Flying Superstition
I don’t know any statistics about superstition (and don’t really want to know any), but the fact is here: many airlines are affected by superstitious passengers. Typically, most of them have no row 13 in their aircraft, nor operate flight with number number including 13.
One noticeable exception is British Airways. Not only they operate BA1313 between Aberdeen and Heathrow, and their aircraft have a row 13. I flew once to London City in a BA Jumbolino, on a Friday 13th of February, and I was seated in this famous row 13 !
Another famous example is Brussels Airlines. The company logo is made of red dots forming together a stylized “b”. 13 dots to be exact. As customers complained about the number, the company decided to add a 14th one. Click here to read more about this change. I don’t know either if the Irish airline Aer Lingus is luckier than other, with its shamrock logo, and radio call-sign “Shamrock”…
As pilot, there are certain things I try to avoid when flying, but this is more related to human factors (i.e. food poisoning), and to avoid creating extra distractions. A short inspection of my logbook shown that I flew on 14 different 13th of the month… 3 of them being Friday ! The day I landed on a frozen lake was Friday 13th of January 2006 !
I never flew with black-cats on board, mostly because I never had the opportunity to do it. I always pre-flight the aircraft in a clockwise direction (seen from above), simply because I learned to do so. Flying at FL130 or landing on runway 13 is not a problem for me, and even if I think that 130 knots is relatively slow, this is not that bad.
Are you a superstitious person ? Do you use lucky charms to make your flights better or safer, be it as passenger or pilot ? Would you fly on the Lufthansa 13 from Hamburg to Frankfurt, or Lufthansa 3666 (number of the beast) from Frankfurt to Geneva ? Let me know in comments…
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Category: On Airports and Airlines, Pilots Talk
Tags: airlines superstition
