“Greetings from the cockpit. This is your captain.”
It’s a sentence that frequent flyers know well.
Only this isn't a pilot. And what follows isn't the same old in-flight safety talk.
Rather, it’s the opening salvo of a now viral YouTube video by travel author Doug Lansky, who delivers a virtually 7-minute “honest pre-flight safety demonstration… the kind of thing airlines don’t dare show you.”
The tongue-in-cheek video has been viewed 8.4 million times, a powerful feat for a fake version of a security instruction that the majority travelers ignore.
Lansky said he was inspired by a discussion with a pilot he sat next to on a plane years ago.
When the video began with the security demonstration, “I noticed he wasn't paying attention. And when you travel a lot, nobody really does,” Lansky said. “So I asked, 'What would you say if you could say anything?' And he rattled off a lot of stuff.”
Lansky said he subsequently asked the identical query to others within the aviation industry.
The video, he said, was “a compilation of the various conversations I've had with pilots over the years – what would they say if they could do the safety test and not be tied to the airline's legal department?”
Stay “real”
The premise of the video is that the plane's entertainment system has failed (“so we can't show you the $2 million safety video an advertising agency made for us”) and so the pilot will give a “real safety talk” to the passengers.
The video advises passengers to practice unbuckling their seatbelts (“I know you all know how to use them, but that's because you're not freaking out right now”). Lansky said research has shown that folks in panic situations – reminiscent of after they're the other way up or in a smoke-filled cabin – are inclined to press the seatbelt buckle as if it had a button like a automotive seatbelt.
“You really have to imagine how to actually open the hatch,” Lansky told CNBC Travel. “You need that muscle memory, and most of us have that better in a car than in an airplane.”
The video also alerts passengers that they need to leave their luggage on the plane within the event of an emergency evacuation.
“In the event of an engine fire, you must all exit the aircraft within 90 seconds,” it says. “My first officer and I will also attempt to exit the aircraft, and the last thing we want is for your roll-on to block our way into the cockpit.”
According to the video, you shouldn't bet on whether the crew will work to offer you as much time as possible to maneuver across the cabin.
“We will probably leave the fasten seatbelt sign on for most of the flight as our flight crew does not like to be disturbed in the galley,” it says.
Is that true? “Oh yes,” a US flight attendant with greater than twenty years of experience told CNBC Travel.
“Especially during [food or drink] “Or when someone decides to stand next to you and chat with you while you're eating. It's funny – people behave very differently on airplanes than in normal life.” She asked to remain anonymous because her employer advises her against making public statements to the media.
And the life jackets under your seat? “Forget them,” the video advises. “They probably won't save your life as much as those little pillows on airplanes.”
“But here our fake pilot may be going a step too far,” said a first officer at a major U.S. airline who asked to remain anonymous because he too was not authorized to speak to the media.
He said the video was “certainly written by someone who knows the ins and outs of airline flying,” but he did not agree with the rejection of life jackets.
As for the accuracy of the advice in the video, most of it is true, said the First Captain.
“But of course you would never know that from a flight crew,” he added.
Research into in-flight injuries
Lansky said he got here across some astonishing numbers while researching the statistics cited within the video.
For example, crashes and severe turbulence are more of a fear for passengers, but statistically the probability of being injured by their very own luggage is far higher, he said.
“Over the years, far more people have been injured by their own duty-free bottles falling out of the overhead bin after landing and hitting them on the head than by turbulence of any kind,” he said.
The beverage cart was one other unlikely source of injury, Lansky said, adding that flight attendants told him they often hit passengers whose body parts protruded into the aisle.
He said he asked flight attendants how often they bump into passengers' elbows, knees and feet on long-haul flights.
The commonest answer? About 20, he said.
“I asked about 20 or 30 different flight attendants,” he said. “They don't break knees, elbows or wrists every time, but they bump into so many people on each flight.”
Calls come “in waves”
The video was not an easy success, said Lansky, who released it about 4 years ago.
“It kind of went in waves,” he said. “When I first put it online, it had about 200 views for a couple of months, and then someone found it and it went through the roof.”
Lansky said he was an enormous fan of “The daily show“Late Night with Seth Meyers” and other late-night political shows because “they cut through all the nonsense and keep things entertaining, intelligent and real.” Shows like these shape the travel industry commentary he provides on his YouTube channel.Rethinking tourism”, he said.
The viral video drew attention to Lansky's profession, which now focuses on tourism consulting and conference speaking, but, he said, the success also hit him closer to home. As a proven YouTuber, he has regained his daughter's respect with a viral video, he said.
“My teenage daughter was giving me a hard time because I was trying to do something on YouTube,” he said. But when the video reached 2 million views, “her jaw dropped to the floor.”
“That was the best thing that came out of it.”
image credit : www.cnbc.com