another you get none.

ps. this is great info, I have already thought of several ways I can adjust my PAs and processes to make this flying thing a better deal for all of us.

I probably only speak for myself on this -- but I think it's only necessary to give updates when you have new info. I fly enough to know that you guys want to get off the ground just as much as I do and you'll do everything in your power to get the plane on the way.

My constant worry, flying in the evening, is that my crew is going to time out during excessive delays. I'd love to find out what the "wall" is and what the risk is for cancellation. I can then effectively manage a plan B scenario, if that exists.

Would it help if I brought a Box of Joe and some donuts to bribe the ATC at EWR so whatever plane I'm on will get priority? :rolleyes:;):D

I like to hear gate info if flying into a connecting airport or wx if flying into destination, so, yeah, I listen. Also flight time if on a route I don't fly often, but that's about 1x to 2x per year.

I like landmarks that are genuine landmarks and which can be seen from the plane (Rainier, Grand Canyon, etc). I have no need to know that we're flying over Dallas (which I've heard often on OKC-IAH flights).

Two pet peeves of mine with pilot spiels:

1) Often the spiel will start 5 minutes into the IFE. Seems like this could be timed better. Perhaps this is an FA/pilot coordination issue (I doubt y'all know what's happening on IFE), or perhaps it's just the way of the world.

2) Some pilots will key the mic on and off during their spiel. If this happens to be during IFE, it can get you through several lines of dialogue after which you have no idea what happened (and I'm the type guy who instinctively reaches for my Tivo remote at the movie theater).

It seems to me that this would make it easier... after the preview, you could announce "once we're in the air, we'll be through the cabin with headphones available for $1." Then you can walk the cabin once in the air without having to announce it?


Well, I'd say new info or every 30 minutes to say there's no new info. But this has been my experience with CO generally.

I agree with this.

My last post was getting a little long winded so I wanted put a separate thought here (I am not jacking up my post count I swear!).

I have seen several posts in this thread stating what a great thing a cockpit visit can be. Since 9-11 many passenger think they can no longer visit the cockpit while on the ground but that is not true. You can't just rush into the cockpit when you board or you'll find out the hard way if the are Air Marshalls on board! Ask the FA closest to the CP if you can go up for a visit (having kids with you helps but is not required, borrow some from another PAX if you wanna make sure :)) and they will make sure we are not too busy. Showing off our office and talking with aviation enthusiasts is a great thing for us as well. I have not run into a captain yet that will refuse a cockpit visit unless there is a serious time constraint (and sometimes not even then-picture an FA standing in the cockpit entrance tapping on her watch and an irate GA holding the entry door half open). Cameras are welcome and most capts will let you try out one of the front seats (certain poses might not be allowed, see previous closed thread:D). So come on down and bring the family next time you fly!

On a semi-related subject, do any of you carry a log book of your flights? Passenger log books used to be pretty common but I haven't seen one in two years. About 2 years ago the FA brought up an older gentlemen who had a log book and was wondering if the captain would sign it. The captain did and then handed me the log while he chatted with our visitor. I flipped through his log and was blown away! The book itself was obviously very old (as was our visitor) but when I flipped to the first page I saw entry number one was from 1933! A quick trip through the book showed this guy had been on just about every major or national airline that had ever existed. Quite a few of the earliest flights were barnstormer rides on WWI era biplanes. This guy had never been a pilot only a passenger. As he was leaving I told him how impressed I was with his experience and his ability to keep a log for that long, to which he replied, "that's my second one!" The first was lost in a plane crash! A two-seater, him and the pilot walked away fine then the wreckage caught fire. Just wondering if anyone out there is still doing this (keeping a log, not crashing and burning airplanes:p).

Unwritten LAW
 

Middle seat ALWAYS is entitled to the armrests.