Unless you have just come out of prison after serving a 75-year sentence (what could you have done to get such a long stretch?), you must have experienced the safety instructions given on commercial airlines. They vary from one airline to another in terms of elaboration, fastidiousness and irrelevance. Recently, British Airways started running a high-production long-short film on safety by press-ganging pretty much all known British entertainers, including dames and knights of the realm, in aid of children charity. Very entertaining but, just as useless as the cheap and cheerful version of cabin staff donning oxygen masks and yellow life-vests that may or may not require topping up with air when you’re in the water!
Why, in the name of sanity, do they still insist on going through this charade when it clearly has zero practical value to the passengers? I am sure airlines will say: government regulations insist we do it. We are living in highly mobile times, people travel a great deal for business and leisure. We get it, we have seen it dozens and dozens of times before, we know what we are supposed to do in the event of emergency; PANIC!
Safety measures when must be taken seriously are communicated through proper training, not by lazy or off-handed instructions. I have no idea if I have the necessary skills to tie a double bow around my waist when the aircraft is taking in water at the rate of 1000 gallons per second. I need to try it out at least three times under the watchful eye of an expert.
No regulator insists that before we get in our own cars in the morning to go around inspecting the vehicle and checking all is well with it, as well as reading a page-full of safety instructions before firing up the engine. And don’t tell me cars are less lethal; considerably more people die in cars than any other form of transport. What the system does now is to insist we take driving lessons followed by a theoretical and practical exam before we are given a licence to drive; and we still go out causing mayhem with complete abandon.
Why can’t the airline regulator insist that anyone who wishes to travel by air must go on a proper half-day training course which entails simulation of emergency situations that require us to pull down and don oxygen masks, put on emergency life-vests, tie a double bow, top up the air inside and slide down those emergency chutes, to the rest of the procedure of surviving a serious incident. Having been certified as a safety-aware citizen, I can now purchase air tickets as and when I please but this time, when I board a flight, I am left alone to settle down in my seat and not made to sit up and grudgingly listen like a naughty schoolboy to the instructions of a bored school teacher.
Who pays for the training? You may well ask. Frankly, it doesn’t matter. If we suggest the airlines should pay for it, they will pass the cost on to the paying passengers. If we say: let the government pay for it or even subsidise part of the cost, they get their money by taxing us anyway. So, one way or another, we will end up paying for it.
One small observation: when you are told to reach down under your seat for your life-vest to put it on as instructed, I have never witnessed safety instructions that tell you when to unfasten your seatbelt, or whether you should put the vest on while seated or standing. One day I will ask an already over-worked cabin staff to explain this part to me. Hopefully, they won’t eject me off the flight.
