Ask the Captain: How well do you know your colleagues?

Question: How well do you know your co-pilot and flight crew?

— Submitted by reader Jes, Myrtle Beach, S.C.

Answer: It varies. Often you have flown with them before, but it is not uncommon to meet a crewmember for the first time during the preflight briefing.

Airline crews are trained to very strict standard operating procedures. This ensures that safety procedures are done the same way every time.

It is nice to fly with someone you know, but there is no degradation in safety when none of the crew knows each other before the first flight.

Q: Why are pilots/flight attendants constantly changing planes? They act just like paying passengers running gate to gate.

— Dave, Ohio

A: Pilots and flight attendants are scheduled by very sophisticated computer programs to get the maximum utilization. The computer knows the most cost-efficient crew for each flight while ensuring that crews are available to fly all of the scheduled aircraft. This requires frequent changing of airplanes by crewmembers. The restrictions on duty time, qualifications and training make this a very complicated undertaking even in the best of circumstances. When weather disrupts the schedule, it can become a nightmare.

Q: I was on a recent flight from Newark to Boston. We had lined up for boarding and then the gate agent said our pilots were late coming into Newark and to expect an hour delay. Thirty minutes later the gate agent started boarding the plane even though the pilots were not scheduled to land for another half-hour. Can gate agents board a flight when no pilots were on board? There were just the four attendants on board in this case.

— Matt, Boston

A: Yes, it is permissible for passengers to be boarded with the proper number of flight attendants. Flight attendants are trained to evacuate all of the passengers without any involvement by the pilots if necessary.

Q: Whenever landing, the chief flight attendant will announce "on behalf of your Minneapolis- (or wherever) based crew, thank you for flying (airline name).” Does anyone really care where the flight crew is based?

— Mike, Los Angeles

A: It is an effort to personalize the crew. Many passengers believe there are differences between the bases. These differences have diminished over time; however, crews are still asked frequently where they are based.

John Cox is a retired airline captain with US Airways and runs his own aviation safety consulting company, Safety Operating Systems.