No Rush to the Rear in Wake of Plane Crashes
Fear of smoking can be greater than fear of flying.
That’s one of the things airlines and Los Angeles-area travel agencies have noticed this week in the wake of two recent crashes in which 33 passengers apparently survived because they were sitting in the back rows--usually the smoking section--of the doomed aircraft.
Suddenly, non-smoking travelers are requesting rear seating but “when they find out it’s the smoking section, a lot of them say I’ll take the front,” said Pacific Southwest Airlines spokesman Bill Hastings.
Like other travel industry representatives, Hastings stressed that there has not been a major migration to the rear of commercial airliners despite widespread publicity that life and death could depend on a seat assignment. The only discrepancy in this united front was that travel agencies tended to report a somewhat greater shift to the rear than did airlines--but still no more than a few percent at most. And several, including Delta Air Lines, which had an accident early this month, reported that the forward passenger sections continue to fill up faster than the smaller smoking sections because there are more non-smokers than smokers.
This perhaps surprising development follows the crash of a Japan Airlines Boeing 747 on Monday that claimed 520 lives and left four survivors. On Aug. 2, 133 people died and 29 survived the landing-approach crash of a Delta Lockheed L-1011 in Dallas.
Spokesmen for agencies and airlines offered a variety of explanations as to why the flying public is largely staying put.
Both Hastings and Western Air Lines’ Glenn Bozarth speculated that many of those requesting rear seating are infrequent fliers such as summer vacationers. Noting that a “good proportion of the general public doesn’t fly,” Bozarth said he feels that talk about the safety of rear-seating may be coming largely from people who never intend to book a flight. (In 1983, a Gallup Poll found that 34% of this country’s population has never flown. Statistics compiled by the National Safety Council indicate that the death rate for automobile travel averages more than 10 times higher than that for scheduled airlines. In 1982, the latest year for which figure are available, the death rate for travel by car was 1.06 deaths per 100 million passenger miles. The rate for scheduled airlines was .10 per 100 million passenger miles.)
United Air Lines spokesman Joe Hopkins said his company had seen “only a slight increase” in requests for rear seats. Hopkins was adamant when he labeled such requests as “irrational acts” because “in some cases it’s people in the front of the plane or the center of the plane who survive.”
Bert Svensson, coordinator of world travel operations at the Automobile Club of Southern California, was one of several who said it is still too early to tell if the publicity generated by the recent tail section survivors will have any impact on where flyers choose to sit.
Katie Murphy, manager of Magic Travel Service in Hollywood, said that most fliers who believe the back of the plane is safer already are asking for those seats. “It has been that way for quite a while,” she said.
Bill Orozco, owner of Orozco Travel Service in Los Angeles, said: “Some of them (passengers) are a little embarrassed about asking to sit in the tail section, but once they blurt it out they feel better,” he said. Those who ask for rear-seating are reinforcing Orozco’s own instinct. “I try to sit at the back myself,” he said. “I don’t want to have 300 people and assorted airplane parts raining down on me” in the event of a crash.
Both Orozco and Murphy said some passengers believe other areas of aircraft are safer--seats over the wings near emergency exits or near compartment bulkheads.
John David, manager of Ladera Travel Service of El Segundo, said that only travelers “who are real skittish” are asking to change seats. “They have heard it’s safer in a crash. If a plane goes down in the water, everyone’s got an equal chance. But in a crash, usually the front end gets smacked first,” David said. “Usually people never ask about the back of the plane, they just ask about smoking and non-smoking,” he added.
Ruth Wienir of the Camden Travel Agency in Beverly Hills said she hadn’t talked to any customers who wanted to sit in the back for safety reasons but she had thought about the issue herself. “I’ve always loved sitting in the front of the plane because you don’t get all the noise and vibrations,” she said. If she were to fly tomorrow, Wienir said, she’d “probably” stick with her previous preference. “How do you know what your chances really are? If there’s a really good crash it’s going to get you,” she said.
A Continental Air Lines spokesman echoed Wienir, saying: “It was just sheer luck that those people survived” in the Japan Air Lines accident.
And some people are asking to move, but only so far, said Tom Rowland, owner of Fare Finders. Wednesday he changed the seating of three first-class passengers from the front of that section to the back of it--a matter of a few rows in the forward-most passenger compartment. They weren’t willing to fly coach, he explained.
Mike Eberts, a summer intern, contributed to this story.
