I was told as a new hire that if the seat belt sign is off, and you bounce a flight attendant off the ceiling in a freak clear air turbulence, the company makes your life very unpleasant if that seat belt sign was off... We reap what we sow.

 

Worked in the EU for a while a while back, and the standard was to turn of the seatbelt above 3,000' MSL. Had a few destinations with a field elevation higher than that...... But, yeah, definitely more normal to have the SB off in the EU.

 

Ive noticed that they lock the lavatory doors for takeoff and landing.

 

We live in a litigious society and the company has made it quite clear that turbulence injuries are a concern. I do my best to use common sense, as I refuse to live my life looking over my shoulder. I default to turning the sign off and serving on every leg, and it is very rare that a service doesn't get done. A little turbulence isn't going to hurt anyone, so I leave it off in light turbulence. I do, however, really use the tools provided to us and try to manage the flight accordingly.

I fly other airlines often and try to mimic their style, as it is usually more cabin driven empowerment to make the decisions. I find when I do that, most crews respond well and want to get it done safely. I think SWA in general is ridiculously conservative and coddles the FAs, which doesn't help when that treatment is what they expect every leg. I don't blame them for it, it's just what they have been conditioned to by captains who are afraid of what might happen.

My worst nightmare is bouncing someone off the ceiling and injuring a coworker. That being said, we all have a job to do and it's our job to manage risk given the tools we have. In this era of taking everything away from customers, it's one of the few nice things that we can provide and goes a long way to bringing them and their money back. Our product has a long way to go and needs to be nuked from outer space and completely rewritten. That's fully out of my wheelhouse, though, so I just try to make my world as pleasant as possible for the people paying the bills and the ones with me getting paid to serve them.

 

Better go check your manuals. As ridiculous as it is, what you are doing is not in accordance with current policy.

 

I will. Guessing I misread it. I thought it said anything light was ok, but it's been a while.

 

it used to. But they changed it. So basically we can't turn off the sign unless its perfectly smooth. And the problem children in the back would love to hang you out to dry with the seat belt policy.

 

Precisely this.