ANA: Hilarious cultural difference over safety video

I’ve recently flown two sectors with All Nippon Airways (ANA) in business class. All in all, it’s been a great trip so far. I still have a return trip to complete in a few weeks’ time. You, dear reader, have a full trip report to come. But for now, I wanted to make some observations about the explicit nature of the ANA safety video. Get your minds out of the gutter, I’m not talking that kind of ‘explicit’.

I’m talking about being explicit about what might happen if you disobey the guidelines for seat belt wearing and exciting the plane in an emergency.

Explicit consequences to actions

What I like about this video is that it is quite explicit about what could happen if you disobey the escape guidelines. I’m hoping that explaining, especially visually, helps passengers understand why the rules are there in the first place.

Take, for example, the image at the top of this article. It appears when the safety video explains that although the seatbelt sign may have been turned off, it’s still a good idea to keep your seatbelt on. The reason? Because it will stop you from being injured in the case of unexpected turbulence. It prevents you from being launched like a missile at the aircraft’s ceiling. Contact with which might damage your body. BLAM!

Another illustration shows how you deciding to do a live stream of the emergency could disrupt safe evacuation. The same goes for grabbing your carry-on.

Finally, I love how the illustrate the threat to the integrity of the escape slide can be threatened by passenger behaviour. Firstly, those damn high heel shoes!

And then, those foolish people trying to escape with their cabin luggage in tow.

My husband was in stitches over these illustrations in the video, but in my book, they are excellent in their detail of explanation and explicitness.

Please take my advice and watch the video below. Most of it is fairly bland until either the illustrations appear or the sign translator gets particularly excited.

2PAXfly Takeout

Cultural differences are fascinating and certainly one of the foremost reasons I travel.

Sometimes, that cultural difference emerges subtly, like here in the safety video, which shows the consequences of not obeying the rules in an emergency. I think other cultures could learn from this. It can seem a bit conceptual to say, ‘Don’t take your luggage with you’, but when the consequences, slow disrupted egress and damaging the escape slide, are explicitly displayed, I hope more people will get the message.

Let’s hope.