The real reason cabin crew have to wear different seatbelts to passengers revealed

Towards the end of a flight, it's common to hear the pilot warn the plane's cabin crew to take their seats.

And as flight attendants usually sit facing the passengers, they're easy to spot at the front of the plane.

So you might have noticed that they use a slightly different seatbelt to the one worn by passengers.

While a normal plane seatbelt is just buckled across your lap, flight attendants often have extra straps across their chest.

And the crossbody seatbelt has left some travellers confused.

Taking to the Reddit thread 'NoStupidQuestions', user 'MAJOR_ZEN' asks: 'Why do flight attendants have the cross body 'X' seat belt on their seats, whereas passengers only get the horizontal ones across the waist?'

In the comment section, one passenger jokes that they assumed that the public didn't have the chest straps as they 'were too stupid to use anything more complex' than the lap belt.

But former flight attendant 'wishiwasyou333' explains that they used to fly on a 'smaller 50 seat jet' and their 'jump seat was not bolted to the aircraft'.

They say: 'We needed the extra harness because that thing was bouncy as h**l on a normal takeoff and landing.'

The former flight attendant also explains that passengers would want crew to be safe in the event of an emergency as the attendants are the ones who will need to guide everyone else to safety.

And there's another reason that the flight attendants have an extra strap.

According to Aerosavvy.com, the extra strap acts in the same way as the seat in front works for passengers.

If there was an incident, the plane seat in front would help to stop passengers being thrown forward but as flight attendants face the other way, they wouldn't have any extra protection.

Their seatbelts protect them from falling forward on impact as well as allowing them to get out of their seat quickly to help if there was an incident.

And the straps might also be a little too complex for the general public.

Aviation expert and professor of aviation management at Dublin City University, Marina Efthymiou, told Metro that passengers 'wouldn't keep their seatbelts on if they were like the ones cabin crew wear'.

She added: 'And, in case of an emergency, they wouldn't be able to get them off fast enough during evacuations.

'The main factors in the difference between seatbelts is ease of use, and speed of evacuation.'

And in another revelation, a flight attendant recently explained why the crew hate serving fizzy drinks.

Meanwhile, another member of cabin crew has exposed which area of the plane is the germiest spot.