Airlines are cutting things like entertainment units, snacks and beverages in order to raise revenue and cut fuel costs, but what about those inflatable life vests? Do we need those? Air Canada’s regional airline “Jazz” doesn’t think so.
From the Nova Scotia News:
The Toronto Star reported Saturday that Jazz, Air Canada’s regional affiliate, plans to reduce fuel consumption by dropping commercial life vests from its flights, which will amount to about 25 kilograms less aboard its Dash-8 planes with 50 seats.
The move will leave passengers holding onto their seats — or at least their floating seat cushions — in the event the plane ditches and they hit the water alive.
Transport Canada regulations allow airlines to use flotation devices, a secondary option for other carriers, instead of life vests as long as the planes remain within 90 kilometres of shore. A Jazz official said a number of its East Coast routes were adjusted so the planes met that requirement, the Star reported.
One former airline CSR interviewed for the report wondered what would happen to infants and people who couldn’t grab on to their seat cushions…
“If you have an infant (and) you don’t have a (life vest), you’re hanging on to the cushion,” he said. “Are they saying, ‘Hang onto the cushion with one arm and your baby with another?’
“I mean, who comes up with these things?”
What do you think?
Airline ditches life vests to save on fuel [NSN](Thanks, Aaron !)
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In the unlikely event of a water landing…. you won’t live.
so who really cares if the damn plane has life vests?
btw Vancouver’s air port has got to be one of the worst airports I’ve ever been too. good luck with those Olympics.
I can’t think of the last time a plane crashed into water where there were any survivors. Maybe the 70′s
hold on..
so airplanes are cutting back on life vests AND extra fuel to save money?… bad combination
Water weighs a lb a pint. Just remove some water from the toilet, and there’s your savings. In the event of a water landing, there’s enough water that you won’t need to use it in the BR.
“If you have an infant (and) you don’t have a (life vest), you’re hanging on to the cushion,” he said. “Are they saying, ‘Hang onto the cushion with one arm and your baby with another?’
“I mean, who comes up with these things?”
Can infants wear vests? I would think you would have the infant on the cushion, and hold onto the cushion, so the baby is out of the water.
i don’t think Jazz flies over than many bodies of water.
Since the routes are not over water, life vests aren’t needed, any more than they would be on trains.
Ships need life vests.
What planes need are ***parachutes***, which they don’t have, yet nobody hollers about that.
This is a non-issue.
@ohiomensch:
I remember hearing that there had never been a water landing with any survivors in the history of commercial aviation.
However, I have done no investigation, and that may be entirely false.
It always makes me laugh when I hear the instructions about your seat being used as a flotation device.
What if they ditch it in one of the Great Lakes!? OH MY GOD NOOOoOOOOOOO.
Anyway, pretty common sense approach to saving some weight and I do not recall any crash survivors claiming their vests saved them recently in land crashes.
As long as the planes are on a route like Saskatoon-Regina, and not crossing over the Great Lakes, I can’t see this being a problem.
@Secret Agent Man: That’s incorrect. There have been several, including the 1996 widebody event with the Ethiopian 767. Ironically, some of the passengers on that flight died because they inflated their life vests aboard the plane and couldn’t make it out the exits. There’s also the incidents of planes sliding off of runways and into water (I think LaGuardia has the most recent examples of that).
However, that’s not to say that life vests are a useful thing in those situations. And don’t commercial flights in the U.S. stick to seat flotation in the same situation?
I remember hearing that there had never been a water landing with any survivors in the history of commercial aviation.
Back in the 1950s there were water landings aplenty. A Boeing 377 Stratocruiser had to ditch in the Pacific enroute to Hawaii (I think everyone made it), a 377 had to ditch in the bay near Seattle after takeoff (some fatalities), and a Constellation on a military charter had to ditch in the Atlantic; I think most of those people made it too. In recent times, they are extremely rare, though a DC-9 did ditch in the middle of the Atlantic around 1976, enroute from near PR to JFK, due to a fuel error; there were a few deaths.
@Secret Agent Man: There was one a few years back off the coast of Madgascar or some other body of land off the eastern African coast. There is plenty of footage of it when some jerky boys hijacked it and the pilots managed to put it down near shore when it ran out of fuel.
This is okay, actually.
According to the Canadian Avation Regulations (CARs) there is no requirement to carry life-vests for any non-intercontinental flight travelling fewer than 100 nautical miles off-shore. Jazz is a regional airline that carries people between places no greater than a few hundred miles and doesn’t travel over any body of water greater than the Great Lakes, and even then rarely.
They’re not doing anything wrong or unsafe. And I say that as someone who works for Transport Canada in an operational role, dealing with the regs on a fairly regular basis.
AHA!
I disagree on the principal- sacrificing (perceived) safety to save money. But practically, one would never need thos vests on a Jazz flight.
@BeeBoo:
ahh, but some do:
http://www.cirrusdesign.com
Do the planes fly over large bodies of water? Either way, if you’re plummeting 30000 feet, lack of an inflatable life vest is the least of your problems.
@Werrick, completely the case.
@B: no, not really. lakes would be the largest bodies of water to worry about, in my opinion. there are a lot of lakes in canada but most of them are smaller anyways… the life jackets on some routes are completely unnecessary.
@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: No infants cannot wear vests. Their parents can, though. I think the point is that it’s easier to take care of your infant when you have an inflatable life vest on than when you’re only trying to float on a seat cushion.
[en.wikipedia.org] has a number of “water landings” that had survivors.
@BeeBoo: And if the black box is indestructible, why don’t they make the whole plane out of it. I mean, what is up with that? /Sienfeld impression
@cf27: If it’s not summer and a plane flying in canada crashes into water, Hypothermia’s a real possibility, and life vest or no, being stuck in lake Superior any time from say November-March for more than 30 mins gonna moot the point.
It would indeed be easier to hold your baby if you didn’t have to cling to a cushion and the baby, but you’d better hope you’re doing it in summer.
@B:
If I ever find myself plummeting 30000 feet, toilet paper is going to be a bigger concern than life vests.
I will channel George Carlin…
“Floating in the North Atlantic on a pillow full of beer farts…”
Every time I fly I think: If they want to dump some weight, why don’t they swap out their old CRT televisions for LCD. That’d have to be several hundred pounds on a bigger plane.
I’ve said it before – the airlines should just charge by the pound for each passenger and all of their luggage. The price of the ticket allows 250 pounds combined passenger and luggage, everything over that is a buck or two a pound.
I can get an inflatable life vest if I’m really that concerned about it. But I’m not going to be too concerned about surviving a water landing between Vancouver and Baffin Bay.
Actually not a bad idea if your airline is exclusively, or at least close to exclusively, flying over land (in this case obviously the Great Lakes and whatever other body of water large enough – which is probably none).
And hey, we’re talking about about a pound per seat lighter, so for some planes that’s 400 pounds, it’s like getting a whole passenger and their luggage off the plane, maybe even two!
…wait, that’s a significant change?
@sean98125: I agree with you only because I’m always stuck next to the fat guy, but they would cry discrimination. Especially because an XXL wardrobe weighs more than a Small one, so it’s a double whammy.
I think the poll is misleading… it asks if it bothers us if they take life-vests off aircraft. However, there are a number of different kinds of flights. Does it bother me in this case? Nope… in fact, they were never REQUIRED to have them on the aircraft for those kinds of regional flights in teh first place.
On the other hand, would it bother me if they removed them from trans-continental flights, or flights that travel a significant distance over water? Uh… yah!
They can go 90km offshore sans life vests.
“Transport Canada regulations allow airlines to use flotation devices, a secondary option for other carriers, instead of life vests as long as the planes remain within 90 kilometres of shore.”
@coren: Depending on the moment arm it very well could be. (Weight and Balance issue)
I tend to fly WestJet whenever I can in Canada, (never had a bad experience with them, whereas Air Canada has lost family members’ luggage on more than one occasion), and I think since WestJest started out as more of a discount, no-frills airline, they never had inflatable vests to begin with. Doesn’t bother me much, because like other posters have said, if the plane goes down, you’re probably screwed anyways.
@AgentTuttle: “Especially because an XXL wardrobe weighs more than a Small one, so it’s a double whammy. “
Their wardrobe isn’t heavy, it’s just big-boned!
@Git Em SteveDave displays attention-grabbing vanity: Um…when’s the last time you used the toilet on an airplane? There’s no water in those things!
Lets be serious here….
a life vest is most likely to save your life if you have it on and are involved in an accident – and it’s inflated… since I am not jumping out of the plane until it is already in the drink, my chief concern is getting out of the plane – NOT grabbing the life vest or seat cushion…
I can always take my pants off and turn them into a make-shift life vest if I REALLY need some assistance staying afloat – or just climb on top of the large gentleman that hogged my armrest the entirely flight.
I personally find this to be sort of scary. Vests are a safety device that are rather *nice* in the event of an emergency. Whats wrong with spending money on places where it’s needed? Companies need to realize that they have to spend money in things that are fairly necessary. I’m sure the c.e.o. is still making wayyy more than those flying their damn planes.
This just means I will fly Westjet everywhere it is an option. Of course Westjet is a superior service anyway compared to Air Canada, actually compared to most other carriers it is a superior service.
@sean98125: Your shitting me right? I’m 6’3″ 270lbs (in good shape), so your’re saying that including luggage, you think I should pay an extra $100 each way?
Fascist much? Acutally, no, fascisim is making everyone have the same ideals, I cant control being 6’3″, so that would be nazism.
What really surprises and amazes me about all of this is that Canada, a country with a population about the same as that as the State of California, has its own airline. They need to work on publicizing this “Air Canada” airline–it could be a source of national pride and international recognition. Blog posts like this are helpful, but maybe they could take out banner ads and some radio and television spots.
@Elcheecho:
Yeah, because they don’t have to make an approach over Lake Ontario to land in Toronto, or over Flushing Bay to land at NY/LaGuardia.. Looks like jazz has cut it’s Toronto-New Orleans flight, but anyone who’s landed in New Orleans knows the North/South runway approach is over Lake Pontchartrain.
Crashes happen, most often, on take off and landing and lots of airports are set up on coastlines.
@BeeBoo: I don’t know if you’re being serious or condescending. I hope its the former.
You do know that Air Canada has one of the safest flight records in the world?
[www.aircanada.com]
I hope they keep the inflatable Auto Pilot….
@Elcheecho:
The only major bodies would possibly be the great lakes.
I wouldn’t be too worried about no life vests.
Westjet is definitely a superior airline to Air Canada and they do have life vests. They also have more room in each seat, more comfortable seats and actual service.
On a recent flight some yahoo had stuck gum under the armrest and at one point I brushed against it and had gum stuck to my cotton skirt. They brought me ice to help clean it off, a dry cleaning voucher to pay for the cleaning, and a free drink to make up for the inconvenience. AND your first 2 bags are still free.
@timmus: Even the great lakes wouldn’t be an issue. Unless the wings were to completely shear off, the plane could probably glide to the nearest shore for an emergency landing. Lake Huron is the widest at 183 miles (max). So unless the plane is near the middle of the lake, they could still get to land.
Of course, most aircraft accidents happen during take-off and landing, so airports near water might be an issue…
This is not a big deal. The crew of the Titanic made a similar decision, and I seem to remember things working out just fine.
@Skankingmike: Thank you for expressing my feelings on this.
@Wormfather is Wormfather: Oh you, going and proving Godwin’s law in record breaking time. And adding communists in the same post for bonus points! Congratulations you win one internets today!
In reference to the issue hey I’m a 6’3 guy and your 270lb weight tells me you are either a serious couch potato or serious body builder, not just “in good shape”. Either way your are above average weight wise (most people don’t approach 300lbs) and should pay more. Do you complain at the post office about having to pay more to ship your letter/package? Do you call them communists for charging everyone only one price for their priority mail flat rate boxes? (How communist of them!)
One wonders if there is any logic behind the rant or just pure emotional whining that being 270 lbs and carrying everything plus the kitchen sink might cost you personally an extra 100 dollars in a industry based on shipping people and their stuff. (ignoring the fact that if you had a wife you could probably give her all your luggage and only pay the $20 bucks for being a hefty boy.)
I suspect the motivation to ditch life vests has as much to do with maintenance costs as it does with weight. How often do airlines inspect the life vests?