If you’re a frequent flyer on American Airlines, you might notice a new procedure as of today for when pilots go to the bathroom. This will eventually be coming to some planes on all US airlines, but American is one of the first to actually implement this, so let me explain what’s going on.
American starts using new flight deck barrier feature
It’s common for pilots to use the bathroom during a flight. When they do, it’s standard for flight attendants on airlines in the United States to block the aisle with a galley cart, to prevent any passenger from accessing the flight deck while the door is open.
In 2025, we saw the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) introduce a new rule, requiring a secondary barrier on the flight deck of commercial airplanes in the United States, to ensure the safety of the aircraft, crew, and passengers. As the FAA described this, the intent is to slow any attack on the flight deck long enough so that the flight deck can be closed and locked before an attacker could reach it.
With this, aircraft manufacturers have had to install these barriers on all newly delivered planes as of August 2025. Initially the requirement to actually use these was supposed to be implemented as of then, but that timeline ended up being pushed back to July 2026, to allow sufficient time for training. Interestingly, there are no firm plans to require existing aircraft to be retrofitted with this.
As flagged by PYOK, American is starting to use these cockpit barricades across the fleet as of today, Thursday, June 18, 2026. These are officially known as the “Installed Physical Secondary Barrier,” or IPSB. While these have been installed on new planes for nearly a year now, they haven’t actually been used. In recent months, flight attendants have received training on how to operate them.
American is only the second major US airline to actually start using these, after Southwest, which started deploying them almost immediately after they were installed.
However, as of now, only a small percentage of planes actually have these barriers, so don’t expect to consistently see them. So I guess if you don’t otherwise want to look up the age of your plane, one easy way to tell if it has been delivered within the past year(ish) is based on whether or not it has this barrier.
Is a second flight deck barrier necessary?
It goes without saying that aviation has become so safe over the years thanks to all the incremental improvements that have been made. As a matter of fact, the introduction of this second cockpit barrier is the last 9/11 Commission recommendation to be implemented.
That being said, this seems like a solution that doesn’t actually solve a whole lot. How many people have successfully broken into a flight deck of a commercial airplane in the 20+ years since 9/11? I think zero globally, but someone correct me if I’m wrong.
That comes down to multiple factors:
- It comes down to reinforced flight deck doors, which mean that you can’t break into flight decks
- It comes down to the mentality around hijackings having changed; previously if someone threatened an airline employee with a weapon, they’d typically let them into the flight deck, while that wouldn’t happen in a post-9/11 world
- Passengers wouldn’t allow a hijacking to happen; in the past they would have probably cooperated with hijackers, thinking that would be the solution that leads to the least damage, while I think that mindset has changed post-9/11
Let’s talk about another aspect of the reinforced flight deck door. How many planes have crashed in the past 13 or so years due to one pilot being locked out of the flight deck and not being able to get back in?
- In November 2013, LAM Mozambique flight 470 crashed while the captain was in the flight deck and the first officer was locked out of the flight deck
- In March 2014, Malaysia Airlines flight 370 went missing, and the leading theory is that the captain hijacked the plane while the first officer was locked out of the flight deck
- In March 2015, Germanwings flight 9525 crashed while the first officer was in the flight deck and the captain was locked out of the flight deck
- In March 2022, China Eastern flight 5735 crashed in an accident that’s believed to be pilot suicide, though China refuses to acknowledge it
While I’m not suggesting we should get rid of reinforced flight deck doors, one has to wonder how many lives have really been saved by them.
To me, pilot mental health and one person in a flight deck presents a much bigger risk to aviation than the number of flight deck barriers there are. Admittedly this is more of a global problem than a US problem — at least US airlines are required to always have two people in the flight deck, which is why a flight attendant always has to enter the flight deck when a pilot leaves. This doesn’t apply to foreign airlines flying to the US, though.
Anyway, I suppose this is “nice to have,” but I’m not sure this will meaningfully contribute to safety in any way.
Bottom line
As of today, American Airlines is starting to use the new secondary barriers when pilots need to leave the cockpit to go to to the bathroom. Up until now, they’ve typically used galley carts to block the aisle, while they’ll start using the specially barriers that have been installed on newly delivered planes since August 2025.
There’s no plan to retrofit existing planes with this, so only a small percentage of planes will have this for the time being. American is the second major airline to start actually using these barriers, after Southwest, though other airlines should soon follow as well.
What do you make of these secondary cockpit barriers?