Why airline safety videos have become unwatchable entertainment disasters

I guess it’s possible that somebody once complained to British Airways that they found the in-flight safety demonstration a bit boring, and suggested that passengers might be better served by a costume drama.

Well if they did, they’re in luck.

When I recently flew from Sydney to London with BA, I watched a safety video entitled May We Haveth One’s Attention?, set in Regency England and the Highlands of Scotland.

It was like a curious crossover episode of Bridgerton, Downton Abbey and Outlander, in which lords, ladies and clansmen are repeatedly confronted by time-travelling BA cabin crew offering unsolicited advice on 21st-century aircraft protocols to bewildered 19th century onlookers.

Oxygen masks drop from the ceiling of a stately home, seat belts appear on horses, a pianist practices the brace position on his stool by a grand piano and an evacuation slide is represented by, well . . . nothing at all.

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Highlanders on horseback appear baffled when warned not to smoke while on board, as they are neither on board anything nor smoking anything.

But their confusion would have been nothing compared with non-English-speaking BA passengers, who could not possibly glean that they are being told that it’s against the law to vape in the toilets.

The requirement to stow small items of baggage under the seat in front is demonstrated using the interior of a coach and horses, which bears no useful relation to the cabin of a plane.

And the video runs for an excruciating five minutes and 22 seconds, which could have been spent examining the amenity kit which BA seems to no longer provide (presumably because it prefers to invest in high-concept safety videos).

The most recent Qantas safety video is even more excruciating, in part because it is even longer. “Regular Aussies” show off their “magic places” while performing wildly illogical tasks such as inflating a life jacket on a beach in Mexico, or taking a moment to locate the nearest exit in a national park in Tasmania.

Most jarringly of all, a Qantas worker named Louise introduces herself as “a proud Wagadagum and Muburra woman”, minutes before a bearded man called Alex introduces himself as “a proud Qantas Frequent Flyer”.

The last time I flew Air New Zealand, the safety video was based on The Hobbit, directed by Peter Jackson and featuring Hobbit stars including Elijah “Frodo Baggins” Wood. It takes place partially on the back of a Great Eagle, which at least has wings, but also in Mirkwood Forest, the Mysty Mountains, a Middle Earth battlefield and various other locations which have nothing in common with an aircraft.

Last year, Air NZ retired The Most Epic Safety Video Ever Made and replaced it with an equally uninstructive spectacular, set in a basketball court and stadium starring Rotorua-born basketballer Steven Adams and several other personalities who are apparently well known in New Zealand.

But what are these videos for? What is the problem that they are they supposed to solve?

I asked Dr Brett Molesworth, professor of human factors and aviation safety at the School of Aviation at the University of New South Wales. “The Civil Aviation Safety Authority in Australia, and the civil aviation authorities in New Zealand and the UK have a responsibility to ensure that the videos are fit for purpose … Currently, one could argue that they’re not ideal,” he told me.

Research shows that “passengers become inattentive to pre-flight briefings, or they become easily distracted during the briefing”, Dr Molesworth said. Frequent flyers listen less than first timers “and young males are less likely to pay attention than any other cohort”.

But I would speculate that if you were to isolate the single demographic least likely to watch, for example, a Regency costume drama it would be young, inattentive males.

“There are greater problems with those videos,” Dr Molesworth said. “They’re long, and they’re out of context. We know that the attention span of individuals is decreasing as a result of social media, yet airlines are now consistently making five and six-minute pre-flight safety briefings.”

But why?

“Airlines are using the pre-flight safety briefing videos as a marketing tool,” he said, “almost to the detriment of their intended purpose.”

The clips attract clicks on social media and build awareness of the airlines’ brands, at the expense of providing useful instruction on in-flight safety.

After watching noblewomen tuck gift-wrapped packages under elaborately upholstered and decorated seats in a late-Georgian coach, passengers need to make the conceptual leap between “that setting and the aircraft that they’re in”, Dr Molesworth noted — that is, between and Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner and a horse-drawn carriage.

“It’s very difficult to suggest that everyone can draw that link,” he added, “and that’s a worry.”

I’m lucky enough to live in Sydney, where I can escape the madness of the skies for the calm of the harbour.

However, even Sydney Ferries has begun to screen an animated safety video on its incredibly safe vessels, none of which has sunk since the Great Ferry Race disaster of 1984 (in which nobody was hurt).

These one minute and 40 second films come on between every ferry stop (that is, about every five minutes), and offer no information any normally functioning adult couldn’t work out for themselves, including advice that passengers should watch the steps “to avoid slips and falls” and “follow crew members’ instructions in the event of an emergency evacuation”.

I don’t believe there is a significant number of ferry travellers who look to guidance from tourists, private schoolchildren, pensioners or commuters, but I guess it’s possible …