Why do airlines close the blinds on the flights?

Move through the cabin in preparation for take-off and landing

Cabin crew will usually ask passengers to open their window shades as a safety precaution. Take-off and landing are the two most critical phases in an aircraft’s flight.

In the event of an emergency, crew need to see what’s happening outside, and react accordingly. Another reason – from time to time passengers have witness a potential catastrophe unfolding outside the aircraft and alerted the crew.

If it’s a daytime flight and an emergency evacuation becomes necessary. Passengers’ eyes need to be adjusted to the light outside. If they were to emerge from a darkened cabin, with blinds down, it might waste a few seconds for each set of eyes. It’s required that crew fully evacuate an aircraft cabin in 90 seconds. For the same reason, cabin lighting is usually dimmed on take-off and landing during a night flight.

Shade should be open or close ?

Apart from those times, it’s usually left to the discretion of the passenger whether their shade is open or closed. But there are occasions especially during a long flight when cabin crew might ask passengers to close their window shades.

They can’t insist, there’s no safety issue involved, but some passengers take umbrage, saying the reason they choose a window seat is so they can see what’s unfolding outside. There are wonder and delight in the vision that an aircraft affords of the world’s great mountains ranges, cities by night, the everyday marvels of sunrise and sunset.

An open window shade is not likely to bother anyone except when all other shades in the cabin are closed. On a flight from west to east, returning from Europe to Australia for example, passengers experience a short night, which could be five hours of darkness in summer. Whether the window shades are up or down during that period makes no difference. However, cabin crew will request that passengers lower their shades, the reason becomes obvious once the sun is in the sky.

Opening a window shade at this time, light floods into the cabin. It doesn’t stop when it hits the person sitting in the window seat. Since this is the pure light of the high troposphere, unfiltered by smog or clouds. It’s more intense than the “normal” daylight typically experienced at ground level even on a cloudless day. Sleepers without eye masks might be disturbed, anyone watching a video might experience a desaturated screen, dulling the modest pleasure of the viewing experience.

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