Nothing says fun like watching a flight attendant go through the “your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device” safety demonstration while mulling over your own mortality prior to takeoff.
The least the airlines can do is make the FAA-mandated experience somewhat entertaining.
Enter Virgin America, which on Tuesday released its newest safety video featuring singing flight staff, dancing nuns, a tween rapper and all of the usual safety messages set to music. And seat dancing; oh, the seat dancing. Oddly enough, it works.
Sound impossible? Let’s go to the video tape:
Entertaining stuff, to be sure, but it’s not all about fun and games. Let’s admit it: Safety demonstrations are pretty dry and most of us (again, being honest) more or less ignore them as a matter of habit. As far as Virgin America is concerned, anything that gets passengers to look up from their iPads and actually pay attention to the message for a few minutes is a win for the airline. And if they have to sing and dance and gyrate in the aisles to do it, so be it.
It’s a lesson that Virgin America learned in 2007, when it released its first “fun” safety video. No singing that time, but Virgin's signature cheeky humor (this is the same company that began offering live music and stand up comedy on some of its domestic UK flights earlier this year) is on full display. Case in point: "For the 0.0001% of you who have never operated a seat belt before, it works like this..."