greensimba

I get frustrated when I see a passenger complain about something before takeoff. The flight attendants are required to report anything found. 99.9% of the time, these are Non Essential Furnishings (NEF) issues. The flight will often take a delay just to log/document the issue, and then defer it as inop until they get time to fix it. The flight will get delayed and the issue won't get fixed. Please alert your seat mates to help avoid unnecessary delays. Report it to the flight attendant after you're in flight.

Often1

I prefer to permit the experts, e.g. Captain, Dispatch and Ops (engineers) make the judgments.

Some things such as an OH bin are NEF, but if the door is loose, needs to be sealed.

I hate delays as much as the next person, but I hate aviation disasters even more.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, but your advice and request is a terrible idea.

Efrem

I agree 100%. Except for the most obvious cases, it is not your call as to whether something is or is not essential.

There are also situations that are best remedied before takeoff. If your seat back doesn't work properly, you want to be moved to a vacant seat before the gate agent tells standbys to take "any available seat." Waiting until after takeoff to point out the problem will probably mean that you're stuck with it for the next six hours.

Yoshi212

I have to concur with the others. Complaining there are crumbs in your seatback pocket or seat might be ok, especially if they can be swept up using the air sick bag & a napkin but the other stuff I leave to the professionals.

I was on an early flight the other day that had a broken tray table. Not only would this be annoying for that person but as this plane would make 8 flights that day with hops mostly between focus cities & not hubs the repair would remain unfixed most likely until the end of the flying day impacting many more passengers. If I was one of those I would prefer that it be fixed. It also could become a potential hazard during turbulence so should be fixed. The delay was 11 minutes overall and we still landed 8 minutes early.

I was on an LX flights to ZRH with a non operational business seat. The flight was 10 hours so that wasn't going to work for me. The flight was full in J & F so they called a tech on who took about 40 minutes from call to end of repair. We left maybe 20 minutes late but I had a functioning seat, the flight still landed a bit early & no complaints sent off to LX. Instead I sent a compliment on the handling of the situation.

beckoa

@greensimba, welcome to Flyertalk.

Please follow the redirect as we relocate your post.

Please note this thread originated in the Flame Free Information Desk.

~beckoa, co-moderator Information Desk

Annalisa12

You want me to get on a plane and tell my seat mates to not report anything to the flight attendant until after? If someone told me that I would be reporting YOU as it makes you sound like you have something to hide and that could be scary.

Badenoch

+1. I'm not going to discourage people reporting anything and I'm not going to hold back either.