Whereas turbulence-related fatalities are fairly uncommon, accidents have piled up through the years.
WASHINGTON — Southwest Airways says it’s ending cabin service earlier on flights, requiring passengers to do the same old pre-landing procedures akin to making certain their seatbelts are mounted and returning their seats to an upright place sooner than earlier than.
Starting on Dec. 4, an organization spokesperson mentioned, flight attendants will begin getting ready the cabin for touchdown at an altitude of 18,000 ft (5,486 meters) as a substitute of 10,000 ft (3,048 meters). The change in process is designed to “cut back the danger of in-flight turbulence accidents” for crew members and passengers, the corporate mentioned.
Whereas turbulence-related fatalities are fairly uncommon, accidents have piled up through the years. A couple of-third of all airline incidents in the US from 2009 by 2018 had been associated to turbulence, and most of them resulted in a number of critical accidents however no injury to the airplane, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board reported.
In Might, a 73-year outdated man died on board a Singapore Airways flight when the airplane hit extreme turbulence over the Indian Ocean.
The airline had additionally beforehand introduced different adjustments.
Southwest is planning to toss out a half-century custom of “open seating” — passengers selecting their very own seats after boarding the airplane.
The airline introduced that it plans to finish the open-boarding system it has used for greater than 50 years and begin flights with assigned seats in the course of the first half of 2026 because it responds to shifting client tastes and tries to reverse a three-year stoop in income.
Together with introducing assigned seats, the airline will make about one-third of them higher-priced premium seats with as much as 5 inches of additional legroom. That may require eradicating a row of seats on some planes. Work to retrofit the fleet will begin within the first half of subsequent 12 months and be accomplished by the tip of 2026, executives mentioned.
