Courtesy of British Airways.
“A major problem with most cabin briefings is that they are too mundane and tend to be ignored entirely,” said Shem Malmquist, a B-777 pilot and one of the primary authors of the seventh edition of “Commercial Aviation Safety.”
“I like this approach, and it does a good job capturing the important bits,” he said.
Guy Gratton, Associate Professor of Aviation and Environment specializing in air transport safety at Cranfield University, agreed.
“I think that it’s absolutely excellent,” he said. “It’s part of an entirely appropriate current tradition of using entertainment principles to get passengers to listen to pre-flight safety briefings.”
However, the video does have drawbacks. As noted by Business Insider’s Taylor Rains, who previously worked in airline safety for Allegiant Air, the video was not filmed on an airplane, meaning it does not necessarily provide a realistic view of what might happen in an emergency.
The lack of visual cues could also be difficult for those who do not speak English as a first language.
Courtesy of British Airways.
The history of comedic instructional videos on airlines began in 2007 with an animated film by Virgin America, which included a matador, his bull, and a nun. Since then, other highlights have included Air New Zealand’s 2014 Lord of the Rings epic and British Airways’ 2017 and 2018 star-studded videos, which included Rowan Atkinson’s Mr. Bean and Gordon Ramsay.