Dear Alitalia – Seat Belt signs are optional?

I am one hour into a flight on your airline from Amsterdam to Rome. So far the flight has been perfectly smooth and yet the seatbelt signs are still illuminated. I can only guess that the pilots have simply forgotten to turn them off. 

Leaving seatbelt signs creates two possible scenarios: 

1. People are unable to go to the toilet, except those who dain to disregard the clear signs. Inevitably, arrogant people who care only for themselves are not affected but polite folk (the kind that actually listen to the safety announcements) are stuck in their seats wondering if they will ever be able to relive themselves. 
2. After a certain time period the cabin crew simply ignore the lights and let people roam around the cabin, and this is what is happening on my flight today. This is reckless and unprofessional. Firstly, it is not the cabin crew’s job to judge the potential for turbulence (it is the pilot’s) and secondly it means that when there really is a danger of turbulence the people will just ignore the signs as they’ve been allowed to do before. Turbulence can be severe and cause injury to passengers and crew. For examples of such, please see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, or here.

One is inclined to enquire how the pilots managed to forget to turn off the seatbelt signs and was there anything else that they forgot? Did they not bother with the checklist today because they have “done it a thousand times before”? Nevertheless it’s an easy (and minor) mistake for pilots to make but my real issue is with the cabin crew. 

I’ve just asked the cabin crew about this and they reassured me not to worry and that I am allowed to go to the toilet. I am surprised that your cabin crew are trained to treat the seatbelt lights as “optional to follow”. Aren’t seatbelt signs crucial for the safety of passengers? I believe that the correct response would have been to inform the pilots and see if the lights were on by mistake and let them deal with it accordingly. Instead your staff are happily handing out coffee and moving aside for people to get to the toilets when, for all they know, we could be about to fly into a storm. 

I therefore have two questions: 

1. Is information about seatbelt signs included in your cabin crew trainings? 
2. Are your crew taught that they are allowed to ignore them at certain times, if they deem them unnecessary, or are they taught that they should in fact enforce them? 

I look forward to your response, 

Best regards, 

Rob 

P.S. The seat belt signs remained illuminated for the duration of the smooth flight. Many people went to the toilet. I thought maybe that the seatbelt signs were broken but the pilots managed to turn them off at the end when the plane was stopped.

UPDATE: I’m now on a second flight and the same thing is happening. Is this dangerous practice actually policy?

UPDATE 2: Im on another flight a month later and it’s happening again. The air stewardess confirms that this is usual and that I should “not worry about it”. I am worried about it. If this is in fact Alitalia policy it’s even more worrying. Seatbelt signs are an important safety feature and you’re lack of regard for their use is worrying indeed. I feel that passengers deserve an explanation to this worrying occurrence.