What duties must someone be able to handle when sitting inthe emergency aisle? The essentials to sit in an emergency exit row are that you have to be healthy, you have to have all of your wits about you, you have to be over a minimum specified age, and - most of all - you have to be willing to take responsibility for the safety of o.
"The essentials to sit in an emergency exit row," says Patricia Blanche, owner of La Cañada Flintridge Travel in La Cañada, California, "are that you have to be healthy, you have to have all of your wits about you, you have to be over a minimum specified age, and - most of all - you have to be willing to take responsibility for the safety of others."
"A lot of people enjoy the extra leg room to stretch out that an emergency exit row gives you," she continues. "They can't, however, request these seats at the time of an online or telephone booking. Because of the requirement that the people who occupy these seats need to be physically fit and fully competent, you need to be looked at when you check in. You can't, for instance, be an elderly person or have any physical or mental handicaps. Nor can you be traveling with an infant, a pet or some sort of service animal that's going to take all of your attention."
In the event of an airplane mishap, she explains, those in the emergency exit rows will be called upon by the flight attendants to assist in the safe evacuation of their fellow passengers. "You'll be required to open the doors - which are very heavy - and make sure that the slides are down. You'll also have to tell people to remove their shoes before they use the slide. In a situation such as these, purses don't mean anything! What you have to realize in a scenario where people are in a panic mode, they're automatically going to start grabbing their possessions - including their luggage! - to take off the plane with them. You'll be expected to be firm and get people to follow the rules of leaving everything behind and exiting the aircraft as quickly and calmly as they possibly can."
While frequent flyers often ignore the flight attendant demonstrations prior to take-off, she says, you'll nevertheless have to know the procedures so that you can advise others. "There's a lot of responsibility involved and you need to be someone who can take these duties seriously. Since the events of 9/11, terrorism and all of the other things we're faced with now when we're traveling require that people who occupy the emergency rows be physically fit and alert and willing to put the welfare of other people ahead of your own. In other words, they can't approach this with the idea of opening the hatch, launching the slide, and being the first one out the door. "
"Last but not least," she adds, "is the fact that emergency-row occupants need to be able to speak the language(s) spoken by the flight crew in order to understand the emergency instructions that are being given. That's why when the attendants are doing a sweep through the cabin prior to take-off and ask if those passengers who are seated in exit rows are familiar with the duties, they are also making sure that there's not a language barrier that would impede the safety of everyone else on that aircraft."
