I just flew with Southwest Airlines this week. One of the refreshing things they still do is add humor to the safety briefings and intercom announcements. This thread, probably done before but not showing up in my search, is for us to share some of our favorites.
Here is my contributions to get things started:
“There may be 50 ways to leave your lover, but there are only 6 ways off this aircraft”
Pilot, during the boarding process :“Folks, I was hoping you could all help me out. My mother-in-law is planning on joining us on this flight this morning. She is currently in line at security. So if everyone can take your seats quickly we can make it out before she gets to the gate.”
At the end of the flight: “Please make sure you take all your personal items with you when you leave. But don’t worry, if you forget anything, you we will be listing it on eBay tomorrow”
“The fine for tampering with a smoke detector in the lavatory is $X,XXX, and we’re thinking that if you were planning on spending that kind of money today, you would have flown Delta.”
(Is this thread only for passengers on Southwest Airlines?)
Years ago (no idea what airline), had a captain who made announcements in exaggerated bogus Transylvania accent.
Another favorite, not at all humorous, but interesting: I just happened to fly from Oakland to Seattle in 1980, just a few weeks after Mt. St. Helens went kablooie. We flew almost right over it, just a little off to one side. The captain announced that fact, and dipped the starboard wing so passengers could look down into the crater. It was still smoking. For miles around, all the trees were laying all over the ground in heaps like pick-up sticks only not so colorful. Everything was one uniform shade of gray.
My husband was on a flight where they made the announcement about the seat cushions being flotation devices, continuing with “… slip your arms thru the straps, hug it close to your chest, and paddle paddle paddle!”
I had a lovely flight attendant on a flight on Singapore-based Jetstar, heading back to Singapore. She casually said “Please turn off your I-phones, I-pads, You-pads, we-all pads.” At the end of the announcements, she said “Now, let’s go home!” and added her own falsetto "bing’.
Many airlines are now maiking seat-back videos for safety drills. I absolutely loved the one on Air France, which so absolutely French. The first thing I did when I got home was rush to YouTube to watched it again:
I remember (on WestJet), after landing, when the announcement comes on to keep your seatbelt fastened until the plane has done taxiing. All you heard were seatbelt a unclipping (which happens every time). The flight attendant came back on and went “Tsk, tsk, tsk!”
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Many airlines are now maiking seat-back videos for safety drills. I absolutely loved the one on Air France, which so absolutely French. The first thing I did when I got home was rush to YouTube to watched it again:
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This is my favorite flight safety film, from Virgin:
I especially like the Yellow Submarine-ish slide part and the giant crab.
I was on an over-water flight once (Bay Area to Hawaii). There was a presentation on the use of the life vests and flotation thingies. Several stewardesses arranged themselves at intervals in the aisles and demonstrated the steps, while a pre-recorded sound-track played the instructions.
There was one awkward spot that they couldn’t demonstrate in synch with the verbal instructions. The words were something like “Pull down on the tabs of inflate the vest, after fastening the belt hooks at the waist” (or something like that).
Note that the sentence describes two steps to be taken, and NOT in the order that they are to be taken. All the the stewardesses doing the demo had to do a very noticeable sort of double-take to fudge around that spot.
Ugh, no. This kind of shit is one of the many reasons why I loathe Southwest. There is absolutely nothing worse than a flight attendant with schtick.
I really appreciate how hard they work and everything, but just shut the fuck up and let me relax and sip my booze already, you know? We’re stuck together for five hours in a tin can, don’t make me hate you.
A few weeks ago, I flew with a pretty senior DFW-based crew on American. The class clown on the mike had all sorts of stuff that he’d decided was funny, including the consistent and deliberate mispronunciation of “O’Hare” as “O’Hara.” I have no idea why he thought that was amusing.
I asked to speak with him afterwards, and gently and soberly pointed out that Edward O’Hare was a war hero, who gave his life for his country, and surely the least we could do to honor him was to say his name properly. He acted like I was some sort of humorless dolt who just didn’t get the joke.
If people would pay attention to the safety briefing this kind of schtick wouldn’t be necessary but there aren’t enough adults who at least pretend to pay attention to the person who is responsible for telling you the safety rules.
Yes you fly a lot, yes you’ve heard it before, yes you know how to fasten your seatbelt, but not listening is not getting you to your destination any faster so just be fucking polite and pay attention for the 2-3 mins it takes.
deep breath Okay apparently this annoys me. I mean adults being rude to people they consider in serving positions always annoys me but these men and women are responsible for getting off the airplane last if it crashes to make sure the passengers are all safe. A few mins to reduce the number of Mr.Dickhead and Ms.Entitled they have to argue with at the top of the slide while people are breathing in toxic fumes isn’t a bad exchange.
Personally I think they should change the rules. If you ignore them and they quiz you and you can’t answer the questions about the nearest exit and where the floatation device is you get kicked off and wait for the next flight. Happens a few times and people would start paying attention.
If you were in a room with a happy Southwest flight attendant, and rabid Hitler-Stalin with a dentist’s drill in one hand and an income tax audit in the other, you’d sidle up to Hitler-Stalin and be all like “what’s with MR.HAPPY over there? Yuck.”
Preach it, brother! I hate it when I see someone ignore, or worse treat a flight attendant like a glorified bartender. They have a stressful job and they’re highly trained in emergency response. You only see the “peanuts or pretzels” side because you’ve luckily never been on a burning plane.
I’ll never forget the time I saw a young man have a seizure mid-flight. The flight attendants were like a calm, cool, SWAT team. On the kid in a second, keeping his head on the headrest, and calming the panicking passengers around him. Not even a facial expression change from the flight attendants.
