There are many elements of flight attendant operations that can be improved upon. Regulations established by the associated CAA are typically the minimum standards, not the highest standards of safety. What changes or improvements do you have in your manuals, training programs, or operations that you voluntarily implement to enhance safety at your airline?
At my first airline, we used to require window shades 3 rows forward and aft of an emergency exit to be kept open until after takeoff, and the same for landing. We did this so should something occur during takeoff or post-landing, we could more effectively see outside the plane to make our assessment and decide if it was safe to evacuate out that exit or not. While each emergency exit does have a viewing window, crewmembers can get a better perspective when able to look out forward and aft of the exits with window shades open. For every airline I worked at afterward, I implemented that procedure to enhance passenger safety and improve crewmember assessment ability during emergencies.
What do you do better at your airline above regulatory requirements?
During final descent or taxiing, every cabin crew must have experienced a passenger rushing towards the lavatory to do their thing. It was a challenge for some crew to prevent the occurrence from happening. So what we practiced is locking the lavatories during final compliance. We assigned a crew member incharge of locking their respective lavatory and the lead crew confirms that no passenger is inside before reporting cabin ready.
