Ryanair pre flight stuff...

xtradel

I was wondering could anybody give me some facts about the whole balancing and weight distribution on flights. We were travelling back from Rygge to Dublin yesterday and before everyone was seated the crew asked us NOT to put on our safety belts until they had checked the weight and balance of the plane.

I'm no expert but i know smaller planes need to be evenly balanced but to me the 737-800 seems to be pretty big so surely when everybody is seated if they have the belt on or not would make no difference?

Know i read before about Ryanair blocking off the rear rows but on this flight they were available even though it was less then 3/4 full. Am not complaining, got a full row to myself.

St. Leibowitz

I think you missed the point of not putting the seat belt on. It was so that if they had to move people, they could do so quickly, without the hassle of having to undo seat belts. The wearing if the seat belt would have absolutely no effect on the centre of gravity of the airplane.

APM

I'd say the reason you were told not to fasten your seatbelts was because the aircraft was refueling, rather than weight/balance issues.

Ryanair use weight/balance rules based on pax numbers so less than 177 pax they block rows 3 and 4 and less than 129 pax rows 3-8 will be blocked and also the last 4 rows. This shifts all of the weight towards the center of the aircraft.

The reason they don't block rows 1 and 2 is because they are emergency exit rows and need to be occupied regardless of pax numbers.

aircraft tech trng

Id be inclinded to agree, more of a safety issue to have the seatbelts unbuckled while refuelling is in progress