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Airlines have turned their safety videos into sprawling high-production ads to showcase their home country. It’s a trend that has raised concerns about the effectiveness of the videos for passenger safety.
Safety information is blended, if not sometimes blurred, with entertaining sights, sounds and celebrities, lessening the uptake of crucial data for passengers.
Some critics and safety officials contend that this makes it hard for the passenger to understand what the safety information is.
Brett Molesworth, professor of human factors and aviation safety at UNSW, said the videos have mixed messages.
“While they have safety content in there, it is often hidden by the underlying drive or objective of the airline, which seems to be from a marketing perspective.”
Air New Zealand helped raise the bar on novelty safety videos with its 2014 homage to Lord of the Rings.Credit: Air New Zealand
In the past decade, more flight safety videos have been shot on the streets of Los Angeles and London, on New Zealand’s glaciers and fjords, in elaborate events set to ambient, cinematic or orchestral music.
The videos cost millions to produce but generate buzz and earn hundreds of millions of views on social media. They also convey messages about values and aspirations (a “magic place”, “famous period literature”) far beyond a plane’s safety features.
Released last year, Qantas’ video spans from the Northern Territory, to Italy and Finland.
Asked if such videos are losing their safety effectiveness, Molesworth said: “If their aim is to inform or educate passengers about the safety onboard the aircraft, yes, they are losing their effectiveness because of the context that they place [safety messages] in.”
Japan Airline’s video gives detailed reminders on evacuation with visualisations of various pitfalls to avoid.
The humour and other factors “detract or distract” from key safety messages, he said.
Molesworth says regulators are aware of the muddled messages on safety in some videos, “but to date they provide little guidance on the boundaries of the safety briefing.”
In Australia, the Civil Aviation Safety Authorityrequires safety briefings - whether on video or otherwise - to cover certain aspects: seatbelt use, the stowing of tray tables, and where to store carry-on baggage, among other things.
Yet there are no directives on message delivery.
Some carriers haven’t gone down the same path of entertainment. Emirates, for example, has produced what it calls a no-nonsense safety video, introduced by a flight attendant explaining: “We do not have dancers breaking into song.”
Japan Airline’s video gives detailed reminders on evacuation with visualisations of various pitfalls to avoid, which could have been a factor in the survival of 379 passengers and crew in the January 2024 collision between a JAL jet and a Coast Guard plane at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
In the era of constant visual distraction, safety videos on planes remain one of the few where people are instructed to give their attention.
Penn State University researchers found that participants who watched videos involving destination content were 11 per cent “less likely to answer safety questions correctly” afterwards.
“It seems that there is a trade-off between engaging content and remembering safety instructions,” Penn State tourism professor Bing Pan said. At the same time, creating “high-quality, engaging in-flight safety videos” is the new industry trend and standard.
Air New Zealand’s “Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made” in 2014 was a game-changer.Credit: Air New Zealand
One of the drivers of the more fanciful safety videos may, in fact, be improving airline safety, said Griffith University aviation lecturer Xiaoyu Wu.
“Now because flying is so safe and the need to demonstrate safety features is required by regulation, airlines try to be more creative in making these videos,” he said. “It becomes entertainment instead of passing down the safety information.”
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Flag carriers - airlines that essentially represent the nation as a brand - are more likely to work with national tourism promotion, which creates a soft power dimension to the videos showcasing national brands.
Jonathan McClory, managing partner at UK-based Sanctuary Counsel, believes “national flag carriers can be important soft power tools” with every touchpoint of the brand “playing into the overall experience”.
Decisions like where an airline flies, its cuisine, the plane’s livery all count, he said. “The in-flight videos are also a way to showcase the country itself, or elements of its culture.”
A new Singapore Airlines in-flight video “is a showcase of Singapore as a place,” he said, focusing on geographical landmarks and highlights.
Meanwhile, British Airways “plays to British humour, creative industries, and its global success in film/TV/stage”.
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Among the most successful has been Air New Zealand’s wildly popular 2014 video which blended Lord of the Rings images and themes with safety information.
Air New Zealand Chief Customer and Digital Officer Jeremy O’Brien said that while safety is always a top priority, “capturing our customers’ attention is the best way to make sure safety information truly sticks.”
Qantas Group executive manager operational safety Mark Cameron said “the primary objective” of the videos is to ensure customers understand safety procedures.
“But we also need to capture their attention so safety is front of mind, particularly for regular flyers who might otherwise tune out.”
Qantas is reportedly working on a new, more traditional, safety video featuring crew on the aircraft.
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