Turbulence and the passengers who grab you: the calm face, the real feeling and what senior crew actually think during it
-
#1 Loganair, three years of Scottish island weather, and I get asked by nervous flyers and by new crew what I actually feel during turbulence. The honest answer is different from the calm face, so here it is, and I would like other crew to add theirs, because I think the truth helps the new ones.
What I feel
Almost nothing, now. The first six months, everything. The ATR in a Shetland crosswind is a lively aircraft and I spent my first winter with my stomach in my throat. Then one day it stopped. Not because the weather changed, because I had seen the pilots handle a hundred of them and the aircraft had done what it was designed to do a hundred times. Turbulence became weather. Weather became Tuesday.
What I think about during it
The cabin. Is everyone seated, is the trolley stowed, is the galley secure, is the child in 4A still holding the sick bag I gave her. The passengers imagine we are thinking about the aircraft. We are thinking about the hot water urn.
The passengers who grab you
It happens. A hand on the arm, a hand on the sleeve, once a full grip on my wrist from a woman who had not flown in twenty years. The calm face is for them. What I say: 'This is normal for this route, the pilots have done this a thousand times, I am going to sit down now and so should you, and I will come back when it settles.' Then I sit down. The sitting down is the reassurance. If the crew are strapped in and looking bored, the cabin calms.
What senior crew told me
A captain in my first month said: 'The aircraft is stronger than the weather. You are the only part of this that can be frightened, so choose not to be.' Which sounded like nonsense at the time and is the truest thing anyone has told me about the job.
For the new crew
You will be scared for a while. Everyone was. It ends, and it ends faster if you watch the senior crew's faces instead of the wings.
Your version, honestly.
-
#2 Widerøe, Norwegian coast, same aircraft type and worse weather, and the captain's line is exactly right. The aircraft is stronger than the weather. I say it to new crew in my own words now.
-
#3 Qatar, and the Bay of Bengal in monsoon season on a 777 is the version most crew know. The hot water urn is exactly what I think about. And the sitting down being the reassurance: yes. The cabin reads the crew.
-
#4 United, Pacific, and I would add the one moment that still gets me: the sudden drop with no warning when the trolley is out. Not fear exactly. Adrenaline, then the count of where every crew member is. The rest is weather.
-
#5 Not crew yet, and honestly this thread has done more for my nerves about the job than anything. Thank you for the true version.
-
#6 @parisgirl the true version is always less frightening than the imagined one. That is the whole point of writing it.
-
#7 Eight years, and the only turbulence that still bothers me is the kind that stops the coffee service. Which is, I realise, the point Fiona is making.