The last thing anybody wants to do before lifting off is to pay attention to a preflight safety demonstration.
You know the drill – make sure your own mask is fitted before helping others (yes, sacrifice that baby sat next to you, if you must), don’t inflate your life jacket indoors, leave your laptop and duty free purchases inside the sinking vessel, yadda yadda.
But there’s a growing contingent of airlines battling the humdrum of preflight safety demonstrations of old in a bid to keep your attention before takeoff.
Here’s five of the best.
5. Air New Zealand: bare essentials
Air New Zealand’s safety video of 2009 is enough to make you look twice. The video features pilots and cabin crew delivering the ‘bare essentials’…wearing their, erm, bare essentials.
Donning uniforms in full body paint, the crew make creative use of seats, bags, life jackets and other onboard equipment to hide their modesty.
The video finishes with the cheekiest of taglines: ‘From the airline whose fares have nothing to hide!”
4. Thomson: brought to you by Alice & Co
Thomson recruited Alice & Co in a bid to ensure that children and adults alike give the safety briefing their full attention.
Cue Alice making sure that teddy’s seatbelt is fastened safely, hand-drawn safety cards to demonstrate the emergency exits, and a cheeky thumbs-up from a Ray Ban-bespectacled pilot at the end.
Thomson’s flights are aimed squarely at the family holiday market, and with this in mind, they’ve hit the nail for their target market firmly on the head.
3. Virgin America: #VXsafetydance
Buckle up to get down, claim Virgin America in their 2013 safety briefing.
Beware: this is a tune that’s going to stay with you all week. Guaranteed.
Virgin enlisted Step Up 2 director Jon M. Chu to produce #VXsafetydance, which features 36 dancers performing 14 different styles of dance, all set against an ultra-catchy riff, perfectly scripted and crisply-executed lyrics. It’s no wonder that #VXsafetydance has attracted almost 12.5 million views on Youtube. 12.5 MILLION.
All together now! So tonight, get ready to fly…coz we’re gonna live it up in the sky…
2. Qantas
Qantas takes a different approach to the others in our top five, featuring the very best of Australia in the safety briefings onboard their A380 aircraft.
And blimey – it just works.
Drop-dead gorgeous cinematic shots from above mix delightfully with clever placements of onboard equipment. Models in Melbourne wear oxygen masks on the catwalk. A Salamanca Market trader places his box of produce under a table to demonstrate the placing your bags under the seat in front of you.
It’s clever. It’s stunning. And if you’re not careful, you’ll be maxing your credit cards as you book that long-awaited trip to Toowoomba.
1. British Airways
The clear winner for us, though, is British Airways with their brilliant safety briefing for 2017.
Launching in September and created in collaboration with Comic Relief, it features a shed-load of famous British faces you’ll know and love auditioning for the chance to star in the video, whilst simultaneously demonstrating the safety features onboard the aircraft. Sir Ian McKellen, X-Files star Gillian Anderson, sweary-shouty TV chef Gordon Ramsay, and Mr Bean himself, Sir Rowan Atkinson, to name just a few.
So, globetrotters, which is your favourite? Have you seen any creative safety demos we haven’t clocked? Write in the comments below, or drop us a tweet: @transportdsn.
Image copyright: British Airways