Why flight attendants don't just stand at the entrance to greet you when boarding
Created: 07/12/2022, 09:00
By: Franziska Kaindl
The greeting of the flight crew at the entrance makes passengers feel immediately at ease - but politeness is not the only reason for the procedure.
Flying is often associated with a lot of waiting at the security check and at the gate - one or the other breathes a sigh of relief when it's finally time to board.
Then a friendly greeting from the crew when boarding – and your spirits are lifted again.
Some welcome words even mean that the staff finds them particularly attractive.
However, the ritual also has other reasons, as a flight attendant has now revealed.
Greetings by flight attendants are part of the security check
The safety aspect always plays a major role when flying - also when boarding the passengers.
"We stand in the door so that we can evacuate in case of an emergency," said a flight attendant anonymously to the online portal
Travelbook
.
It is always possible that this will happen and in this case the crew must be able to react quickly and get the passengers to disembark in a coordinated manner.
The cabin crew also positioned themselves at the emergency exits until boarding was completed and the doors locked – because these would also be used for evacuations.
When boarding, guests are always greeted in a friendly manner by the flight attendants.
© Imago
However, greeting passengers at the entrance offers other benefits to the crew, the flight attendant revealed.
This would give the staff the opportunity to take a closer look at the guests and identify certain behaviors as soon as they board.
For example, if a person appears to be intoxicated, the flight attendants would keep a closer eye on them.
Christian Liepack, a former flight attendant, reported to the
Kölnische Rundschau a few years ago
that each of the crew would go through his checklist in his head: "After all, we can't just stop like a taxi driver and ask a passenger to get off.
Safety is the top priority.
That's why we take a very close look at who is getting on the plane." The check also serves many other purposes - for example, to check the fitness of the passengers or to determine whether the hand luggage is too big for the cabin.
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Flight attendant clears up rumor: Passengers are not counted when boarding
The opinion often prevails that flight attendants would also use the greeting ritual to secretly count the passengers.
As they clasped their hands behind their backs, they activated the click counter.
However, the anonymous flight attendant wants to dispel this myth: at least with her airline, this would not be the case, since the booking numbers are given on a mobile device.
"Only when a seat is occupied in business class that should actually be free, do we check it out," says the woman.
