Flight survival - what we really care about

What do you do when you board a flight and the cabin staff go through the safety routines? I sometimes look up out of politeness but most of the time I ignore them because I have heard it all before.

Even the preamble that: "You have probably heard this before but we would still urge you to pay attention...." delivers no more than the faintest prick to my conscience. Sometimes I look up and see the staff going through a routine that they can do in their sleep. I could do it in my sleep.

But I never heard anyone tell me that, in the event of a ditching, I should not try to open the rear doors of the aircraft. That would have been useful advice for the 150 passengers of US Airways Flight 1549 that ditched in New York’s Hudson River last week. But, according to some of the quotes here, it wasn't observed by one flight attendant.

As it was the passengers failed to get the rear door open, thus buying themselves precious time in the escape.

I do like to get myself near an escape door, although more for the leg room than for a quick way out, and I do always study the door handle instructions so I know how to get it open.

If not near an escape door I check out where they are and work out which way I would head, but I don’t watch the steward strapping on his life-jacket, pulling out his whistle or pretending to inflate the life-jacket manually. Not any more.

It would be like watching someone going through the motions of starting a car. I know how to do that. How could I further my success by watching? But is this attitude setting a bad example to others who may not know the routine so well? I wonder if the Queen, who has flown thousands of times, bothers to pay attention. I imagine she does. Duty does not allow her to appear blasé.

I haven’t seen any figures yet but I wonder how many of the escaping passengers of the New York flight donned their life-jackets? I didn’t see many in the pictures, one reason, I suppose, that crew of the converging ferries threw out life jackets to those on the aeroplane’s wing.

If cabin crew varied their safety advice a bit I’m sure more of us would pay attention but it seems to be airline policy not to give out too much information for fear, perhaps, that it will get the passengers thinking and, possibly, panicking.

I mean, you never hear them uttering the words "in the event of a bird strike in both engines" or "if we hit an air pocket and plunge 1,000 feet," no nothing like that. They merely advise us to keep our seat belts buckled (I always do).

There are a few things about aircraft I don’t understand. Why have no smoking signs for every seat? Isn’t it time they accepted there is a presumption that we don’t smoke?

Also, why isn’t there more information about seat-reclining etiquette? There seems to be an etiquette but we are supposed to assume what it is and not everyone does. It puts us in a difficult position. If the person in front of me reclines their seat I feel I need to recline mine but I don’t want to indispose the person behind. Should I ask them if they mind? What if they do mind? Why have the recline buttons if we can’t use them freely?

Some people have though quite a bit about this. Then there is middle seat etiquette. Some even quote Winston Churchill.I had no idea.

But at least it answers my question. When we fly we're not thinking about surviving a crash but about surviving the next few hours with our fellow passengers. It's not geese in the engines that worries us, but the tray table in our stomach.