You remember when TV was still in its infancy, and the news featured a steady shot anchorman, reading newspaper like articles aloud? No pictures, no suspense, no nothing. TV was like radio with colours. This is what I came to think of, as my plane took off from Copenhagen Airport heading towards Rome, last week.
The SAS flight had small LCD-screens, lowering immediately before taking off. Instead of having the stewardess performing their “what-to-do-if-the-flight-suddenly-drops-in-the-middel-of-the-ocean” etc. in the middle of the isle, pictures of a stewardess doing the same now appeared on the screen. Lucky for them, I thought at first, thinking about the somewhat awkward (not to say outright toe-crumbling) situation, the stewardesses are normally put in, during the security instruction intermezzo.
But then I watched on. And I felt very much like watching radio with colours! The stewardesses really were doing exactly the same! No narrative tricks, no point-of-view cameras, no nothing. Pictures of a stewardess taking the life west on accompanied by a very neutral voice-over instructing the audience what to do.
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I thought myself ultra cool when I blogged from way above the Atlantic, flying to LA with SAS recently. I thought: SAS surely understands how to treat new media in the air.
Well, now I have my doubts. They might still have to learn a trick or two.
…or it may just be that airline security is a bit too important to be turned into another episode of Tiki Bar :-). I mean, how would you feel if in an emergency you didn’t know what to do, because the video instruction had had a sudden Lars von Trier feel to it?
C’mon Mads – surely you can use the media on its own premises and obtain the desired effect. You really don’t have be dull to be serious. On the contrary!
Only by doing this you can be perfectly serious, catch the undivided attention of the audience and deliver a crystal-clear message at the same time.
All I am saying is that I think there’s a reason why the security message is the same for all airlines. There is probably a rule for how it should be done that airlines have to follow.
At the same time I kind of like the KISS principle applied to getting the same speech again and again. It makes me confident that no matter which airline or plane I’m on, I have a very good idea of what to do in an emergency situation. It’s my life, you know :-).
Mads, the airlines have a well-defined list of things they need to cover in their pre-flight security announcement, but HOW they actually do this is up to the individual airline. In fact, in the late 80s, British Airways encouraged flight attendants to use “their own words”. As a result, passengers actually listened better than they had previously; they didn’t get the impression that they’d “heard everything before”.
Of course, if you’re really deep in KISS mode, you might ask yourself how many people actually need instructions on how to use a seat belt. On the other hand, although you may have a good idea as to what to do in an emergency, there may, perhaps, be others on board who are not as well-travelled as yourself.
Eric, your last point was actually mine as well. If I look at my mother, who have flown four times in her entire life, she is reassured by the calm almost monotone way of explaining things. She would be confused, if an airline suddenly started playing with the format. So I genuinely think the format is good for its intents and purposes.