A recent memo warns American Airlines flight attendants that they must ensure no passengers are left onboard after landing, a “critical” safety breach that is occurring more frequently.
Union Warns American Airlines Flight Attendants To Stop Leaving Passengers Onboard, A “Critical” Safety Berach
A memo to flight attendants from the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA), the union representing flight attendants at AA, warns of a “marked uptick in sleeping passengers being left on empty planes.” The memo, obtained by PYOK, warns:
“These procedures are required to ensure that no passenger is ever left onboard. Check lavatories, and make sure no passengers are sleeping in or under seats. This is a critical final check to confirm that no one has been overlooked, and this ensures that you and your crew aren’t at risk of violating a FAR.
“Leaving passengers on the aircraft unattended is a significant safety and security concern and we appreciate everyone’s shared efforts in ensuring this doesn’t happen.”
(FAR = Federal Aviation Regulations)
In “every” recent case, passengers were left onboard because “flight attendants had not properly completed post-flight security checks.”
A “minimum crew violation” occurs when a passenger is on the aircraft without a flight attendant. For safety and security reasons, it is never allowed and represents a violation of federal regulations.
After traveling around the world with my son and having to pry him out of his seats after he slept through landing, taxi, and post-flight announcements, it is no surprise to me that some heavy sleepers can sleep through even a rough landing.
What I don’t understand is, unless they are hiding out in the lavatory, how they can be missed? There are flight attendant jump seats in the rear of the aircraft, meaning that there should be flight attendants in the very back of the plane who will be last to deplane. How can a passenger thereby be missed who is lying on a seat or even on the floor after everyone else has deplaned?
This sort of thing has happened from time to time in the past. In 2010, I wrote about an incident that occurred on a United Express flight in which a woman fell asleep on a Washington (IAD) to Philadelphia (PHL) flight and was left onboard.
We are frequently reminded that “flight attendants are here primarily for your safety” and I have to speculate how scary it would be if a passenger was unconscious or sick due to a medical emergency and the flight attendants missed him. Leaving passengers onboard with access to the flight deck also presents a potential security hazard.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully, this memo does the trick and American Airlines flight attendants will stop leaving passengers onboard. While the memo did not reveal the frequency of such occurrences, even a few per year strikes me as a few too much.
image: AA
They are also concerned about passengers leaving their “service animals” onboard .
Quite obviously, when there’s no ‘finger’ (jetbridge), the FAs may disembark from the aft door with pax having been left in the middle of the plane. Not that it’s a good idea for them to lock anyone in!
That means nobody cleans those planes otherwise the cleaning crew would see a passenger sleeping on their seat.
Doesn’t mean that at all. It is probably the cleaners who are the ones most likely to find/ report someone still on board.
Oh look, another snide flight attendant bashing article from Matthew. New year, same blogger.
What’s so snide about it?
A corollary issue flight arrived around midnight. We were deplaned BUT, no wheelchair staff arrived to push us from a very remote gate It took a long time and a supreme effort to get to the front