Cabin crew spend their working hours 34,000 feet in the air, so it is no surprise they are well versed in how aircraft work. In fact, while a particularly bad patch of turbulence may send a passenger’s heart racing, flight attendants often don’t bat an eyelid.
According to one flight attendant, it is this reaction that should give travellers peace of mind about whether they are in any type of danger.
Sharing the advice on a Reddit forum, the anonymous cabin crew member explained: “Watch the flight attendants and observe how they are acting. They’ve flown hundreds of times.
“The plane will make noises and tilt upward, but the flight attendants hear and feel that too.”
It is not uncommon to run into turbulence along the way, and though bad turbulence has been known to cause injury in the past, more often than not it is a safe experience.
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With this in mind, a second flight attendant also pointed out some ways in which crew attempt to make passengers feel safe.
“Watch the flight attendants. Even with bad turbulence, they rarely look scared…” they wrote.
“Sometimes they’ll see you looking and they’ll laugh it off because they know it really helps when passengers see them shrugging that sort of thing off.”
Luckily, for the most part, any bumps along the way don’t mean much at all.
Airline pilot Patrick Smith spoke to Express.co.uk, and revealed that there is rarely a time when passengers need to worry about the experience.
“In all honesty, passengers should never worry about turbulence,” he said.
“The aircraft is designed to take the stress and strain of turbulence.
“For example, it’s like designing a car with good enough suspension to drive over a rough surface road with potholes.”
Turbulence happens when the aircraft runs into a sudden change in airflow.
These changes can occur for a number of reasons, with sudden changes in wind speed and colliding jet streams two of the most common causes.
In his book, Cockpit Confidential, Mr Smith added: “Conditions might be annoying and uncomfortable, but the plane is not going to crash.”
Furthermore, although plane crashes are heavily reported on when they do occur, they are more uncommon than you might think.
According to the BBC, in 2019 there were 86 accidents involving large commercial planes.