Why do airlines ask you to always lift the window blinds during takeoffs and landings?
Quite widespread practice that has never been explained, airlines, regardless of the country you come from, always ask you during landings and take-offs to lift the windows blinds and today we know why. The answer is simple, and will be detailed below.
An agent explains everything
Indeed, according to a U.S. flight attendant who asked the question, the FAA ( Federal Aviation Administration ), the U.S. Federal Air Control Authority requires that each commercial or private aircraft be able to be evacuated in less than 90 seconds in the event of an incident.
This means that flight personnel, including flight attendants, have the duty and obligation in less than one minute and 30 seconds, to evacuate passengers from an aircraft and to direct them to emergency exits. In order to prepare for a possible evacuation, flight attendants therefore require passengers to lift the blinds before takeoff and landing. The flight attendant we will not cite the name for obvious reasons to add:
If there is an emergency situation, we must be able to look through the windows to assess the conditions outside [...] If there are debris, flames or water or any other obstacle on the outside, we will lose valuable time and endanger passengers during evacuation.
It is therefore understood that, in fact, these portholes are a double protection, in the sense that they allow, thanks to their hermetic design, to keep the artificial pressure created by the aircraft at altitude, but also allow their strength, to maintain a certain physical integrity during the incidents, in order to give the possibility to the flight attendants, to appreciate the situation outside.
Main photo credit: Flickr – Jonathan Pincas
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