Should airline passengers know more about their flight crew and planes that transport them?

If I told you that you had to take a pill to recover completely from an illness but that the medication could lead to death or severe injury – wouldn’t you want to know that information beforehand?

If I told you that you had to have major brain surgery – wouldn’t you want to know who your surgeon would be? Wouldn’t you be curious about their complication rates? Wouldn’t you want to at least get some basic information about them before undergoing a high-risk medical procedure?

In many parts of the world, if you have a doctor’s appointment, you can look them up and read reviews about them.

So, why is the aviation industry any different? Yes, I agree that aeroplane crashes are very rare but in my humble opinion, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that I have no clue about.

I fly about 3-5 times a year and I almost certainly never know anything about the plane’s mechanical or electrical history or get any information about the pilots before my flights. In fact, most times, the only thing I get from the pilot is their voice.

If you asked me anything about the pilot who flew the last plane I was in, I couldn’t tell you anything except that he was male-sounding voice. I never even saw anyone in the cockpit.

I appreciate my thoughts may be simplistic and possibly unrealistic but shouldn’t airline passengers get at least some information about the plane and flight crew. Or is this simply too much to ask?

These questions are not to disrupt the aviation industry and I do hope the timing of my reflection is not insensitive with the recent Ethiopian airlines plane crash but every time I learn of an aeroplane crash I can’t help but wonder if things can be different.

In most other industries, there is at least some data available. One may counter-argue that you never get this kind of information if you take a bus ride, but I make the case that a bus ride does not compare to a plane ride.

Another counterpoint would be how would this information be helpful. Would you change your flight if you knew the plane you were about to embark had just had a major mechanical problem fixed?

Well, personally I would, and I have. I once had a delay in my flight because the plane was undergoing a mechanical repair. We the passengers waited for about 4 hours and at no point were we given any details of the fault. When the repairs were done we were expected to just board the plane and make the 6-hour flight.

Call me paranoid, but I got onto another flight and while the initial flight made it okay to the destination, the experience reinforced how airline passengers are kept in the dark about potentially important information that may impact them.

Written with a sad heart, by Chuba Onwuka, Lagos, Nigeria.

Qwenu! publishes opinions, reflections, and experiences of Africans on contemporary issues. Click here to read articles from Africans at home and in the diaspora. Email submissions to editor@qwenu.com Follow us @qwenu_media Featured image courtesy Andreas Weiland/Unsplash