Crisis in mid-air

I usually like to use Schipol Airport in Amsterdam as my hub when I go for any overseas travel. The reason for that is that I could fly with KLM from Humberside Airport which is my regional airport in the UK. It is only about 20 minutes from where I live.

Recently, I was again on this hop over flight with my family. We were going back to Malaysia for our annual trip home for the Chinese New Year celebrations. We were only about 20 minutes from landing at Schipol when the signal for the seatbelt came on, in preparation for landing. As little children would have it, my little girl who is three years old, suddenly announced that she had to go to the toilet for a wee. So what did I do? Well, I asked her if she could wait till we landed. She told me that she can't wait and had to go to the loo straight away. So, I took her and made my way to the toilet. The air steward immediately stopped me and told me to go back to my seat. I understand that that is the rule. However, I tried to explain to him the situation. But to no avail. He just would not listen, and kept on insisting the status quo. We spent the next 5 to 10 minutes arguing about. I warned him that my daughter may have to urinate on the seat if he would not relent. Even with that, he would not budge and blocked my way to the toilet. Thankfully, in the end my daughter held on and we made it to the toilet at the terminal.

Now, my point is this. If he had allowed us to go to the toilet, the whole situation would have been resolved within 5 minutes. Instead of that we were all standing on the aisle for much longer, and hence not had the seatbelt on. Therefore, we were in a "danger" situation for much longer. As someone who had to deal with crisis situations in my job on a regular basis, my impression of this air steward is that he was not made of leadership material. He was merely a follower, who is only able to follow guidelines, and not being able to made executive decisions.
If this had been a terrorist situation, would the flight attendants been able to cope without endangering the lives of the passengers?

Hmmm....the casual philosopher ponders on....