Air NZ goes back to the roots in new safety video

As travel takes off, airlines have begun to update their pre-flight safety videos with Air New Zealand ditching humour for wokeness.

Air New Zealand has unveiled a new in-flight safety video featuring a flying canoe rather than an aircraft, in one of the first cabin briefings released by airlines since the Covid pandemic.

In a step away from previous safety videos which focused on humour and action rather than education, the latest offering attempts to inform travellers about Maori culture and New Zealand’s environment alongside key aircraft features.

Air New Zealand general manager of brand and marketing Jeremy O’Brien said the video was an “invitation to people returning to Aotearoa to act as guardians during their visit”.

“We want tourism to build back better than it was before and part of that is to share with our visitors a sense of kaitiaki – to encourage them to act like guardians of our country,” said Mr O’Brien.

“Our safety videos are world renowned and through them we have an opportunity to educate and inspire ourselves, our customers and Aotearoa on the importance of Tiaki and everything it stands for. It’s about being good hosts, and good visitors.”

The Tiaki Promise was created by a group of New Zealand organisations in 2018 as a framework for protecting and enhancing the environment and respecting culture.

University of New South Wales aviation safety expert Brett Molesworth said pre-Covid, in-flight videos had become more of a marketing tool for airlines than a serious attempt to educate passengers about the safety features of an aircraft.

There was not a lot of evidence to suggest that would change, with Air France’s latest offering described as a tourist’s guide to Paris rather than a safety briefing, and Korean Air using pop sensations SuperM and BoA to entertain passengers.

Qantas was not expected to be in a rush to update its most recent video released at the start of the pandemic in February 2020, to mark the airline’s 100th anniversary.

With a running time of almost eight-and-a-half minutes, the video is also one of the longest on offer.

As a long-time researcher of safety videos, Associate Professor Molesworth said briefings needed to first obtain the passengers’ attention, and secondly maintain that attention while the information was explained.

“This video by Air New Zealand would be good at obtaining attention but whether it maintains their attention because it’s a rather long video, that’s something else,” said Prof Molesworth.

He said the use of a flying canoe rather than an aircraft may also muddy the safety message for inexperienced travellers.

“Ideally, safety videos should be relatively short, use a person of interest, a celebrity for example to initially attract the attention of the passenger and then deliver the information in a clear and succinct manner,” Prof Molesworth said.

His research examined the retention of safety information among passengers, finding just over half recalled critical elements from straightforward videos played on flights.

“If we add humour to videos that recall often decreases and if we then look at the recall two hours after the video, so on a flight from Brisbane to Melbourne for example, it drops by about 5 per cent, so down to 45 per cent,” he said.

With more airlines expected to devote considerable money to new safety videos as flying increased post-pandemic, Prof Molesworth said they might be better off looking at other ways of informing passengers.

“We seem to be focused on the mass briefing of passengers through such methods, when alternate methods could be individual briefings,” he said.

“Airlines could look at letting passengers play with the actual apparatus such as seatbelts in the lounge or gate area before an actual flight.

“If they focused on education at a minute level with a more specific focus, I’m sure passengers would be able to retain information a lot better than they do at present.”