I have logged over a half million flying miles with my various jobs, and for a while I too held that attitude. But after a while I realized the flights I hated the most were the ones full of business travelers demanding their frequent flyer perks while cranky flight attendants crop dusted them and kept them drunk enough to be quiet, and everyone on both sides rolling their eyes at how crappy air travel was.
Now I want levity dammit. And happy people enjoying their jobs around me makes my life less stressful and more pleasant.
“And remember, nobody loves you, and your money, more than Southwest”
I was on a Spirit flight no long ago and the pre-landing announcement was pretty funny. I wish I could remember the lines but the first one caught my attention and I thought “Did she just say what I thought she said?” It ended with something like, “if you’d like to show your appreciation for all of our hard work, we’ll be in the bar!” The landing that followed was pretty sporty with a couple of bounces and one wing going down more than usual. No sooner had the plane settled on the main gear when the Captain came come on the PA with a “Whoooaaaaa!”. The whole plane was cracking up.
I recall a Southwest flight where an employee at the gate did all of his announcements in a dead-on Jimmy Stewart voice. “Y-y-ya gotta have a boarding pass! A-a-a-and it’s gotta have your name on it!”
That was about fifteen years ago, though. Now, most of the younger passengers wouldn’t get it (and they should also get off my lawn).
You folks do realize that those “here is how you put on a safety strap, here is how life vests work” speeches aren’t optional, right? They’re required by FAA regulations, and their only choice is whether to deliver them boringly deadpan or make them funny. Skipping them is not an option.
A lot of airlines have a video they show while the flight attendants mime the action. United has one that is not terrible with flight attendants out in typical tourist spots like a beach, a cab and the streets of Rome delivering the info. It’s compelling enough that I’ll kind of watch it, but listening to a flight attendant get jiggy with the intercom is not my idea of entertainment.
Meh. The safety briefing is required by the FAA. I’m willing to accept that everyone takes their first flight sometime, and even if you’ve heard about how the oxygen masks might not inflate, or that you should put your own mask on before helping others, you’ve probably never had to do it, so some repetition is probably a good idea.
And there’s really no godly reason to tell people how a seatbelt works.
The seat belts on airplanes are not like the ones in cars. At least, they’re not like the ones in my car, or any car I’ve ever owned or ridden in. I see at least one person every few flights unable to figure out where the buckle should be inserted or wasting time looking for the non-existent release button. So yes, there is a reason, because one idiot who is panicked and cannot figure out how to get his seat belt off could be wasting precious seconds that affect not only him but anyone trapped by his physical mass.
And the reason they do comedy routines and slick videos is to get people to pay attention and remember the safety briefing. Because study after study by the NTSB has indicated that the majority of people don’t pay attention, and then you see morons like on BA38 or Asiana 214 trying to evacuate with their carry-on luggage. Was the joke about waiting to pull the life vest inflation cord until you’re outside the plane lame and annoying? Fine. Did it get you to remember what was said so you could stew and complain about it? Then it accomplished what it was supposed to.
I just got asked by the stewardess for 100 words on why I wanted the exit row. That made everyone chuckle then she told us on her last flight someone wrote “I like leg room” 100 times that got another laugh. I like genuine funny the southwest jokes interfere with my reading, I can tune out the normal safety briefing.
I think Delta has found a good balance. They have new safety briefing videos with some good slapstick humor that people appreciate, but without making the FAs feel obligated to deliver a shitty standup routine. And there’s just something a lot more tolerable about getting that kind of stuff from a recorded video than someone over-enthusiastically shouting over a PA.
Oh fuck yeah. I’d run up to that mustachioed dictator-squared and say “HERE’S MY RECEIPTS, WHERE’S THE OVEN?!”
(Just because something is #firstworldproblems doesn’t make it not annoying. You can be annoyed while still appreciating the fact that most people in the world will never see the inside of an airplane. It’s OK. You’re allowed. Try it. It might make you feel better.)
Yes indeed. FAs are badass and they get paid squat. All the more reason I don’t like to see them engage in awkward forced standup like a nightmarish HR retreat. In addition to hating it for myself I actually feel bad for them too.
Sure. That’s why larger carriers have mostly transitioned to doing them by video. That ensures that the information gets delivered accurately and consistently each time, and people are actually more likely to pay attention to it.
Recently on a Delta flight, during the landing approach, one FA felt it necessary, after the usual “thank you for flying with us” speech, to give a ten minute sermon exhorting people to smile at one another and appreciate people. (I wish I was making this up. Dude went on and on and on.) Is this an airplane or a church service?
I’m pretty sure that guy is a serial killer who puts blue ice in his martinis. And brains.
The anecdote from the 1990s(?) about the airline pilot who asked the passengers “Please return the flight attendants to their upright position” - anyone know if true or urban legend?
If you give someone a mechanical device that they’re unfamiliar with, they play with it. They put it together and take it apart. They press the buttons and pull the levers. They figure it out.
It’s possible to imagine a case where not knowing how a seatbelt works risks lives, but it’s not likely.
There are 1.7 million airplane passengers every day in the US. The 15 seconds it takes to tell people how a seatbelt operates works out to a full 70 year human lifespan every 100 days or so. Are we saving three lives a year by explaining how they work? Because we’re wasting that many lifetimes in boredom.
Sure. I flew next to a guy once who put his steaming, open cup of coffee on the floor of the plane because he could not figure out how to work his tray table. The problem was that he had his foot up on the armrest of the seat in front of him and consequently his leg was blocking the table from coming down. Despite the clue of the tray repeatedly banging into his kneecap as he tried to lower it, he was unable to figure this out. Many people are very stupid. I’ll sit through the seat belt demonstration, thanks.
Not quite humor, but I was once on a small regional jet on a Sunday night flight with only three passengers, obviously all seasoned business travelers.
The stewardess gets up and starts her safety briefing, and the three of us each roll one eye up from what we are reading to look at her. She looks at us, stops for a second, and says: “You all know this stuff.” and sits down.