After boarding a flight, you may hear a flight attendant instruct you to keep your window shade open for the takeoff phase of your journey. Then, upon landing, they ask you to keep the window shade open again during landing and taxi. You, like me, have probably wondered what’s up with that. Why do flight attendants ask you to keep your window shades open during specific parts of your flight? The answer makes a ton of sense when you think about it.
Unsurprisingly, the answer is related to safety, and a laser focus on safety is why, statistically, flying is the safest way to travel. Airlines pack a couple of hundred people into metal tubes flying miles up in the sky at hundreds of miles per hour. Through the advancements in technology, regulations, manufacturing, and sadly, some lessons learned in blood, flying is safer than commuting to work in your car.
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The Federal Aviation Administration says it handles some 45,000 flights on an average day and ferries 2.9 million people around 29 million square miles of airspace. During any given peak period, there may be 5,400 planes all in the sky at the same time. Yet, on only an infinitesimal percentage of flights do things go wrong. It’s not hard to find a scary headline about something terrible that has happened to a flight, but remember, that was just one flight out of perhaps 45,000 on that day.
One of the reasons flying is so safe is the fact that the entire crew of a passenger aircraft is invested in getting everyone to their destination as safely as possible. Contrary to what some on TikTok might suggest, the crew wants to get home to their families just like you do, so they’re not going to give you malicious instructions.
The Critical Phases Of Flight
If you ever find yourself taking flight lessons – and it’s something I highly recommend if you can afford them – one of the first things you’ll learn is the critical phases of flight, which the FAA defines like so:
As defined in the regulation, critical phases of flight are all ground operations involving taxi, takeoff, and landing, and all other flight operations below 10,000 feet except cruise flight.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency says:
“’Critical phases of flight’ in the case of aeroplanes means the take-off run, the take-off flight path, the final approach, the missed approach, the landing, including the landing roll, and any other phases of flight as determined by the pilot-in-command or commander.
‘Critical phases of flight’ in the case of helicopters means taxiing, hovering, take-off, final approach, missed approach, the landing and any other phases of flight as determined by the pilot-in-command or commander.”
So, why are these called critical phases of flight? Well, these are situations where there’s a lot going on and errors can be dangerous or fatal. For example, an error during taxi could cause a collision on the ground. Meanwhile, an error right after takeoff could result in the aircraft stalling. An error during the takeoff roll could result in overrunning the runway or worse.
The United States enforces what it calls the “Sterile Flight Deck Rule.” When your aircraft is in a critical stage of flight you’re not supposed to be doing anything that’s not essential to the safe operation of the aircraft. That means no chatter about the company Christmas party while you’re thundering down the runway. Save the coffee and donuts for cruising altitude, too. The FAA says the Sterile Flight Deck Rule was proposed after the costly mistakes of distracted pilots.
If you’ve ever watched a plane disaster movie, you might have noticed that a lot of them put the characters in peril sometime after the aircraft has reached cruising altitude. In real life, a total loss of engine power at cruising altitude gives pilots a cushion of time and distance to get safely on the ground. But remove engine power during takeoff and it’s a very different situation as you aren’t likely to have the speed or the altitude for an ideal forced landing. Captain Sully Sullenberger’s quick thinking in saving US Airways Flight 1549‘s crippled Airbus A320 is a great example of how quickly situations can unfold during a critical phase of flight.
Why You Should Open Your Window Shades
The pilots aren’t the only ones keeping the aircraft safe during the phases of flight. The entire flight crew monitors the aircraft and its environment for anything that could be amiss.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol gets straight to the point about why you should keep those blinds open:
The window blinds on every plane always have to be open during take-off and landing, whether it’s dark outside or blinding sunlight. It’s for your own safety. If anything happens during take-off and landing – the most risky stages of every flight – then your eyes will already be used to the dark or the light outside, and you’ll be able to react more quickly. That’s also the reason why the lights in the cabin are dimmed for take-off and landing.
Another reason is that the cabin crew want to be able to see out during take-off and landing. If something goes wrong, then they can see if there is a problem with the engines or wings. And if the aircraft needs to be evacuated, you can see which side is safe to disembark from. This information can also be passed on to the pilots in the cockpit and the emergency services outside. Emergency services also prefer the window blinds to be open, so that the fire service can see immediately if there is smoke or fire on board.
According to travel magazine Afar, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines says: “In our flight manuals, flight attendants must ensure that [shades] are open at the emergency exits during take-off. This has to do with being able to check outside conditions in the event of emergencies.”
The request to keep window shades already has some real basis in safety. Pilots can’t see what’s going on at the back of the plane, so passengers and flight attendants can relay important information such as fluid leaks, parts falling off, and more.
Now, if you’re reading this and can’t recall a flight attendant ever asking you to open a window shade, there’s a reason for that.
The International Air Transport Association, a trade group that represents over 300 airlines around the globe and helps propose industry policy changes, merely recommends that airlines instruct passengers to keep those shades open. The United Nations International Civil Aviation Organization also recommends this practice.
However, the decision is ultimately up to the airline. As Afar notes, a number of international carriers will request passengers to open their shades, but airlines here in the United States do not. The FAA doesn’t have a rule about having window shades during critical phases of flight, so it’s completely voluntary.
United Airlines is noted as the standout airline that requests passengers to open their window shades during critical phases of flight. However, as I’ve noticed on flights, there’s no real consequence to ignoring the request. My window shade is usually open during takeoff and landing, anyway. Seeing the outside world is a perk of a window seat, after all.
While this isn’t a law, some aircraft do make it easier to facilitate giving flight attendants a line of sight outside. Some regional aircraft may not have shades on their exit row windows at all while some more advanced aircraft like the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner also don’t have window shades. Instead, they have electronically dimmable windows, and flight attendants can lock them into a fully transparent position.
While we’re on the subject of things flight attendants request of you, keeping your seatback upright and your tray table stowed during critical phases of the flight is also important. If there’s an emergency, reclined seats and deployed tray tables can delay a quick evacuation. Consider that passengers may be frantic and there might even be smoke hindering vision. You don’t want to give people obstacles. Also, don’t further delay an evacuation by trying to grab your carry-on, just leave it behind.
So, if you’re on a plane and a flight attendant asks you to keep your shade open, now you know why. They aren’t trying to get in the way of your good read or movie, but they want to make sure if something happens, they can see it and help relay information to the pilots and maybe emergency services. It’s just another reason why flying remains a remarkably safe way to travel.
(Images: Author, unless otherwise noted.)
With Boeing aircraft, the raised shades are probably part of the structure of the fuselage, so lowering them weakens it.
Correct. Statistically, flying commercial is the safest way to travel. General aviation is in fact MUCH more dangerous (14x more fatalities per million passenger hours) than driving but still only half as deadly as riding a motorcycle.