Emirates has made a subtle dig at rivals that have used flashy visuals and celebrities in an attempt to covey vitally important safety information with a new no-nonsense safety video that goes back to basics.
The Dubai-based airline has had the same safety video for the past seven years, and traditionally, Emirates has eschewed the kind of destination or humour-based safety videos that have become so popular in recent years.
Now, the airline has decided to use this point of difference as a way to take a swipe at competitors, with one of the narrators explaining: “This is your no-nonsense safety video. We do not have dancers breaking into song, characters from movies, or celebrities trying to be funny, I’m afraid”.
If we were to name airlines that have used these kinds of tactics, we would suggest Air India and its new dancers safety video, Turkish Airlines and its Lego Movie safety videos and British Airways which had several celebrity-filled humour-based safety videos.
For a number of years, airlines have argued that eye-catching safety videos are required to catch the attention of passengers, and regulators have seemingly allowed even the most outlandish of these videos.
Following a number of recent aviation accidents, however, industry insiders and observers have become increasingly concerned that important safety information is being diluted and that many safety videos aren’t properly preparing passengers for an emergency situation.
Emirates has seemingly addressed these concerns by presenting safety information in real-life aircraft cabins, using people who look like regular passengers from diverse backgrounds.
All of the important points are clearly and concisely explained in a logical order, without a single joke or confusing visual.
And at less than four minutes (for the English language version), the new Emirates safety video doesn’t drag on for too long (a lesson that Australian flag carrier Qantas could do with learning).
What do you think of the new Emirates safety video?
The only thing I would do is lower the volume of the background music, but overall it’s good. I wish all the airlines could be forced to simply make factual videos like this one, and the JAL one. I’m BA crew and ours is embarrassingly poor, trying to be funny and failing. It also goes on too long and all my colleagues hate it. 100s of us fed back to our head of safety, Matt Whip, how we felt, and it looks like we all got the same generic response, which said pretty much nothing, simply a rather manic defence of the video and apparently it had got positive feedback from test passengers. Oh well.
Most people all over the avation forums are also complaining about your new uniform. They HATE it, ánd want the Julien MacDonald uniform back, which should never have been scrapped in the first place. It is the ladies’ uniform that is attracting the most hatred, as people deem it nowhere near as nice as the JM, and have even described is as dull as a tyre fitter or dinner lady’s dress.
I love it. To the point and short.
Well done, Emirates! Common sense returns to the airline industry at last!
Hope other airlines take note and scrap all these stupid comedy videos and go back to the basic, important safety message.