Questions and Answers

Hi! I recently did a round trip ORD-SLC on American Eagle operated by Envoy in F (CR7) . On the flight back, I got in a conversion with the pilot as the crew was in the cabin. The pilot then asked if I wanted to go up in the flight deck. I happily said yes and spent a good 20 minutes up there just before the boarding door was closed. I’m writing this question as I’m wondering what the rules are on going into the flight deck in the future. Thanks!

-Jacob

I don’t know what the rules are but I got my 7 year old nephew on the flight deck before a BA flight from PHL to LHR last year. He wore the Captain’s hat and photo with the pilots followed. I was afraid to ask since I wasn’t sure if this was allowed any longer but they BA pilots could not have been nicer. My nephew now wants to be a pilot when he grows up✈️

My guess is that you could probably ask politely before the doors are closed and after boarding is completed but I wouldn’t necessarily count on it these days. I’m sure your odds go up with a kid :).

[QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 15246, member: 79″]My guess is that you could probably ask politely before the doors are closed and after boarding is completed but I wouldn’t necessarily count on it these days. I’m sure your odds go up with a kid :).[/QUOTE]
Well Lucky wrote a blog post on this today and answered every question I could possibly have about the topic 🙂

And here’s that post: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/04/05/airplane-cockpit-visit/[/URL]

[QUOTE=”MidSouth Skier, post: 15272, member: 184″]And here’s that post: [URL]http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/04/05/airplane-cockpit-visit/[/URL][/QUOTE]
yep 🙂

I recently asked to meet the pilots/visit the flight deck on an SQ a380 during boarding/predeparture. They obliged and were extremely nice about the whole thing. The only caveat I was given by the purser was that I wasn’t allowed to take photos or even bring my phone into the cockpit, for security reasons.

My other (almost unbelievable) experience was flying in a jumpseat…I was on a commercial flight from Sao Paulo to Rio on Varig in 2003 (i.e. this is post 9/11). While boarding I chatted up the pilot, told him I used to be an FA, and just flat out asked if I could fly jump seat during landing. To my surprise he said yes. Sure enough, on final, the purser came to my seat and told me I could go up to the cockpit. Pilots unlocked the door and I sat in jumpseat left. I was soooooo excited. The funny part about it all was that it was this pilots FIRST LIVE LANDING…yep, no joke. The head of training for the airline was sitting in jumpseat right. Twice the newbie pilot put the flaps down too early. The airbus emergency voice came on…”flaps up! flaps up!” and more than a few red lights started flashing. I’m thinking, “great…at least I’ll be one of the first to leave this Earth when this guy screws up the landing.” Needless to say, however, we touched down safely. All in all it was…exhilarating.