Day Flights where crew insisted window blinds are shut?

[sngallai]

Recently flew to India on two day time flights. One leaving around 8am and the other leaving 2pm local time.

On both legs of the trip, the cabin crew insisted we have the window blinds down/closed. It was a 787 so not a manual shutter.

I needed to work and couldn't see properly with the horrible white light spotlight but crew insisted it's so people can sleep. I said it's the middle of the day and the stewardess just shrugged at me.

Has anyone else ever seen this? I've never ever had a full 8 hour flight in the dark

Mountains, coastlines, rivers, tall buildings. Sometimes you see other planes. I got a good view of the Cote D'Azur during a recent flight, which was nice.

Yes but that is rare. Normally once the aircraft is at cruising altitude all you see is clouds or water.

The last thing I would want to see is other planes! I hate seeing them when you are in a holding pattern, for example, even though I know it's totally illogical.

My husband and son saw Venice from a plane. I flew from Berlin to Dublin which had amazing views. I appreciate these weren't long haul.
I have flown transatlantic for 35 years including many flights with connections but my first experience of blinds down in daylight was this year.
Having paid extra for a window seat I wasn't happy.

Not in my experience. I've seen loads of things, when I went to Copenhagen it was clear all the way and mostly over land, I could see the outline of the Wash, offshore wind farms, loads of coastlines, interesting outdoor swimming pools. And my comment was in reply to someone flying over Canada where you'd see big mountains and the great lakes.

The best flight for me, with a view all the way, was Santiago to Puerto Varas in Chile. When we got our tickets, I noticed that my husband and I were in separate rows behind each other. He had extra legroom in the front. We thought the travel agent just had not bothered to put us together. When we got on the plane we both had window seats and views of the Andes all the way!

Well that’s your opinion, i do it for a living and the vast majority of a flight there is no “ view”. Especially a transatlantic or trans pacific one.

@eggandonion

I have flown transatlantic for 35 years including many flights with connections but my first experience of blinds down in daylight was this year.

You were possibly very lucky TBH...if you go back to the early '90s there were still a lot of Longhaul aircraft around (including those used on the Atlantic) where the IFE was a cinema screen at the front of the cabin, the projector mounted on the ceiling, and all the blinds very definitely had to be down for that system to work at all - in fact I guess it's possible that's one reason why blinds down became custom and practice.

I'd take a stab at having been involved in several hundred transatlantic flights over 30 plus years and my experience was it was unusual to see many if any blinds up on those, even though the IFE systems improved over the decades.

I was surprised by it. And my husband who has been going transatlantic and other long routes since 1987 was also surprised.

Why do they announce “blinds up for take off”?

Because your eyes need to be adjusted to the light or lack of outside incase of an emergency evacuation.

Ah right. I’ve always wondered. Thanks x

I would feel very unwell with motion sickness if this happened. Looking out helps with orientation. I’d comply, but probably wouldn’t be their favourite passenger vomiting and feeling ill.

As I recall it a few reasons,.tied in with abandoned take-offs..

Firstly (daytime) you have illumination if the cabin lighting totally fails,

Secondly blinds.open your eyes are adapted to the ambient light level (TBF that's possibly more of a factor in the reason cabin lights go to dim for a night take-off/landing).

Also if you abandon, stop, and a crewmember needs to look out of a window PDQ to check for problems outside they don't have to mess around getting blinds raised..they are already up..

Going back to the blinds down discussion I'm surprised there's still a bit of an insistance blinds down is relatively new.

All I can say is it that the crew asking for them down in the cruise in daylight most most certainly isn't a new thing, at least at some airlines, though the centrally controlled dimming available on at least one aircraft type has maybe made it more obvious.

I always think of the US as long haul, but yes realistically, not all of it

I'm still bemused why there's insistence is for labelling this unless passengers are hoping for "I've flown Long Haul" badges for some flights...

Unless someone can provide a reference there's no single definition.

Wiki provides a variety of definitions using either time e.g. 6 hours which puts New York firmly into Long Haul and Boston , as a maybe depending on winds on any given day.... or 8 hours, which
would have JFK from the UK as Long Haul most days, eastbounds not so much, and Boston out of the category regardless of direction.

However if you look at pretty much all the distance based definitions wiki can find then both JFK and BOS are Longhaul.

From the crew POV (and lets be honest here, the labeling is only really relevant to them since they're the ones actually working on the flight) it's usually the equipment they're on and contract/scheduling arrangements tied in with that provides them with a definition one, that's largely irrelevant to someone sitting in 5A or 45 C....

I did loads of flying for work in the early 2000s and never had blinds down when leaving London in daylight, maybe business class was different? The views flying over mountains was always staggeringly beautiful…backed up by photos!

I thought that’s why people use facemasks and earplugs?

Find this thread interesting but bizarre. Never knew so many took notice of these things. Why would anyone be proud to fly long haul ? Who cares? Hardly a personal achievement - you sat on a plane for a long time . Also never noticed how invested people were in blinds up or down . Guess I just sit there and try to pass the time until I get where I am going . The plane part is a necessary evil.

In nearly 40 years of flying I’ve never known an insistence on window blinds down on long haul daytime flights. Don’t people take those eye masks with them if they need to block out the light in order to sleep?

Their plane, their rules.

Has anyone said it’s a personal achievement? I hated long haul flights, but my job demanded it…
and yes it’s pretty bloody obvious when the blinds are down, so I think you’d have to be off your head if you didn’t notice, that said blind were up if my flight was in daylight hours, and down after the evening meal, was served. I haven’t done long haul since leaving that job, but I’d hate to fly with blinds down during daylight hours.

Morning....it's daylight...

In nearly 40 years of flying I’ve never known an insistence on window blinds down on long haul daytime flights.

Not picking on any posters in particular but there have been a few comments along those lines but guess what?

The OP @sngallai had it happen, hence the thread.

I've seen it as a passenger (on a Virgin 787) and I know I've seen it on a few of the several hundred, maybe 1000 plus sectors I've flown on, so whether people have seen it themselves or not is a bit irrelevant - it does happen sometimes, that's not really up for debate, the "why?" maybe is.

@anunlikelyunicorn yes upthread people were talking about boasters regarding extra long haul flights .

I was just musing, not sure why it matters either, but it does have this weird 'ooh long haul' badge of honour