Editorial: Airline safety videos - no room for life-saving message to get lost in the scenery

OPINION

Airline safety videos which double as entertainment have been around since around 2007, and the latest to be rolled out on planes – and social media – is from Qantas.

The Australian airline’s new video takes passengers, and social media viewers dreaming about flying, on a journey to unique destinations in Australia and around the world.

The video features Qantas pilots, cabin crew and customer service agents and frequent flyers sharing the safety information from destinations considered their “magic place”, from Australian national parks to Lapland. Milford Sound in Aotearoa is also featured, with sweeping shots of its grandeur and a Qantas pilot who emerges from the water with a good-sized crayfish. Priceless promotion.

Qantas says safety is its number-one priority and with cabin crew instructions, the video plays a key role in capturing the attention of passengers so they’ll watch and listen to critical safety information.

That’s the point, and it is rightly required by regulators around the world.

In this country, Air New Zealand enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to entertain as well as inform after Virgin America blazed the trail with its quirky in-flight films.

The Civil Aviation Authority here must approve the videos, which through the years have featured body-painted staff, hobbits, All Blacks, Sports Illustrated models and celebrities. There have been hits and misses, they’ve provided an insight into the country’s changing culture, and the videos have attracted tens of millions of views and promoted the airline and country around the world.

For all airlines, safety is their first priority and the need to engage flyers is crucial, but is there a risk of that message being lost? Are passengers too taken by the scenery or trying hard to work out who the latest celebrity or unfamiliar sports star is, instead of taking note of where their lifejacket is stored?

It’s worth noting one of Air New Zealand’s most celebrated efforts was filmed entirely on a plane with very clear and simple directions about what could save your life in the event of an emergency.

The 2009 “bare essentials” video featured body-painted crew and ranks second in the top 10 in-flight videos by international online publication Simple Flying. In a more simple age of airfare bundles, it also promoted the message there was nothing to hide in what you paid to fly.

Fortunately, the chances of needing to act advice presented in the videos is remote. The latest full-year International Air Transport Association data for the five-year period to 2022 shows fatality risk continues to fall.

The association calculated an industry fatality risk for 2022 of 0.11, meaning on average, a person would need to take a flight every day for 25,214 years to experience a 100 per cent fatal accident. This is an improvement over the five-year fatality rate, which averaged 22,116 years.

Reassuring figures, but cold comfort to anyone in the terrifying position of having to escape from a burning plane or looking at a gaping hole in a fuselage, incidents that have happened since the beginning of the year. Those incidents emphasise the need for passengers to pay attention to the safety messages contained in slick video productions, and for airlines to ensure it is there - loud and clear.