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Exit-row etiquette
Going above and beyond
Why stop there? How about prohibiting passengers in the exit row from wearing headphones that might keep them from hearing emergency announcements? Maybe they should be refused alcohol so they are alert and focused.
An FAA spokesperson says the agency did consider the alcohol ban, as well as the idea of requiring passengers to actually operate an exit door in the gate area, but those rules didn’t make it into the official regulations. (Flight attendants, by the way, are not permitted to continue serving anyone that appears intoxicated.)
And perhaps all airlines should deny exit-row seats to anyone who needs a seatbelt extension. Actually, that’s already on the books at Southwest and several other airlines, but some people believe it should be an official part of the FAA’s regulations.
And then there’s the list of recommendations for safety briefings published just this past January by a panel of experts from the Society of Aerospace Engineers.
Their report points out that the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful emergency evacuation can be just a few seconds and that “any delay by a passenger in opening an exit may have fatal effects.” So the committee offered up a list of suggestions on how to improve the assessment and training procedures for exit-row seating.
Here are some of the ideas I found most intriguing:
- Airlines should determine if a passenger fits the criteria for exit-row seating “at or before arrival at the passenger loading gate,” especially when passengers can self-select seats (as in, don’t wait for passengers to board the plane to start identifying problems);
- Passengers in exit-row seats should be among the first passengers to board the airplane to allow time for an individual pre-flight briefing;
- The creation of an alternate way to expedite the screening and briefing process, such as a “promotional safety program” that pre-qualifies a passenger as an exit-row passenger;
- The requirement that crew members verify that exit-row passengers still meet the selection criteria before the plane lands, in case someone has “changed seats or become ill, intoxicated or otherwise incapacitated.”
The prospect of instituting just one or two of the above ideas may seem like a lot of unnecessary extra work and hassle for passengers and crew members already frazzled by modern-day travel. But some changes are definitely needed to ensure passengers take the duties more seriously because, as professor Stolzer puts it, “when the cabin is filling with smoke is a bad time to be figuring out what your job is.”
Harriet Baskas writes msnbc.com's popular weekly column, The Well-Mannered Traveler. She is the author of the “Stuck at the Airport” blog, a contributor to National Public Radio and a columnist for USATODAY.com.
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