Interviews with Scandinavian pilots and flight attendants
Everybody except one agreed that communication to the cabin had been lost.
Example: “It has gone from fairly good communication to zero communication. The small verifications and confirmations have disappeared. Cabin crew will not make the effort to ask any more. And they are afraid of interrupting us now when they can’t see if we are busy or not. Sometimes they gather every question and ask them all at once, for example when we receive our meal. It is a major step backward in the so vital communication.”
Everyone spoke of the delay in everything. Before the demands with a locked door you could always put your head out and ask the nearest cabin attendant something, or inform her about a delay in arrival. These things are much harder today and are often left aside.
Example: “We are now divided into two teams, working individually. We are in the front, and them in the back. We have no clue of what’s going on back there any more.”
The delay in everything was a recurrent issue. Many [respondents] had ideas on what could happen if an emergency situation occurred.
Example: “If there is a sick passenger in back, let’s say a heart attack or something. With the door open we could understand what was going on right away and could call ATS [air traffic services] and perhaps change route in a couple of seconds. The same scenario today, with the door locked, could take many minutes.”
Source: ‘Cockpit Door Safety, How Does the Locked Cockpit Door Affect the Communication Between Cockpit Crew and Cabin Crew?’ by Michael Nilsson and Jonas Roberg, School of Aviation, Lund University, Aug. 20, 2003. For the full paper, see http://www.flygf orsk.lu.se/files/CockpitDoorSafety.pdf