And for my 2 dollars worth...
YOU DON'T TAKE THE P**S OUT OF SAFETY DEMOS - CLEAR AND SIMPLE.
At my airline, check in assess the people in the exit, the CSA's monitor their boarding, and the crew monitor them as well JUST TO BE SURE. Furthermore, we're encouraged to to have a laugh and a giggle amongst ourselves and the passengers - but we are TO NEVER make the safety demo - or any serious situation - a laughing matter.
I know of many people who have flown
VB and have found one of two things occur in flight:
1) The crew sing and dance their way thru the safety demo, face painting after the "service" - this includes crew as well, and generally behave like it's a holiday camp...OR
2) They do the demo and stay in the galley - not to be heard from again...
Now - I'm all for a giggle and a sing song as well, don't get me wrong - but during the demo? Even Virgin Atlantic don't go that far - they have celebrities do the voiceover for the demo, but the crew take it VERY seriously...not so here, it would seem. I too have flown
VB and have proved it myself.
Here here sonique - yes, the Purser didn't close 1L prior to the inaugural flight (temporarily stopped on the taxiway because a warning in the cockpit said so)...widely reported in the news as I recall...
Strange how all the crew are very good looking...at the current training school we have some LOVELY people training with us who got nowhere with
VB - and they have some MAJOR experience behind all of them - japanese speakers, etc.
HERE HERE again sonique - customer service background??? WHAT BACKGROUND?? Some of these people at
VB have never worked in customer service in their life?? yeah - virgin flair...WHERE?????
Oh Evacu8 - they know what they're getting themselves in for before they get interviewed - even during the interview they tell you what happens onboard - or so I'm told repeatedly at work. No point complaining about it to you guys at QF when they're the ones who applied to join
VB in the first place. True, most people will do almost anything to fly - sad that QF don't do permanent full time anymore...just goes to show how much they must have really "enjoyed" working for
VB - giving up a permanent full time flying job there for a contract/casual position at QF!!!
I wonder what CASA think of all this "ad libbing" in the safety demo? Doubtful as to whether it "enhances" pax awareness in an emergency...
Have as much fun as you want - but take your job seriously when required - remember, you want to evacuate people who know what the hell they're doing...no point wishing you behaved as a professional after the event!
(PS.
VB hold the current CASA record for evacuating a cabin in 42 seconds - easy though, when you're evacuating
VB staff who are familiar with the a/c, don't you think?)