Did we land or were we shot down?

Simon Calder The Man Who Pays His Way

YOU KNOW those "Skychannel" inflight presentations, where airline passengers can watch a screen full of information on how the flight is progressing? I question how useful they actually are.

The idea is to give you a continuous reading of airspeed (nice to know it's well into the hundreds), altitude (with Everest at 29,000 feet, anything above 30,000 is fine with me), and outside temperature (typically around minus 60C).

Hang on: of what possible reassurance to the anxious passenger is knowing how cold it is in the stratosphere? It merely serves to remind us mortals that, should anything go wrong with the plane's hermetic sealing, as well as suffering instant depressurisation we would immediately freeze to death.

A much more useful indicator, particularly on a flight with Malaysia Airlines, would be how much fuel remains in the tanks. The chance of repeats of the scenario of a 747 running close to empty on the approach to Heathrow would be reduced if pilots knew that passengers were privy to the equivalent of an orange warning light coming on in the cabin.

I HAVE never been on a Malaysia Airlines plane that showed any danger of running out of inflight refreshments. Indeed, even though the airline hails from a predominantly Muslim country, it promises first class passengers "Dom Perignon, Hennessy XO and Taylor's 20-year-old port" (not, presumably, in the same glass).

Yet despite such generosity in dispensing alcohol, I have never heard of cases of air rage on Malaysia Airlines. Perhaps the incentive for good behaviour is contained in the small print of the current timetable:

"Complimentary Polaroid Photographs - passengers aboard 747-400 aircraft may request a snap shot to be taken by the cabin crew." Given that the crew have access to an instant camera, they can threaten to photograph passengers behaving badly for posterity - or evidence.

THE SCOPE for inflight entertainment on the half-hour hop between Amsterdam and Heathrow is limited, but the captain of British Airways flight 441 did his best to enliven the journey. "Ladies and gentlemen, air traffic control has been kind to us and we'll be landing in 10 minutes." Short pause. "Cabin crew, you'll be landing in 10 minutes, too." They looked relieved. Then, as we taxied to the gate at Terminal Four, he gave the familiar instruction: "Cabin crew, doors to manual" - before adding "And take the rest of the day off."

Yet British air crew could learn a thing or two from their North American counterparts when it comes to brightening up a routine flight. At the end of a particularly grim charter from Gatwick that arrived three hours late in Toronto, the chief steward told us: "Smoking is permitted only in certain designated areas at the airport," before adding: "If you want to know where they are, just follow the crew."

An e-mail reaches me from New York via our Strasbourg-based writer, Margaret Campbell, containing examples of how inflight announcements have deviated from the prescribed norms.

A flight attendant with the world's safest airline, Southwest, gave these instructions: "To operate your seat belt, insert the metal tab into the buckle and pull tight.

"It works just like every other seat belt, and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised. In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask and pull it over your face. If you have a small child travelling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are travelling with two or more small children, decide now which one you love more."

A pilot with the same airline told passengers "Weather at our destination is 50 degrees, with some broken clouds, but we'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you, or your money, more than Southwest Airlines."

The best comments are those that follow landings known in the industry as "firm". Try these:

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo. Please remain in your seats with your seat belts fastened while the captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate."

"Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."

"We ask you to please remain seated while Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."

"Once the tyre smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal."

Best of all is the question posed by an old lady to a first officer bidding passengers farewell at the aircraft door after an embarrassingly bumpy landing: "Sonny, mind if I ask you a question?"

"Why, no, ma'am."

"Did we land, or were we shot down?"

ONE AIRLINE that was certainly not known for exceedingly high standards of customer care was Pan Am; in the last couple of years before it went out of business in 1991, it managed to make flying a thoroughly joyless experience. The airline did have its fans, though, says Andy Chisholm in an e-mail:

"I was a Pan Am frequent flyer, and managed, just before they went bust, to get free return flights from London to Honolulu for our family of six.

"The generosity of their frequent-flyer programme may well have been their downfall, as my colleagues and I would get the cheapest economy tickets we could, yet invariably get upgraded to business class, sometimes to first class. I don't remember ever getting upgraded by any other airline."

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ONE MORE mystery has been cleared up: I had questioned the meaning of the offer by the New York Convention and Visitors' Bureau to "help tour operators concentrating on MICE itineraries." Bob Milne Holme of High Wycombe says:

"I assume that the good folk at the bureau are using one of the travel industry's sillier acronyms - MICE standing for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions."