Flight attendants of the Ryanair subsidiary Lauda Europe are no longer allowed to carry out first aid measures on board. According to the cabin crews, this otherwise extremely important topic no longer plays a particularly important role in the annual advanced training courses. So far and before, at Niki, first aid was extremely important and a large part of the courses were devoted to training and further education in matters of first aid.

With the resumption of flight operations - in July 2020 - the so-called "Doctors Kits" disappeared from the Airbus A320, which was still operated by Laudamotion at the time. The flight crew has never been told why these were removed. Only the so-called “White Kit” and the “Green Kit” are available. Lauda Europe flight attendants strongly criticize Aviation Direct: “The content is insufficient. There is more in every car first-aid kit that is regularly on offer in discount stores. With this equipment you can hardly do anything in an emergency. The company now forbids us to carry out first aid measures. "

Some cabin workers at Lauda Europe are rightly concerned, because the company arrangement contradicts the law. In Austria - and by the way also in Malta - every citizen is obliged to help another person who is injured or has an acute medical problem for other reasons. If you fail to do this, you are liable to prosecution for failure to provide assistance.

Section 95 of the Austrian Criminal Code stipulates: “(1) Anyone who fails to provide the help obviously necessary to rescue a person from the risk of death or serious bodily harm or damage to health in the event of an accident or a public hazard (Section 176) is to be included Imprisonment of up to six months or a fine of up to 360 daily rates, if the failure to provide assistance results in the death of a person, to be punished with imprisonment of up to one year or with a fine of up to 720 daily rates, unless the assistance the perpetrator cannot be expected. "

Paragraph 2 provides for a clearly defined exception: "(2) Providing assistance is particularly unreasonable if it would only be possible with danger to life or limb or with the violation of other significant interests."

Lauda Europe flies the flag of the Republic of Malta. In the local criminal law there is no such clearly formulated paragraph, but a multitude of regulations that criminal judges can apply in the event of failure to provide assistance. If a person dies by failing to provide first aid, they face long prison sentences. Depending on the circumstances, knowledge and skills in Malta - just like in Austria - it may be sufficient to alert or call the emergency services, a doctor or a person. For example, an elderly, frail lady who is on the move with a rollator could ask any passer-by to provide first aid because she is no longer able to do so herself for health reasons. With that the "first aider" would have fulfilled her duties. This becomes difficult on board a commercial aircraft, especially since flight attendants are not seniors with walkers.

A doctor is not always on board by chance

It is common practice for a member of the crew to use an announcement to ask whether a doctor is on board. If this is the case, he is obliged to provide first aid. The doctor would also have to do this if he is privately shopping in the supermarket and an emergency occurs there. Depending on the severity of the case, the captain decides, on the recommendation of the doctor, whether an unscheduled landing is made for medical reasons or whether the flight can continue to the destination. However, if there is no doctor on board, the person in charge on board, i.e. the captain, must make the decision alone without a medical assessment. If a serious case is suspected, most captains then make a safety landing as a precaution, because the safety and health of the passengers has top priority.

Especially in summer the crews are often confronted with "smaller medicals". For example, travelers repeatedly suffer from the summer heat and feel very uncomfortable for a short time. Occasionally drinking a glass of water will help. Diabetics are plagued now and then in the summer: If you have hypoglycaemia, you can usually help with a sugary drink or, if necessary, a piece of chocolate. It is more difficult with hypoglycaemia, especially if the passenger does not have insulin with them. Diabetes problems are particularly complicated, and the guest does not know anything about them because the disease has not yet been diagnosed and is therefore confronted with a great mystery what is wrong with him.

In the past, all stewardesses were trained nurses

At the beginning of the aviation industry, all flight attendants - at the beginning it was almost a woman's job - were nurses. They were specifically recruited in order to have a competent person on board for first aid in an emergency. The stewardesses of the time were all trained nurses in the Stone Age of aviation. You just thought that if something happens that someone is in the cabin who can help.

Of course there are still flight attendants who originally trained as a nurse, but this has not been a basic requirement for decades. In almost all airlines, the topic of first aid not only plays an extremely important role in training, but the cabin crew is also professionally trained at least once a year and their skills must be proven in a kind of test. Even first aid measures for infants train almost all airlines.

Austrian Lauda Europe cabin crew concerned about training quality

Flight attendants are of course not doctors and it is always good if a doctor who happens to be on board carries out the measures himself and the crew can assist him. But no airline in the world can rely on a doctor on board every flight. Especially in Corona times, the probability drops very sharply due to extremely low occupancy. It is therefore essential that the crews can help passengers in need in an emergency and subsequently also be able to provide the captain with important information for his decision (medical landing required or not). If the pilot makes the wrong decision and a passenger dies as a result, it can have drastic consequences depending on the state, including a criminal conviction. Italian criminal law provides for particularly severe penalties for captains (aviation and shipping).

Why, according to flight attendants who recently completed their annual training course, Lauda Europe no longer attaches great importance to the subject of first aid is absolutely a mystery and possibly even grossly negligent. The instruction that crews are no longer allowed to provide first aid is hair-raising and could also result in criminal prosecution in an emergency. As long as nothing happens, hardly any authority will be interested. Many questions are only asked when the emergency has arisen and no help has been given. So it is to be hoped that the Lauda Europe flight attendants ignore this inhuman order and continue to provide first aid if necessary. But one stewardess is worried about this: “The new courses have been training for salespeople for some time now. The focus is on selling and we are constantly told in circulars and in personal conversations that our job is to sell. First aid is only a very small part of the training and further education and in my opinion the quality of the courses has decreased compared to the Niki time. I also find it remarkable how quickly some new flight attendants were promoted from junior to senior. In the meantime, the skills in team leadership, competence and security are less important than the turnover that is achieved in sales. This development is worrying ”.

Based on the duration of the training, the assumption can be derived that the content has been severely shortened. It now only takes two days to move up from junior to senior. Before that it was at least two weeks.