Cebu Pacific, a low cost carrier out of the Phillipines, has modified its safety dance for the holiday season. The dance, which started last year, has been received as overwhelmingly popular.
Heather Poole, author of Cruising Attitude, an upcoming book about her life and work as a flight attendant, tweeted the following: “Seriously why must flight attendants act a fool, like D-list showgirls, in order to get passengers attention? Remember, it’s YOUR life, not mine, and if you don’t want to pay attention so be it. Just don’t expect me to sing…the only way I’m dancing is if passengers stand up and dance with me!”
But, why do airlines tend to trivialize important safety instructions with stunts like this? Cebu Pacific is hardly the only one. This one is admittedly performed live, but you also have Air New Zealand. we got a chuckle out of the Youtube video of their safety video that included Richard Simmons.
They also did one with naked flight attendant that attracted a buzz. But both of these were filmed and shown, and do not feature live performers. Is the difference that these are recordings, and the flight attendants on the aircraft need the respect of their passengers?
We too often see passengers ignoring flight attendants. In our recent story on the issues with Alec Baldwin failing to respect the instructions of the flight crew, many people commented that flight attendants were on power trips. While there are certainly some flight attendants who are bad apples, that is every job. The majority of flight attendants are dedicated, hard working people charged with the safety of the passengers. Their duties to the comfort and serving of the passengers are the ones they are most often remembered for, but safety supersedes this.
The in-flight safety announcements are often ignored because they are so familiar to those of us who fly. As one blogger commented, airlines have created these unique and funny videos to catch the eyes of travelers who have long since tuned out the instructions. And, as most evacuation tests prove, it is much harder and takes much longer to evacuate an aircraft than you would think. Maybe the specific skills are not as important to the regular travel, but the moment to know where the exit is, and to think about being responsible will help.
What do you think? Harmless fun, demeaning, an attempt to encourage attention?
Image via Wikipedia
Related articles
- Cebu Pacific Flight Attendants Dance On A Plane To Celebrate The Holidays (socialtimes.com)
- An Airline With A Sense Of Humor (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)
