When I boarded the plane in Philadelphia yesterday for the second leg of my trip to Traverse City, Michigan, the plane was incredibly hot. I sat down, buckled my seatbelt, and waited for the air conditioning to turn on and cool the plane, but for more than 15 minutes, while the plane was fully boarded, we sat at the gate, sweltering and still.
Finally, the air conditioning kicked on and the plane began backing away from the gate. A few minutes later, we took off, about 15 minutes behind schedule.
About 20 minutes later, once we’d reached our cruising altitude, the pilot’s voice came on the PA. He apologized for not speaking to us sooner and explained that the plane’s auxiliary power unit, which operates, among other things, the air conditioning, is broken, so they were trying to find a way to get the plane started and the AC running without that system, which is typically used to also start the engines.
He was also dealing with “a bunch of new people on the ground,” which made things more difficult.
“Rather than jumping on the PA and explaining the situation,” he said, “I thought it would be better to use my time getting the air conditioning on and getting the plane in the air.”
Then he advised us on the weather in Traverse City, Michigan, where we were headed, and our projected arrival time.
This was a stupid bit of communication.
As a passenger, I don’t need to hear that:
- A part of the plane I am now flying in is broken, even if that part is not essential for flight and causes no danger whatsoever.
- “A bunch of new people” serviced my plane before takeoff.
I am not a nervous flier, but if I were, these two facts would not have made me happy, and even as a worry-free flier, I didn’t like hearing them.
What the hell was this guy thinking?
Broken parts and new ground crew are not things passengers need to know about.
Ever.
I believe in truth, transparency, authenticity, and vulnerability, but I also believe in telling the right story at the right moment. Knowing that flying makes many people nervous or even afraid, announcements made by pilots and flight attendants should seek to instill confidence in their passengers.
We don’t need to know everything.
I also think it was stupid to suggest that the 14 seconds required for a PA announcement — apologizing for the cabin’s temperature and explaining that it would only take a few minutes to correct the problem and get the plane underway —were instead used to work on the problem.
A three-sentence PA announcement would’ve cost him almost nothing and would’ve settled the nerves of passengers who were sweating in their seats and wondering how long our delay would be.
Happily, the flight was uneventful, and I’m writing these words from a hotel room in Traverse City, where I will board another plane later today to head home.
Hopefully, the plane is operating well when I board today, but if it’s not and a wing needs tightening or an engine needs to be jump-started, I don’t want to know about these things.
I also don’t need to know windspeed and direction at my destination, which pilots are often fond of relaying to passengers. Air temperature and possible perceptions are great, but knowing that winds are out of the southwest at 13 knots has absolutely no meaning to me.
Why are they always telling us this useless bit of information?
But at least windspeed and direction won’t frighten a nervous passenger or leave us in the dark about possible delays.
