Pre flight Safety Demonstration

[redsnail]

I like to personalise my passenger briefings but there's still stuff that I must say by law. Most airlines aren't allowed to personalise the pax briefs simply because passengers complain.

Passengers complain because they've heard it before and passengers complain because they didn't like the humour... You honestly can't win.

Most things in aviation have come about because blood was spilt. Hence the changes in the brace position and where you stow your hand luggage. That's one example where the old way had to be changed in the light of crash study analysis. Therefore, if you flew 10 years ago, you'd think that you had to put your hand luggage under the seat you're on and keep your legs forward and interlock your fingers. Coroners investigation has shown that lead to (greater) injury. Now the briefing has changed to the one you now hear and see.... If the brief wasn't given, you'd do the wrong thing.

Apart from the spilling of blood, lawyers have got involved. I know of one case where the pax were angling for a refund on their flight. They dragged the company through court only to find their complaint full of holes. It was thrown out. Can you imagine the stress the company and the pilot was put under? Therefore, it is much easier to simply say exactly the same thing to every one every flight.

You are one passenger. I have briefed thousands of passengers. I have seen people fumble with the seat belts, forget how to open a door and generally ignore what I have said to their potential peril. Fortunately, none have been injured or killed. A few have had a fright. That's when it dawns on them what I told them actually was for their benefit, not mine.

If it was up to me, I'd make it a quizz and the passengers tick the right answer on the IFE. However, some one would complain and it would be too costly to implement.

Qantas do stress the emergency exit bit on their preflight briefing. They also stress that life jackets do differ from airline to airline.

To me, differences are what need to be highlighted. eg which exit row is nearest. However, how do the airlines know what the passenger is up to date with? As I explained earlier, crash positions change with new info from accidents. How do airlines know what you know? Therefore, sadly, back to the lowest common denominator.

As crew we brief every taxi, departure and climb (normal and abnormal) and arrival, landing and taxi in. We go over the "every day" stuff as well as the abnormal/emergency stuff. Reason? If it's fresh in our memory then we're likely to react in the correct way when the adrenaline kicks in.

BTW, I am not a FA.