New Qantas Safety Video Misses The Mark

You highlighted my first thought. If someone is not a native English speaker, this video will be a torture to watch. The safety-related stuff will be missed.

Qantas will be absolutely dragged for publishing this rather than fixing the numerous problems that have led to its reputation being at an all-time low.

Here are some things the new Qantas CEO could be announcing instead that would improve customer satisfaction:

1. Installing wifi on all long-haul aircraft by the end of the year. It is absurd an airline operating 13+ hour flights expects business travelers to choose to fly them when there is no wifi onboard. If your competitors can offer wifi, you can too.

2. Publicly support Qatar Airways application for more services to Australia in the spirit of fairness, customer choice and the Oneworld alliance. The drop in prices due to a few more Qatar services to Australia each day will be negligible, the goodwill Qantas will show will be huge.

3. Find at least 8 more 787's to be able to grow the long-haul network like they want to. I admit this is easier than it sounds given how many other airlines are looking for 787s right now cut surely there is a way to find some on a leasing arrangement.

4. Refund any remaining covid vouchers automatically.

5. Introduce a minimum number of guaranteed points seats on every flight, in the same way British Airways does.

I think it's terrible.

I saw many people comment on instagram that the destinations highlighted werent even Qantas destinations (as you point out). Qantas' response every time was that the destinations are destinations reachable through their partners. While that is true (Lapland, Finland?), I agree that it distracts from the safety message and for most customers they'd have no way of knowing which are online vs offline destinations. It's really just an annoying approach to a safety video.

If you ask me, the BEST safety video ever was the Air France one from around 2015 where they had those women in it doing the safety instructions. i still watch it. Elegant, French, informative, and fun.

The Qantas safety video reflects everything that is wrong and broken about Australia, and the decaying West.

Dude chill, it's a safety video.

Maybe it would have been a not so bad advert. It's definitely not suitable for a safety video. Even that bizarre Korean Air new safety video with so-called "virtual humans" pointed out the safety features clearly...

I'm not surprised though - it's the airline that sells "bundle of rights" instead of "flights". My expectations have completely gone since then.

Look around during the safety video. Everyone (including me) has on headphones or earbuds.

Exactly. The only time I actually pay attention is when I'm in an aisle seat in F and it's a manual demo, like with AA. And not because I care about the safety demo - which I can absolutely repeat verbatim for several airlines - it's because I'm trying to be respectful of the FAs.

Beyond that, though, why even make an "extended version" anyway? It's not like they're going to release it to, I dunno, BlueRay (remember those) and they're going to be collectors items. Stop futzing around with the safety videos and just talk about safety then let everyone get back to whatever they were doing. Do airlines not realize there's a point of diminishing returns with these things? People have a limited attention span - even shorter today given social media - and airlines are absolutely missing the point of the safety video by turning it into some sobfest about great service to someone in need, or some lowkey circlejerk of happiness and marketing about all their "great" destinations. Who hires their marketing people?

They will either have flight attendants start the safety video before the boarding door is closed or will have the video still running when they are taking off - have had that a few times on a few airlines - with FAs doing their final safety checks during the video OR they will simply start cutting out parts of the videos.
The safety video is just emblematic of why Qantas has missed the plot on so many levels and has provided huge opportunities for other airlines.

Hear hear. I loved that one. The one that still remains my all time fave is the animated safety video Virgin America had in the early 2010s. Cute without being eyeroll-inducing, short, and hit all the salient points while keeping it simple. Why do airlines seem completely oblivious to the KISS concept - Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Air Canada does it better

Far too long and irrelevant, even if condensed down. You can be cutesy and still to the point (like Virgin America did, or Air Astana highlighting different parts of Kazakhstan, or United or one of the many themed videos that Delta did - and I thought Delta's were particularly clever as they had "easter eggs" to find, perhaps engaging some more attention). After 4-5 minutes, it's too long and loses attention. And they say it's to engage the most frequent flyers who would tune it out? I can tell you after the first time on Virgin America, definitely started tuning it out especially when you see it 4 times in 2 days.

This reminds me of The Office where the Dunder Mifflin shareholder meeting is going poorly for the board and they highlight Michael Scott and Scranton as one shining example of something going right, while the whole company is losing money and share value is in the toilet. And Michael speaks and mentions how they even sent a stretch limo to go pick him up. Lead balloon.

Meh.

For most airlines, inuding whatever your favorite one, half or more of duration of whatever they play as a "safety video" is branding and sometimes outright sales pitch that has nothing to do with providing some emergency preparation for passengers.

Want to know why nobody pays attention to those safety videos? there you have it.

Want to add a pitch for a credit card from the purser to every single flight? Count on me to listen to their announcements less carefully or at all.

Want to leave the seatbelt sign on for hours on end in smooth air because "it's not the job of the pilots to manage that." Expect passengers on those flights to ignore those safety signs too.

How do you make commercial flying less safe?

I can't think where else it's happened but the "extended cut" of a safety video online has definitely been done before. I think when Air New Zealand was having their phase of doing lots of splashy videos, they did that? But I agree that going back to simpler may be better. I feel the same way about the United video and even the new Delta video (which is a bit less extravagant, but still shot in a theater rather than an aircraft and requires people to make some abstract association to the actual safety tools at hand and isn't completely obvious to a first-time flyer).

And all because people can’t just put their phones down for three minutes to listen to life or death instructions. Honestly at this rate the airlines should just put subway surfers screen recordings in the corner of the videos.

I made it through to Jaipur India and was certain the video almost was over. But I was only three minutes into it. I’d love to watch this video as part of the entertainment system, or even a longer video. But this is way too much important information to share with passengers who need to be educated.

I fell asleep 48 minutes into the video.....

I fell asleep 48 minutes into the video-

The challenge for airlines is that older safety videos were dry, antiseptic, and may cause eye glazing when watching. Humor, abstraction, and spectacle is sometime the only way to get people to pay attention.

Like compare Air France's old 2000s video
https://youtu.be/6_Ea8XgEPv0?si=DOhJUiq4K_ee7uLj

To their 2020s safety video
https://youtu.be/NhA0aL105Nw?feature=shared

A fail as far as safety goes. None of the images when they are actually demonstrating a safety feature match reality in an aircraft. The use of music, and non-professional voices with strong accents, when heard over the horrendous tinny aircraft speaker system (especially 737) means much will not be clear especially to anyone who is not a native English speaker.

It’s hard enough to hold people’s attention in an aircraft for 3 minutes let alone this 10 minutes of waffle, with a little bit of safety hidden in it, and so easily missed.My partner speaks 6 languages fluently, but English is not his native language. He told me that the last time we flew Qantas (the centennary video) he could only understand the occasional word, much mangled by strong accents, fast speaking, and horrible Boeing PA speakers. If at least the visuals matched the reality of an aircraft interior, you could understand the pictures.

Keep the travelogue for a separate video.

Philippine Airlines has also that type of safety video a few years ago. But as the writer pointed out it focused on the key attractions in the Philippines.

Sad that Qantas replaced the centennial safety video. That one was one of my favorites and I’ll miss it a lot. I would’ve been okay if they’d kept that for another five years (but removed the centennial branding as it’s been four years). That video holds special significance to me because I graduated high school in summer 2020, shortly after this video came out, and it felt so fitting for the occasion. Listening to it felt like listening to Pomp and Circumstance but more personal to me as someone who likes aviation. The music in that video evokes the feeling of departure so well, where everybody I knew from high school or grade school would be leaving childhood and going off into the adult world, going off in all their own directions, whether it was to university or somewhere else. There’s nothing quite like that video that gives me that feeling. I still watch that video every now and then especially when I’m feeling sentimental, like when I think about childhood friends I haven’t seen in a long time.

I loved it what else can you do whilst the tug reverses you out of the gate and you are in a queue waiting for take off and looking forward to your first glass of something . If you don’t like Qantas why do you keep flying them . For me I think they are terrific and as a top tier customer I can always get reward seats opened up . Just ask the VIP team in Hobart who are the most helpful customer service team I have every worked with.

You won't find much negativity about this overly long and ill-focused 'safety' vid on Australia's oldest most prominent aviation site because they heavily censor all anti-QANTAS talk. I guess all them QF freebies and perks and invites have to repaid, somehow.....(hint: it's not pointhacks.com.au which is still fiercely independent and more credible)

It's not safe and fails to carry out it's requirements when it's so long that pax, literally, switch off.

How "chill" are things gonna be when the person in emergency seat didn't bother working out how they need to remove that door ( 37s exempt of course as they self remove even when not asked to do so) cos it was 8:37 into the video.

I'm over simplifying & using an extreme example BUT it is relevant and an issue when you factor in non FFs who haven't a clue about most things ( and/or FFs who never bothered to pay attention)

But they did something to get you to comment lol

I loved it but it's a bit long for a safety video as we prepare for take-off. Perhaps they could preface to the entertainment system making it a mandatory watch before accessing any entertainment.

Best airline video is: Air France!