Lufthansa ad breaks taboo

[stagger]

In a Sunday paper today Lufthansa have an ad that breaks something of a taboo in airline advertising....

The text says...Pilots who are perfectly trained

Mechanics who make meticulous checks

Flight attendants who let you dream on

All for this one moment.There's a picture of a couple snuggled up together and the following...How reassuring to know that you're in perfectly safe hands.......and some other stuff about making you as comfortable as possible.

What do people think of this strategy?

[Joyce Tick]

But it doesn't say;

Pilots will never make mistakes,
or
Meticulous checks won't uncover hidden fractures,
or
All flight attendants are beautiful!

I don't have a problem with the Ad..

[stagger]

It does claim that with Lufthansa you are in "perfectly safe hands". Do "perfectly safe hands" ever make mistakes?

[Robert Vesco]

Pfff, you must be a lawyer... Are you contemplating a mallpractice lawsuit? :}

Stop whining!

[Joyce Tick]

It'd be hard to sue for "safe hands" before any accident - and everyone sues after one anyway...

[Doug E Style]

I have travelled many times between the UK and Germany, mostly with LH, and speaking as a passenger with a bit of inside knowledge, I found them as good as anyone else. As far as making mistakes is concerned, a while ago I'm sure the captain's sidestick on a LH Airbus was connected in the reverse sense which would have caused the loss of the aircraft were it not for the actions of the FO in recovering the situation. So their engineers can make mistakes (as can anyone) but this incident shows the skill of their pilots.

[EDDNHopper]

Taboo??

Lufthansa (and others) have used "safety" in advertising for the last 20 or 30 years or more. I remember a LH slogan back in 1980 along the lines of "It´s good to trust someone, but cross-checking is better" where "perfect safety" played the central role...

So what´s wrong? :confused:

[Robert Vesco]

Look at his/her profile and you will know enough. :hmm:

[EFP058]

I didn´t know speaking about safety is a taboo in the airline industry... :rolleyes:

Anyway, I think Lufthansa is definitely one of the safest airlines around, and I for one feel perfectly safe as SLF aboard their aircraft. Something that cannot be said about a lot of other carriers, including western ones. Therefore I don´t have a problem with Lufthansa using safety in their advertising.

Or to sum it up: What´s the fuss?

[BEagle]

"Flight attendants who let you dream on"

Hmm - to me that means either:

1. FAs who you like to have wicked thoughts about.
or
2. FAs who provide the minimum of service as there aren't enough of them to provide a decent in-flight service these days.

The former is certainly true of a few, the latter is true on UK-GE flights ever since the cutbacks of last spring. If you only provide the same number of FAs as RyanAir, how can you offer a better service than RyanAir?

[hart744]

I always have wicked thoughts about our flight attendants. So, I married two most wicked ones.

[Colonel Klink]

The big taboo has always been advertising about safety. Lufthansa did say their pilots are prefectly trained, but did not say their safety record was prefect, or better than their competitors, which is a guarantee of a future accident.
I have not seen the ad, but would have no problems with it.

[hobie]

To add to Beagles list ...

"Flight attendants who let you dream on"

I always remember, many years ago, a buddie of mine flying from "A" to "B" was allowed to sleep on and ended up at "C" ...... a long way away from home! :(

could it happen today? :confused:

[stagger]

First can I get a few things straight…

- I'm not whining and don’t have a problem with this advertising strategy. I'm just interested in what people think about this.

- I’m not a lawyer and am not interested in the legal aspects to safety claims. And I didn’t really want to start a discussion on whether Lufthansa in particular might have a better or worse safety record than anyone else.

- I didn’t mean to suggest that “speaking about safety is a taboo” but I was under the impression that airlines rarely explicitly used safety as a selling point - although perhaps I'm wrong about this

The reason I thought it was interesting is that claims about safety are inherently relative claims. Implicit in an advertisement that emphasises safety is the suggestion that other airlines may be less safe. Now this may or may not be true – but I thought it was considered generally unwise to make such comparative such claims.

Yes, some airlines do have better safety records than others but for a group of airlines with equivalent practices, procedures, and aircraft – a rare, essentially unforeseeable event could compromise the safety record of any one of them. Which airline may be something of a lottery.

[PAXboy]

I have not seen the ad, only what stagger posted above. I conclude that no taboo has been broken. This advert is no different to any other in what it seeks to emphasise.

In my view, there was not even a question to ask. :rolleyes:

--------------------
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

[stagger]

Look - I'm not the only one who thinks there is something of a taboo concerning safety in aviation advertising.

Take a look at this article about Airbus ads....Airbus print ads don't fly with rival plane makers (http://www.financialexpress.com/fe/daily/19991125/fst25087.html)

They explain the logic behind avoiding raising safety in advertising like this...Accidents can happen to anyone, the logic goes, and all Western passenger jets face the same rigorous certification scrutiny. Start raising safety concerns about one product or airline, and ultimately you raise them for everyone.

Didn't see the Airbus ads but it sounds like they were very explicitly comparative (2 vs 4 engines) and designed to make people fearful of ETOPS.

[broadreach]

Stagger, see what happens when you touch a taboo issue! :O

My own thoughts when I see an airline advert that somehow implies their safety is superior are, "my, aren't we arrogantly tempting fate". And I'm reminded of White Star Line of many years ago.

[EDDNHopper]

Ok., stagger, and think I can now understand why you posted.

I see it this way: With the meagre (yet efficient, I have to say) in-flight service they offer, at least in economy, there is little else to praise.

Except, maybe, cleanliness, as they have about the cleanest planes (on long-haul) I know.

"Flight attendants who let you dream on" - VERY true, simply because they don´t disturb you with anything thatmight look like in-flight service... ;)

Still, I have no problems to fly with them long-haul as, indeed, I do not in the least doubt their safety efforts, and their aircraft are spotless.

[PAXboy]

Usually, the safest carrier to use is the one that has just had a bad prang.

Given that the markety is getting tighter and one or two more big mergers have to happen, the marketing people will be given more freedom to try and grab pax. But they will not be able to do much, methinks. Those that are going to fail and be taken over, have been in the pattern for many moons already.

[The SSK]

The English-language version here in Belgium has a couple of slight differences:

'Mechanics who double-check every bolt'
'Flight attendants who leave you in a land of dreams'

Best of all, in the blurb at the bottom:
'...so you can always have sweat dreams at 39.000 feet'.

When I joined 'the biz' 30-something years ago it was indeed the convention that safety wasn't mentioned in ads, although there have been plenty of examples where this hasn't been the case. I recall the long-running Iberia campaign with a rose wrapped around a spanner 'where only the plane gets more attention than you'.