I will never ignore an in-flight safety drill again. Not because I emerged from a day’s training with Thomson Airways flight crew worried about safety, but because I found it so ridiculously difficult to do.

Ten minutes into my training and I was inside a mocked up cabin at Thomson’s training HQ at Gatwick, struggling to hang on to a safety belt, lifejacket, oxygen mask, and in-flight safety card.

The front of the cabin was an Airbus 320. The back was a Boeing 757. I was somewhere in the middle delivering the worst safety demonstration in the history of air travel.

Clowning around

A real life member of crew was reading the safety announcement at what seemed like breakneck speed, while I juggled the props like a drunken clown. I could manage holding up the instruction card, pointing out the emergency exits and fastening the seat belt.

But the lifejacket knocked my glasses off, I suggested passengers inflate the jacket by blowing into the whistle, and I plonked the equipment downon a customer’s seat – a near sacking offence.

The point of our training day was to demonstrate that there is far more to the job than many customers and people in the business believe.

So you’re going to be a “trolley dolly”, was the standard response when I told people I would be joining a cabin crew for the day. It’s an easy jibe, and one that Thomson’s crew have heard a million times before, so it has no power to irritate.

Care in the air

Safety training manager Val Wardle gave a resigned smile when I questioned her about  the popular image of the cabin crew.

“People don’t realise the level of training that the crew do. It is only when somebody is in a situation when they see something happen like someone taken ill onboard that they realise how well cared for they are.”

And the level of training is far beyond what an outsider would expect. All of Thomson’s 2,850 cabin crew must have a working knowledge of a massive tome covering safety and service procedures, known informally within the company as “the door stop” because of its size.

Running to 1,340 pages, it covers five aircraft types and is a part of the cabin crews’ lives.

Everyone of them is tested on the book before every flight, meaning they answer about 300 questions a year.

The test shows which crew are alert and which aren’t and if they are judged not to be alert, they’re not allowed on the flight. Each crew member also has eight safety exams and 40 hours training a year.

Years back I thought journalism training was a challenge, but I don’t remember being told to memorise thousands of pages or risk not being allowed into work.

Safety mode

The procedures in the “doorstop” cover in- flight safety, smoke and fire, the aircraft emergency door, first aid and evacuations – which we all get to experience during the day.

First, the emergency door. We are taught how to arm and disarm the door, and lower a huge lever to open it. Simple enough, but we didn’t realise that an essential part of the procedure is to then turn round, hold your hand out toward the passengers and order them to stand back.

The aim is to stop a stampede toward the exit and the order needs to be delivered with the authority of a police or army officer. This is the point when the crew move from service to safety mode, and when you’ve seen them only in service mode dispensing meals and drinks, the transition is startling.

Next, the evacuation slide. Frankly, in a training exercise, this is nothing but fun. It’s about 14.5 metres high, and about the same size as you’d find at a kid’s fun fair. But the material means you move a lot faster, and there’s a bump at the end to push you back
on your feet. I’d like one in my back garden.

However, it’s less fun when attached to a burning aircraft, and the cabin crew’s job in such an extreme event is to get everyone down in a fast, but controlled manner. Some responsibility.

The next exercise walks us through the procedure for tackling an outbreak of fire in the cabin, using extinguishers available only on commercial aircraft.

They contain a gas called BCF, or bromochloro-difluoromethane, which is one of the most effective anti-fire agents known to mankind. It is also extremely damaging to the ozone layer, so is banned except for critical situations, like during a flight. Not surprisingly, we use a water substitute.

Having put out the fire, we find there is still plenty of smoke in the cabin, so are given smoke hoods, or personal respiratory protective devices, and told to lead each other through the cabin to search for any remaining passengers.

An aircraft cabin with the lights off is a fairly dark place. When it’s filled with smoke, it’s pitch black. We stumble and fumble along, feeling claustrophobic inside our hoods. It seems a world away from asking customers if they’d like chicken or beef, and it is. But it’s a world for which cabin crew have to be prepared.

Most of them will never deal with such extreme situations, but some will. And many will deal with other, smaller emergencies, such as using a defibrillator on a passenger who’s had a heart attack. Thomson’s cabin crews have defib training every year, which as someone who finds take-off a little scary, I find comforting.

So next time I’m sitting waiting to take off when the cabin crew go through their drill, I won’t be reading the paper, staring out the
window, or sending last minute emails. I’ll be sitting up straight, paying attention, and giving the crew the respect they deserve.

Cabin crew are the unsung heroes of travel, tasked with getting customers holidays off to a good start, and keeping them safe at the same time. Chris Gray joined Thomson Airways for a day to find out what the job’s really about