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Ok, this old naval idiom is no longer used when a flight captain enters or leaves a cockpit, but some captain prerogatives survived the time when they change from boats to planes.

Let me first be a bit disapointing for all romantic readers… a flight captain can not get passenger married. This stopped when the move from ship to boat took place… sorry.

Amongst his trendemous responsibilities, the captain is sole responsible for the safety of all passengers and crew on board. This means that he can take any action he think is needed to protect aircraft and passenger safety, even if this violates each and every other rules ! Be sure he would have to report to ATC, aviation authorities, and his airline, but this will be later on. In the action, the captain is really the one deciding things.

Now, something else we heard a lot in the media recently as a french TV producer created an incident on board a flight from South Africa to Paris. The captain of a flight can decide to put a passenger under arrest, and if deemed necessary, to have the crew restraining the passenger freedom of movement, by using handcuffs.

A final word to close this post, about policemen flying on airliners. In the industry wording, they are called “tigers”. Even the crew does not know them, and they interveine only if the safety of the flight is endangered by unlawful interference. They won’t move if something only looks suspicious, or if a passenger is misbehaving under influence of alcohol or so.

This restriction in their actions is to protect their identity. There are not so many of them, and if they had to act for any small incident, it would be easy for terrorists to identify them, even by creating incidents with the sole purpose of then neutralize the tigers.

Be sure that many airliner seats daily are occupied by tigers, and this helps passenger safety.