Last week on flight AY 1919 from Helsinki to Aqaba the first announcement from the flight deck was, how shall I say it, not up for a flying start. Shortly after take off the captain's confident voice was heard over the speaker system: " Good morning, this is Captain Jones (name tampered) and with me here in the cockpit I have co-pilot Smith.........(a few seconds of dead silence passed)....sorry, this is Captain Smith and with me here I have co-pilot Jones...".
Mixing up your name with your colleague could either be a sign of severe nervousness or fatigue, conditions not ranking high when your supposed to take a plane full of passengers from point A to B. Well, I guess mistakes happen and the ride to Aqaba ended up being a real charm.
The importance of flight deck announcements are on some airlines underrated. The other week on a China Eastern flight from Shanghai to Singapore the crew on flight deck must have been mute. Not one single announcement, not a single word was heard from cockpit during the entire flight. Not even when encountering severe turbulence. In my world that's strange. I find it encouraging when the captain or co-pilot bothers to say a few words if something out of the ordinary happens.
On the other hand we have the pilots suffering from oral diarrhoea. The first five announcements can be funny but when the pilot has decided to guide you through your whole flight of 4 hours, being constantly "on the air" I think he should have applied for a job on the local radio station instead of flying passenger planes.
Too much or too less is never good. But if had to choose between mute or diarrhoea I would go for the latter one.
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